Pittsburgh Pirates pocket the profits

The Pittsburgh Pirates are on their way to an 18th consecutive losing season.

It is bad enough that the Pittsburgh Pirates recently guaranteed themselves an 18th consecutive losing season. The really discouraging news for fans of the beleaguered franchise? The Pirates are very profitable despite all that losing. Thanks to a small payroll - US$35 million (Dh128.5m), or just $2m more than the club spent on players in 1992, the team's last winning season - and plenty of revenue sharing from Major League Baseball and its member clubs, the Pirates, recent documents show, made almost $30m in the 2007 and 2008 seasons combined, the most recent years for which data was available.

Pittsburgh fans have long charged that the Pirates were pocketing profits and not re-investing in the product. Now, they have documented proof of their accusations and the Pirates have one more thing about which to be embarrassed. Since their last trip to the post-season, the Pirates have churned through managers, general managers and even owners. Rebuilding programmes have begat other rebuilding programmes.

Star players have come and gone. A competitive team could be put together with former Pirates now playing elsewhere for other teams, including Jason Bay, Freddy Sanchez, Matt Capps, Xavier Nady, Jack Wilson, Adam LaRoche, Sean Burnett, Nate McLouth and Jose Bautista, who leads the MLB in homers (38) for Toronto. The Pirates either could not afford to retain the players or misjudged their abilities, and sometimes both.

The Pirates received almost $40m from MLB in 2008 thanks to revenue sharing, a system designed by MLB to transfer wealth from profitable teams to struggling, small-market teams. Meanwhile, the Pirates in 2008 spent just over $51m on players. When other revenue streams, including gate receipts and media rights, are incorporated, the Pirates had total revenues of more than $145m - or about three times their player costs.

The Pirates insist that the revenue-sharing cash and other monies from MLB are being properly spent on international scouting, the drafting and signing of amateur players and other costs designed to improve the team. Major League Baseball added that the Pirates were complying with its guidelines, and since baseball lacks both a salary cap and a floor, teams cannot be forced to spend a minimum amount on payroll, as is the case in the NBA and NFL.

But surely something is wrong when an organisation goes almost two decades without once winning more than it loses, receives financial help to improve its on-field product, yet still loses - while showing a healthy bottom line. To their credit, the Pirates were among the biggest spenders on young talent and recently invested in a new training academy in the Dominican Republic. For now, however, fans are stuck with this sad realisation: as tough as it to look at the Pirates' win-loss record, their economic bottom line is just as disturbing.