this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2023
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Sports associations are not real businesses. Not a single one of them has to pay their own bills, so all of their accounting is farcical. The NBA, NFL, NHL, and most any other sports organization gets a tremendous amount of subsidy from local governments, a special tax status, and Monopoly protections.
None of these things would be nearly as profitable if they had to buy their own stadiums, pay their own salaries, and pay everyone in the organization properly. National sports leagues are a racket. If the WNBA only loses 30 million a year, that seems like a drop in the bucket compared to what these other ones are costing us with their taxpayer funded multibillion dollar stadiums that some prison company or student loan shark gets to put their name on.
A lot of sports teams claim to be perpetually unprofitable on paper...
But they'll still sell for billions
The leagues may be unprofitable. I have no idea. But individual sports teams typically make bank.
If I don't have to pay many of my own expenses, much of my business is a protected monopoly, and the government is providing me facilities at a negative interest rate, I am pretty sure I would be making pretty incredible money.
With all that being said... Between ticket sales, merch, etc. the NBA generates $10 billion in revenue per year.
The WNBA generates $60 million a year at a $10 million dollar loss and has never turned a profit in 25 years.
"2018, Adam Silver, Commissioner of the NBA, said that the WNBA had lost an average of $10 million per year for every year of its existence, including the posting of a $12 million loss in 2017. "