Giant hitters are having trouble putting up good numbers this year, and the team's accountants aren't far behind.
According to the latest Forbes list of baseball franchise values, the Giants lost 5% of their value last year, the fifth worst drop in MLB. They're not alone -- 10 of 30 MLB teams lost value, even though overall league revenue and income were up.
Total value doesn't tell the whole story, of course. They're still in the top ten in revenue, and nine years after loading up on debt to pay for their new park, the debt level is a reasonable 28% of total value. I think it's reasonable, though it's better to ask someone without a history of absent-mindedly using uncashed checks as bookmarks.
Another Giant data point, according to Forbes: Operating income for the year was $22 million, though that has no correlation to on-field performance or attendance. The top two operating incomes on the list are Florida and Washington.
It seems ominous that the Giants, despite being a marquee franchise in a jewel of a ballpark, lost value last year. It gets worse when you see what's becoming obvious in the first two weeks of April: It's hard to sell seats. The Giants yesterday set a Mays Field record for lowest attendance, at 26,593. It's the first sub-30,000 crowd ever. It's happening nearly everywhere. The Yankees and Mets are having all sorts of trouble at their fresh parks, which has the scribes abuzz and the sharpies cracking wise.
It's possible that the Giants will make a miracle run at the pennant, re-capturing the attention and dollars of the distracted masses and prompting Mayor Gavvy to light up City Hall in black and orange. It's more possible that the team will be interesting to geeks like me but fade by mid-year, with attendance regularly dipping into the mid-20K range.
Sabean said this spring that he expects juicy pickings from fire sales this summer, and that the Giants would be in good shape to take advantage. We can assume he and other brass said this knowing full well the Giants could hit the attendance doldrums, so perhaps we should also assume there are other revenue sources, such as the Comcast TV deal, to serve as a comfy inflatable cushion. And lest we forget, there's enough spare cash lying around to buy 25% of the San Jose Giants with an option to become majority owner at the end of next year.
But the Forbes numbers scare me nonetheless. At the very least, a drop in value and continued fall in revenue from attendance and related stuff (concessions, advertising, merch, etc) might make Bill Neukom a little more skinflintish than he hoped for, especially when he squints into the next few years and sees the unmovable $30 M+ on the books for Zito and Rowand alone.
