NYC Could Benefit from Triple-A Yanks

By now you might have heard that the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees will not be playing their 2012 season at PNC Field in Pennsylvania due to the much needed $40 million renovation.  Now the only question is where will they play.

Right now there are several sites being considered for the Triple-A Yanks, one of them being Staten Island.  The Forgotten Borough as it was once nicknamed is home to the New York Yankees Short Season-A team and would provide the Triple-A team with a first-class facility in New York City and a place to call home instead of traveling around and use other ballparks as “home” stadiums.

What makes Staten Island an excellent choice is that the stadium is ran by the Staten Island Yankees who are jointly owned by Mandalay Baseball Properties and the New York Yankees.  Those two companies also own SWB Yankees, LLC the company that is finalizing the purchase of the Triple-A team from the Lackawanna Stadium Authority.

Now in order for the Yankees to call the Richmond County Bank Ballpark home for a season they need to get the approval of the New York Mets and the Brooklyn Cyclones who have the territory rights for the area.  If a deal could be worked out between those two then the real winners of this would be New York City as a whole.

Why do I say that?  Well it is simple, the revenue that will come in from the team playing here.  It is 72 more games a year that people will be manning concessions, buying tickets and also another 72 more games of attendance figures that will be tacked onto the reporting for rent on the stadium.

At present time the rent on the Richmond County Bank Ballpark is tied to actual attendance, this is the amount of people that actually show up to a game.  If the minimum of 250,000 people show up in a year then the team will pay the minimum payment of $100,000 and the more people that come more money that is paid up to the maximum payment of $250,000.  At present time the team has never reached the 250,000 mark in actual attendance and thus never paid rent.  That also includes the amount of people who show up to the college and high school games played at the stadium, the Triple-A team will more than likely draw a lot more people especially since you have top prospects, former major leaguers and the possibility for more rehabbing players.

Let’s not rule out the tax collected on salaries and wages.  Since these boys could be playing half of their games in NYC then half of their annual salary is taxed here.  If you do not know how complicated taxes are for professional athletes here is a taste.  The players are taxed depending on where the games are played, so if they play 72 games in a city, 10 in another, 10 in another, etc. their salary is divided up as such.  Add in the taxes collected on ushers, concession and maintenance workers etc.

Other benefits include: the money spent on housing, food, nights out.  These guys will spend a good amount of money on those things so it would not be surprising to see a small boast to local shops.

There you have it, the very basics on how the Triple-A Yanks playing in Staten Island would be beneficial to New York City.