Teams Continue Shedding Costs—With More Likely Ahead

As the offseason begins, the ugly financial picture across Major League Baseball is starting to come into focus.

Teams are aggressively cutting costs following a shortened 60-game season where no fans were allowed in the stands due to the coronavirus pandemic. Commissioner Rob Manfred has said that gate-related income—including tickets, concessions, parking and other attendance-related expenditures—accounts for 40% of revenue and told the website Sportico during the World Series that MLB’s 30 teams sustained a combined $2.8 to $3 billion in operational losses this year.

While those numbers cannot be independently verified, teams' collective cost-cutting measures have already reached the hundreds of millions of dollars—with more likely ahead.