Colorado Rockies history shows Manfred’s “stock market” claim is false

On Thursday, as per usual, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was a walking public relations disaster for the sport, as he drew the ire of virtually everyone … besides the owners of the 30 MLB teams.

He held a press conference where, largely, nothing new happened, other than Manfred having a malaprop or two and the confirmation of a few things that were already assumed to be happening.

But one of the possible malaprops (if you are being very generous) that Manfred claimed was that “Historically, (the return for MLB owners) is below what you’d expect to get in the stock market.”

Either he misspoke again (he misspeaks a lot), he told a lie, or MLB owners have financial records that we don’t know about. We’ll let you determine that but any way you look at it, the numbers do not add up. Case in point, let’s look at the average MLB team value and the Colorado Rockies value.

The Colorado Rockies franchise worth has grown way more than the stock market

In 1992, the Colorado Rockies were created by and the initial investment group of Jerry McMorris, the Monfort brothers, and others for $95 million. At the beginning of 2021, the Rockies had a value of $1.3 billion. That is a 1268.42 percent increase in 30 years, or a 42.28 percent increase per year.

Since 2002, the average MLB team has increased in value by 564 percent, per Statista. However, the S&P 500 has increased by 308 percent (h/t Travis Sawchik of The Score for both stats)

For the Rockies in 2002, the team was valued at $347 million. The 2021 evaluation of $1.3 billion means that the Rockies’ value has increased by 274.64 percent, which is less than the S&P 500 in the same span.

However, by 2004, the Rockies value dropped to $285 million so the percentage increase to 2021 was 356.14 percent, or better than the S&P’s 323.53 percent increase since then.

Furthermore, the Rockies value in 2014 was $575 million, or a 126.09 percent increase in just seven years, the latter two years which had a pandemic that, essentially, stifled the economy. The S&P 500 increased 108.18 percent in that span.

As Nick Groke of The Athletic said, Dick Monfort makes money in other ways too (like with McGregor Square). The idea that he would make more money on the stock market means that Monfort would have just done that instead. He didn’t … and for a reason.

But the Rockies are from the prime example that MLB owners make a lot of money being MLB owners.

In 2002, the New York Yankees were valued at $730 million. In 2021, they were worth $5.25 billion, or an increase of 619.18 percent.

Let’s be clear too: The problem isn’t that the teams are making money. After all, it is a business. They should make some money. But when the average MLB salary is down more than six percent since 2017, the MLBPA is not going to be happy.

In 2002, the Colorado Rockies had a team payroll of $64 million. In 2021, it was somewhere between $114 and $120 million. The team is worth 274.64 percent more but the payroll went up somewhere between 78 and 88 percent. That shouldn’t be the case. It’s made even worse when of that $114-$120 million, up to one-third of that was paid to players who did not play a single game for the Rockies in 2021 (Nolan Arenado, Ian Desmond, Vinny Castilla, etc.)

Even in 2019, the Rockies had a much higher payroll at $163 million but that’s still only an increase of 154.69 percent since 2002. It still doesn’t add up.

There are some teams, like the Guardians or Pirates that have a current payroll (as of February 2022) of $45.9 million and $35.5 million before arbitration settles. In 2002, both franchises had an Opening Day payroll higher than that ($78.9 million for Cleveland and $42.3 million for Pittsburgh).

It’s a huge reason why we are still in a lockout. But Rob Manfred either misspoke, told a bald-faced lie, or something else isn’t adding up. Regardless, Manfred thinks fans aren’t stupid but contrary to what he believes, things and people have changed in 1998. One of the many things is that fans are more informed on what’s going on and that’s because you have the power to do research (or read other’s research online) that shows that he’s full of it.