ABSTRACT
Introduction e 1990s and the building of facilities with luxury seating, improved site lines, expanded retail outlets, and new advertising (naming) opportunities made in-facility real estate management a new enterprise for every team. External real estate development also became a major pro‰t center horizontally linked to the operations of numerous teams. ese fundamental shifts were matched and, in some cases, exceeded by the ways in which media revolutionized the business of sports. e media have always been integral to the ‰nancial success of teams, but what was at ‰rst a medium for attracting fans to facilities has now become a de‰ning ‰nancial component of team operations. A brief review will illustrate the change from a tool used by teams to advertise their basic product in an e¦ort to recruit fans to the arena, ballpark, and stadium into a revenue source escalating team values and players’ salaries. e past 20 years have seen teams form their own networks as the media became vertically integrated into the operations of most franchises. ese networks, in some instances, have capitalized values that make them worth more than the team itself (e.g., e YES Network and the Yankees and Sports Times Ohio and the Cleveland Indians). Just as it was unlikely that anyone would imagine that real estate holdings adjacent to a ballpark or arena would be worth more than the team and its facility, the new business of sports involves a realization that the media networks and opportunities created, if not more valuable than the team, is an integral component of pro‰tability.
