Major League Baseball Absolutely Makes Money Off Minor Leaguers

Hello.

My name is Tim Williams.

You probably know me from this site, right here, Pirates Prospects.

For the last 13 years, I’ve been running this site, covering the Pittsburgh Pirates, but mostly just covering the players in their farm system.

When I started the site in 2009, it was difficult. I spent a few years grinding my way through to making this a full-time job. I knew that could be possible, just because of the interest in minor league players, and the growing minor league system in Pittsburgh.

By 2011, this was my full-time job. By 2012, I added writers to the staff. By 2013, I was living in a beach town in Florida full-time, where I would remain for several years until red tide and a money pit of a house investment would chase me away.

At its best, this site has made over six-figures a year for several years, which is a level I never imagined in 2009. That allowed me to bring on a lot of writers and photographers, helping to share the vast wealth that we independent prospect writers are known for. At its worst the last few years, this site is still something that can be my full-time job, in a relatively comfortable way, while still paying other writers for their work.

You may also know me from my work at Baseball America. For the last three years, I’ve been the Pittsburgh Pirates’ correspondent over at BA, writing up two years of the Pirates’ section in their Prospect Handbook.

Baseball America, of course, is a company that has been around for longer than I’ve been alive, existing largely to sell news on minor league baseball players. They pay me to write stories about those minor league players, and I use that money to buy a lot of vinyl records.

I make my living and have built a 13-year company up around the profitability of updates on minor league baseball players. There’s a massive industry that I am just a tiny portion of, and we’re all here because there’s money here, allowing us to do what we are passionate about — for whatever passion pulls us into this niche of baseball coverage.

I spend enough time buying and selling on secondary markets to know when I exist inside of one. The available pool of money that is floating around out here for us minor league reporters is just secondary to the pool of money flowing into the game, where Major League Baseball is selling the production of those minor league players.

Nearly every minor league stadium is now equipped with a TV studio, and MLB sells Minor League baseball games through their MiLB.tv streaming package.

MLB dot com launched their own prospect site, MLB Pipeline, which employs two of the biggest prospect writers in the game, with growing TV productions for the MLB Draft. Those productions sell advertisements on MLB Network, and the sites make money on ads with every top 30 prospect list update.

Fantasy baseball leagues on every platform include minor leaguers who have yet to even be added to 40-man rosters, all so that a hardcore portion of that market can participate in keeper leagues, or my favorite, dynasty leagues. That drives further interest for the long-term toward MLB.

Speaking of long-term interest, is anyone really interested in the 2022 Pittsburgh Pirates? Or, are you interested in all of the minor leaguers that are on the way; while looking toward the many more in the wings, providing hope for future years? How much are minor leaguers selling the current state of the Pittsburgh Pirates? How much are those minor leaguers working to maintain interest from a fan base that has seen very little winning in the majors the last few decades?

How many other teams around baseball are just like the Pirates, selling long-term hope in the form of minor leaguers who will one day arrive.

After those minor leaguers work for years under poverty wages and report for unpaid training, of course.

MLB argues for minor leaguers to stay unpaid in spring training: "It is the players that obtain the greater benefit from the training opportunities that they are afforded than the clubs, who actually just incur the cost of having to provide that training” https://t.co/md2BqNjr0X

— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) February 12, 2022

Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported on MLB trying to maintain minor league Spring Training as unpaid training, with the audacious claim that MLB only incurs the cost of having to provide training.

That’s not the cost MLB is incurring.

They’re incurring the cost to prepare the products and promises they’re selling to fans.

You can’t sell MiLB.tv packages if the players aren’t properly prepared for the season.

You can’t push long-term interest in the game if the long-term “prospects” in the minor leagues aren’t trained for the eventual big league job.

Major League Baseball makes money on their minor league players. Enough that they should pay them a living wage.

I know this personally, because I’ve been able to make a career for over a decade on the money and fan interest in these unpaid Spring Training participants.

Think of it this way. Right now, there are several prospects at Pirate City. I could go to Bradenton for a few days, talk to a few of them, write up articles about those players for upcoming weekly article drops (Every Tuesday on Pirates Prospects!), and use those stories to sell subscriptions on this site. And if I sell just one subscription, I’m being paid more than all of those minor leaguers combined right now. Because they’re not being paid, but they’re required to report, train, and be available for their job in any normal way regardless.

If I don’t make that trip and participate in their exploitation, MLB will send their own reporters, who will publish stories across MLB dot com, gaining ad revenue and hyping up future interest on every team’s official homepage. Every news outlet in the city will cover those players as well, trying to get in on the secondary market.

And the players still won’t be paid.

Major League Baseball, pay your employees.