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Arizona not a new Florida
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October 29, 2001: 1:18 p.m. ET
Arizona finances solid even without series bump; won't follow Marlins' fire sale
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NEW YORK (CNNmoney) - The Arizona Diamondbacks came into the season asking players to defer salaries and turning to Major League Baseball for loan guarantees to pay the bills.
But even if the team were not ending the season in the World Series, it would no longer be facing a financial crisis insists Tom Harris, the team's chief financial officer.
"Having the series helps. Every dollar earned is a dollar that falls to bottom line," Harris told me this week. "But saying that we would have been in trouble without the Series - I don't think that's fair. We would have been fine whether we went to the Series or not."
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The Diamondbacks are celebrating their first visit to the World Series, but the team's CFO says the Diamondbacks would have been free from its earlier financial crisis even without a trip to the Series. | |
There were fears that the Diamondbacks could be the next Florida Marlins, the last expansion team to make it to the World Series with a big payroll, which had a fire sale of its best players immediately after winning the championship. It was a move that alienated fans and may have permanently damaged the viability of baseball in that market.
Harris said that won't happen in Arizona, though. He said the loan guarantees from the league have expired. A total of eight of the better-paid veteran players agreed to defer some of their salary.
The team's opening day payroll came to $81.2 million, putting it eighth in the league and $28.6 million behind their Series opponent Yankees, the team with the highest payroll.
The team's attendance fell 7 percent to 2.7 million. It has fallen every year since its inaugural 1997 season, when the team drew 3.6 million. But the real lift in attendance can often comes the year after a team goes to the World Series, not the first year it makes it.
Arizona is using this year's series to push next year's season ticket sales, offering 1,000 World Series tickets to people who put down a $750 deposit on a 2002 season ticket. It has yet to make a decision on next year's ticket prices, Harris said.
Harris would not go so far as to say the team will be profitable this year, though he did stress the Diamondbacks were not in financial distress and would have met their financial plan even without the World Series.
Final bids for Red Sox near
The trust that is selling the Boston Red Sox is preparing to request binding bids from potential buyers of the team.
The potential bidders have been given access to information about the team's finances and facilities. They also met with Red Sox CEO John Harrington.
"This is a very significant milestone and after we analyze the extensive information we have received, we will move forward to the binding bids phase," Justin Morreale, lawyer for the Yawkey Trust, told AP this week.
The new owner is important for the team's future finances as well as the fans, and it is crucial for the team's beloved Fenway Park home.
One group of bidders led by ski mogul Les Otten and Hollywood producer Tom Werner has endorse the idea of renovating Fenway Park, rather than building a new stadium next door to the current facility, as the team's current management has proposed.
That makes the Otten group the favorite of neighborhood advocates and fans who have formed Save Fenway Park. But it may not help the group's chance for approval by other owners who probably don't want to see a precedent set in favor of renovation over new stadium construction. Owners are famous for arguing to their own cities that new construction is the only thing that makes sense for a team. 
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