Random Seattle Mariner Post: With Made Up Numbers

Recently, a lot has been made of the Angels signing Albert Pujols.  What came to light later (the Angels massive media deal) paints an even bleaker picture for the Mariners. There are some things i will gloss over/omit.

The main point i'm getting at is that the Mariners do not have the resources to compete head on with the Angels and Rangers.  To compete they will have to be smarter (and luckier). 

The following will be my unsubstantiated and possibly uninformed views and should be taken as such

The Mariners are a small to mid market team (they always have been).  They had several good, yet unsustainable, years running with the best of teams.  Yes, the 1995-2003 Mariners success was kind of a fad (best case scenario) in the market.  The Mariners time in that spotlight has passed.  The Cleveland Indians actually seem to be in a similar situation (except without the huge free spenders). 

So what should the Mariners payroll be in  2012?
To answer this, i will make some questionable assumptions and inferences. 
- The TV deal was estimated at about $30-45 million per year through 2020
- The Radio deal with KIRO was valued at around $5.5 million per year from 2009-2011 (apparently, the Mariners signed an extension with KIRO)

TV - http://www.seattlepi.com/sports/baseball/article/Mariners-FSN-near-10-year-deal-1231921.php
Radio -(http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2008/07/Issue-211/Sports-Media/Mariners-Sign-Three-Year-Radio-Rights-Deal-With-KIRO-AM.aspx)

Forbes had an interesting article on stuff like this
http://www.forbes.com/lists/2011/33/baseball-valuations-11_Seattle-Mariners_331202.html

Basically, Forbes puts revenue at $204 million (this likely includes the media deals)

* My projected revenue scenario for 2012
- Attendance: 1.746 million (10% off of 2011 total): $52.38 million
- TV deal (estimate): $45 million
- Radio Deal (estimate): $6 million
(my estimates based offf of 2011 data i am using are off by 98.68 million from Forbes)

$103.38 million + $93 million = 196.38 million (that Forbes had last year, probably relating to money from league deals)

Now to take some costs off the board (these are my views, not necessarily reality)...
* Operating/Misc Costs - $83.1 million (loosely and badly based off of the Forbes estimates from 2011)
* "Shareholder Return on Investment" - $8 million (about 4.07%)
Total - about $91.1 million

Max payroll, benefits, signing bonuses, scouting, travel, etc $105 million (or a decrease of about 6 million, according to Forbes, from last year). 

Basically, what this comes down to is about 75-80 million payroll seems acceptable considering current (estimated) revenue numbers.  However, the longer term outlook probably slots the payroll numbers lower.