MW The Yankees-Dodgers World Series features the biggest combined payroll ever
By Weston Blasi
A by-the-numbers look at two teams who have played each other in 12 World Series
The New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers will meet in the World Series for the 12th time ever on Friday, in a matchup of two of the premier franchises in Major League Baseball.
The star-studded matchup will feature two of MLB's biggest markets, the presumptive MVPs of both the American League and National League, and two massive player payrolls. Here is what to know about the 2024 World Series, by the numbers.
Team payroll
The Yankees payroll for the 2024 season was $309 million, the second highest in MLB, while the Dodgers payroll was the fifth largest, at $241 million. (The New York Mets, who lost to the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, spent the most on players this season.)
The teams' $550 million combined payroll is the largest ever for a World Series matchup, dwarfing the combined payrolls in 2022 ($427 million) and 2018 ($426 million), according to contract-monitoring site Spotrac, which has data going back to 2011.
Highest-paid players
The highest-paid player on the Dodgers this year is pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who made $55 million. On the Yankees, it's outfielder Aaron Judge, at $40 million.
That doesn't tell the whole story, though - as Yamamoto's 2024 payroll figure is still technically less than Shohei Ohtani's $70 million salary-cap charge.
Ohtani made headlines last year when he signed the largest contract in team-sports history: $700 million over 10 years. But the deal has a unique structure, paying him a total of $20 million during the first 10 years and then a total of $680 million over the following 10 years. Because of this structure, Ohtani's $70 payroll charge only amounts to $2 million in actual salary paid to him this season.
Largest guaranteed contract
Ohtani's $700 million contract is the largest in team-sports history, and nearly doubles the second-biggest contract in this World Series, Judge's nine-year, $360 million deal.
Both of those contracts were signed within the last two seasons, and could soon be overtaken this upcoming offseason by soon-to-be free agent and Yankees outfielder Juan Soto. Soto is just 25 - younger than Ohtani and Judge - and could command a new contract that rivals the richest deals in the league.
Manager salaries
Wages for MLB managers are much lower than those of the top players. Yankees coach Aaon Boone is making an estimated $3.3 million this year, while Dave Roberts makes an estimated $3.25 million.
The highest-paid manager in MLB this year was the Cubs' Craig Counsell, at $8 million.
See: WNBA players only get 9.3% of league revenue - here's how much NBA, NFL and NHL players get
Ticket prices
The average price of a ticket to attend the World Series on the secondary market is $3,887, per TicketIQ data - the second-most expensive since the company began tracking ticket prices in 2010. It's only eclipsed the 2016 matchup between the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) and the eventual champion Chicago Cubs, who had advanced to the franchise's first World Series since 1945 and secured its first World Series title since 1908.
Yankees home-game ticket prices are averaging $4,875 for the World Series, while Dodgers home games are averaging $3,146. Prices for tickets in New York are roughly 55% higher than in Los Angeles.
Championship Series ratings
The ALCS featuring the Yankees and the Guardians averaged 4.9 million viewers on TNT Sports' $(WBD)$ networks, while the NLCS between the Dodgers and Mets on Fox's $(FOX)$ $(FOXA)$ networks averaged 5.6 million.
The two series averaged 5.35 million viewers - the MLB's most-watched League Championship Series slate in seven years, per Nielsen.
Game 1 of the Dodgers-Mets series actually had higher viewership outside the U.S. An estimated 12.1 million people watched Game 1 in Japan, largely due to the interest in Dodgers players Ohtani and Yamamoto, who are both Japanese.
The Dodgers don't directly make money from all those Japanese viewers, as Major League Baseball negotiates separate TV deals for its international rights, with that revenue distributed among all 30 teams.
The first games of the 2025 MLB season will be played in Tokyo - a matchup between the Dodgers and Cubs on March 18-19 as part of the league's efforts to grow its fan base outside the Americas.
Total team revenue
This World Series isn't just a matchup of the MLB franchises who spend the most; it's also a matchup of the teams that earn the most. The Yankees' total revenue in 2024 was $679 million, while the Dodgers brought in $549 million, according to data compiled by Statista and Forbes.
Much of that is fueled by game-day ticket sales, sponsorships and TV revenue. The Dodgers make an average of $334 million per season from the team's local TV deal with Charter Communications' $(CHTR)$ Spectrum. The Yankees make a lot as well, though the most recent available figure is from the 2022 season, when the team made $143 million from its YES Network platform. Unlike the Dodgers, the Yankees own the TV network on which a majority of their games are aired, and also sell games digitally via a subscription service.
World Series bonus
MLB's collective bargaining agreement stipulates that playoffs and World Series bonuses are given out on a percentage basis taken from the total ticket receipts from the postseason. This means the more games that are played, the more in potential total payouts.
A record $107.8 million was distributed last postseason, with the World Series-winning Texas Rangers receiving $38.8 million to split among players, coaches and staff.
The World Series begins on Friday, Oct. 25, at 8:08 p.m. Eastern time, and will broadcast on Fox.
"It's kind of what the people wanted - what we all wanted," Dodgers star outfielder Mookie Betts said of the matchup against the Yankees. "It's going to be a battle of two good teams, [and] a lot of long flights across the country."
See: The WNBA's historic 2024 season: How rookie stars like Caitlin Clark are helping the league grow
-Weston Blasi
This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 25, 2024 07:00 ET (11:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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