Losing Bucs earning profit

Associated Press

PITTSBURGH

Don’t feel too sorry for the cellar-dwelling Pittsburgh Pirates. Losing has been profitable.

The Pirates made nearly $29.4 million in 2007 and 2008, according to team financial documents, years that were part of a streak of futility that has now reached 18 straight losing seasons. The team’s ownership also paid its partners $20.4 million in 2008.

The documents offer a rare peek inside a team that made money by getting slightly less than half its income (about $70 million) from MLB sources — including revenue sharing, network TV, major league merchandise sales and MLB’s website. The team also held down costs, keeping player salaries near the bottom of the National League, shedding pricier talent and hoping that untested prospects would blossom.

The club’s earnings were included in nearly 40 pages of statements that the Pirates submitted to Major League Baseball and were recently obtained by The Associated Press.

“The numbers indicate why people are suspecting they’re taking money from baseball and keeping it — they don’t spend it on the players,” said David Berri, president of the North American Association of Sports Economists and the author of two books detailing the relationship between finances and winning. “Teams have a choice. They can seek to maximize winning, what the Yankees do, or you can be the Pirates and make as much money as you can in your market. The Pirates aren’t trying to win.”

Club executives vehemently disagreed with that assessment. Yet the numbers show Pittsburgh hasn’t spent as much as its opponents — and hasn’t won.

By 2010, the Pirates had baseball’s lowest opening-day payroll — $34.9 million or just $2 million more than in 1992, the club’s last winning season. The Pirates run of consecutive losing seasons is now the worst in the history of major American pro sports teams.

Sunday, Zach Duke limited the Mets to one run over seven innings and Jose Tabata and Lastings Milledge homered, allowing Pittsburgh to salvage the final game of the three-game series by beating New York, 2-1.