The Baseball Channel Launches in 2009

[bedir than average]

When it launches it will have the largest distribution of a brand new network, ever. It will add millions of dollars of revenue per team. A team could do one of three things with this impending money

1-Pocket It
2-Spend it on mediocre players then as every salary increases
3-Spend that money as known future earnings now

How Baseball Moved Its 24-Hour Channel Into Scoring Position - New York Times

• Pay M.L.B. an average of $80 million annually for Extra Innings.
  
• Generate total cable subscriber fees of $112 million in 2009 and $152.7 million in 2015, according to a presentation made to owners on May 17 in Manhattan by the investment firm Allen & Company. Baseball must split those revenues with cable and DirecTV.
  
• Produce advertising revenues that will rise to $65 million in 2015.
  
• Create an asset in the new network that Allen estimates is worth $1.2 billion to baseball, based on its two-thirds ownership stake. DirecTV ended up with a 16.67 percent stake, Comcast with 8.34 percent, Time Warner 6.35 percent and Cox 1.98 percent, based on their proportional shares of subscribers in the network.