As team revenues increase, professional baseball salaries continue to surge with the latest out-of-the-ballpark figure of $217 million offered to David Price to play for the Boston Red Sox. Patrick Rishe, Olin’s director of the Business of Sports program, told the Marketplace public radio program that it’s a matter of supply and demand:
“Every market, there’s supply and demand considerations,” said Patrick Rishe, director of sports business at Washington University in St. Louis and founder of the research firm Sportsimpacts. “But a top-flight, left-handed starter is in short supply. Most of us are not as in short supply in terms of how unique we are to our employers.”
The average baseball player salary is reportedly 66 times the average American household income. And the next big contract for the next David Price will be more inflated than the last.
