By
Joe Sousa on Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 |
1 Comment
Let’s talk about the Strasburg Effect. By this I mean the economic impact Stephen Strasburg will have on the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball.
Stephen Strasburg signed the biggest deal ever for a #1 pick at $15.1 million over 4 years and the Washington Nationals need to make that up somehow. By putting butts in the seats he should start to reap dividends for the Nationals right away. Let’s break down his first game a bit:
- The average attendance for the Washington Nationals: 22,229. The attendance in Stephen Strasburg’s Debut: 40,315. A sellout. I think that is only the third sellout in Nationals history. The average ticket to a Nationals game is $20.88 so if you figure that Strasburg added around 18,000 new fans to the ballpark that is an extra $375,840. At that rate it would only take 40 Stephen Strasburg home starts to make up that $15.1 million based just on ticket sales.
- If we factor the cost of what it actually takes to go see a baseball game (food, parking, souvenirs, etc) it is even a bit more amazing. Including all that stuff you are looking at around $42 per game. At that rate it will only take 20 home games for him to generate the revenue to pay his contract.
- Now we can talk about merchandise. Already Stephen Strasburg jerseys are selling like hotcakes. Shirts, hats, and anything else his name can be slapped on is in high demand and it should stay that way. Not to mention all the knockoff shirts being hawked around the stadium. Hundreds of thousands or even millions more dollars here.
- On eBay right now there are 3,389 items up for sale. From baseball cards to autographed baseballs many people are already cashing in.
- MLB currently has game used items from Stephen Strasburg’s debut. There is an autographed lineup card ($760 at the time of writing), the game used rosin bag ($285), an autographed jersey ($980), and numerous baseballs and other items. These auctions go for another week so the prices should end up in the thousands of dollars. You can see all the items at the MLB Auctions site.
And there will be many, many more ways Strasburg will have an economic impact on the Nats and MLB in general. Be looking for other posts in this category.
And yeah, I know my numbers are way to simplistic to really mean that in 20 games the Nats will have paid off his contract but I would guess that the return on investment for the Nationals will be HUGE. Strasburg is a cash cow and they will ride him as hard as they can.
