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November 27, 2012

Bizball

Inside the 2012 Postseason Shares

by Maury Brown

Incentive. At the workplace, it comes in many forms. For some, it’s merely being able to keep your job. In other cases, one can receive a pay bonus. So whether for Clark Griswold in Christmas Vacation or players in Major League Baseball, bonuses can be used as a carrot for performance.

For players in Major League Baseball, bonuses come in a host of different shapes and sizes. From signing to performance to awards, a player’s contract can have bonuses as a key element. One that often gets overlooked, however, centers on the postseason in the form of “shares.”

Every player that makes the postseason gets a percentage of paid attendance, also known as gate revenue. Depending on how the money is split, the amount can be substantial. As part of the latest CBA (see page 36), a “Players’ Pool” is created from the World Series, the two League Championship Series, the four Division Series, and the two Wild Card games. Of course, the new wrinkle this year was the addition of the two five seeds in each league and the creation of the Wild Card play-in games, which bolstered the amount that could be garnered in the pool by two games. Not every cent of paid attendance revenue (the gate) from all games goes to the player shares but, rather, a percentage. For the current CBA, it’s defined as follows:

• 60 percent of the total gate receipts from the first four World Series games
• 60 percent of the total gate receipts from the first four games of each League Championship Series
• 60 percent of the total gate receipts from the first three games of each Division Series (four if the Division Series is expanded to the best of seven games)
• 50 percent of the total gate receipts from each Wild Card Game after deducting the traveling expenses of the visiting clubs (up to a maximum of $100,000 per club) from the total gate

Once the total pool is created, the distribution is as such:

• The World Series winner (36 percent)
• The World Series loser (24 percent)
• The two League Championship Series losers (24 percent)
• The four Division Series losers (13 percent)
• The two Wild Card losers (3 percent)

In previous years, the players’ pool was divided among 12 clubs, including the eight postseason participants and the four regular season second-place clubs that were not Wild Cards. That meant, for 2011, that these teams each got postseason shares while not making the postseason (figure shows full share amount)

• Braves ($11,088.51)
• Indians ($10,366.06)
• Angels ($10,862.42)
• Giants ($10,689.58)

Percentages of a share can be divvyed up or, in some cases, cash awards can be granted. There is no set criteria by which full, partial, or cash awards are given out. The players that make team’s postseason roster determine who gets what. In terms of cash awards, someone like a clubhouse assistant can wind up with a nice gift, or it can go further with those on the roster.