Phillies payroll indicates owners are finally "committed to winning"
by Scott Butler 1/2/10

Now that the Phillies have blown up their payroll by adding Cliff Lee, the total payroll looks to be over $160 million in 2011. Once regarded as greedy Gremlins who lurked in dark alleys, all of a sudden this Phillies ownership group is "committed to winning." But just how committed are they?

I thought it might be fun to watch the progression of the Phillies payroll in recent years. The chart below shows the progression of the total payroll since 2001.

Phillies Payroll 2000 through 2011

Once referred to by Bill Giles as a "small market" in 1994, the Phillies payroll lived up to Bill's claim as recently as 2001 with a payroll of just $41.66 million. Ten years later the Phillies total payroll has skyrocketed to around $160 million.

Have the Phillies owners finally decided that winning is more important than making the most profit? The answer is no. As the charts below will indicate, the Phillies owners are no more or less committed in 2011 than they were in 2001.

You see, as much as Phillies fans don't want to admit it, the owners weren't paying because the fans weren't going. Bill Giles was right when he called Philadelphia a small market because at the time fans were not attending games. The next chart shows that the payroll went up at nearly the identical rate of the attendance.

Phillies Attendance 2000 through 2010

As fans, we want to have an owner like a George Steinbrenner who is willing to pay whatever it takes to put a winner on the field. It sure would have been nice if the Phillies ownership group decided to forgo a little profit during some of the bad years to help build a team that fans wanted to see.

But the next chart shows that the Phillies ran the team no differently than any other club. They ran it like a business and their spending mirrored the attendance. It would have been nice if winning was the most important factor, but the Phils owners ran the team like a business.

Year	Payroll Rank	Attendance Rank
2000	20	20
2001	24	24
2002	17	20
2003	15	15
2004	5	5
2005	4	5
2006	12	12
2007	13	13
2008	12	12
2009	7	7
2010	4	4

The moral of the story is this: the Phillies ownership group was not lining their pockets any more or less than the other owners. I am like many fans who crucified the owners when they weren't spending the way I hoped they would spend. For better or for worse, the Phillies owners let the books decide how much they would spend and they closely followed the bottom line.

But there might be a wrinkle to this tale. The Phillies maxed out the attendance last season, yet they increased the payroll close to $20 million this year. Are the rumors true that John Middleton took his profits from the $2.9 billion sale of his cigar company and decided to break the bank to get Cliff Lee? Or are they just running business as usual?


search engine by freefind	advanced

RSS News Feed

Contact Us

Phillies Team Links
Phillies.com
Philly.com
ESPN
Yahoo Sports/Phillies

Phillies Prospect Watch

Phillies Minor League Team Pages
Phillies Minor League Home
Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (AAA)
Reading Phillies (AA)
Clearwater Threshers (A)
Lakewood BlueClaws (A)
Williamsport Crosscutters (A)

Writers
Matt Gelb
David Murphy
Todd Zolecki
Ryan Lawrence
Ken Rosenthal
Jayson Stark
Bill Conlin

Phils Beat Blogs
The Phillies Zone
High Cheese
The Zo Zone
Delco Times Blog

Baseball Sites
Baseball-reference
Cot's Baseball Contracts
Fan Graphs
MLB Prospect Watch
MLB Trade Rumors
MLB Blog Buzz

Fellow Bloggers
700 Level
Balls, Sticks, and Stuff
Beer Leaguer
Fightin Phillies
Phils Nation
Phillies Flow
The Fightins
The Good Phight
We Should Be GMs
Crashburn Alley
SiteforStarters

Phillies payroll indicates owners are finally "committed to winning" by Scott Butler 1/2/10

Phillies payroll indicates owners are finally "committed to winning"
by Scott Butler 1/2/10