The New York Mets may lose 70 million dollars in 2011

Fred Wilpon, owner of the New York Mets, is in a lot of trouble. Not just because he basically blasted every one of his players and his former management, but because his club is sinking into financial hell. In a story that will appear in Sports Illustrated Wilpon says his club could lose 70 million dollars in 2011. That is a gigantic lose, and we have to wonder if it is because of his mismanagement, or his constant involvement with rip off artist Bernie Madoff.

The Mets payroll in 2011 is right around 143 million dollars. According to ESPN they are averaging 28.565 fans per home game. When we use some data from Team Marketing report we learn that the Mets pull in around 1.7 million dollar for each and every home game (that is the average money spent per fan 60.44 dollars times 28,565). That means on average the Mets should generate 141 million dollars of revenue. That of course is not counting TV money, profits from SNY, and other baseball related revenue from the league’s website and so on.

Sure that means things are tight, but this team is also 425 million dollars in debt, the Wilpon family has been hit hard by the Madoff scandal and they face a lawsuit to recover profits from that mess. On top of that this team repeatedly used Madoff to finance payoffs to players to get them off their payroll. Players like Bobby Bonilla who will collect 1.2 million dollars a year for the next 25 years. That money was originally invested with Madoff and Wilpon was looking to make back 10-12%. In effect that money is now a loss for the club and it is helping to sink it financially.

It looks like Wilpon has made a mess of his finances, and his teams and much like the Los Angeles Dodgers MLB should be looking closely into this matter. There is no way an ok baseball team, playing in a new stadium should have that big a financial loss. Something really stinks here.