Re:Olympic executives cash in on a ‘Movement’ that keeps ath...
by rhizome on Monday August 01, 2016 @02:34PM
(#12204762)
I think you probably have to account for the relative sizes of basketball arenas and baseball stadiums (>2x) reducing the overall ticket revenue for NBA. TV rights might be comparable among the major sports, but revenue share breaks down on the number of seats and that can't be compensated by ticket prices (NBA avg: ~1.2x MLB).
If you sort by average per year it isn't quite as clear cut as that. Excluding the first 3 outliers (2 Ferrari F1 drivers and Floyd Mayweather) the next 10 highest paid athletes per year are split roughly 50-50 baseball and basketball.
There are more baseball players on the list in total than basketball players, but I'd argue it is because there are ~750 total MBA players and only ~450 NBA players.