Yankees report franchise-record $411.7 million in ticket and luxury suite sales in 2024
Yankees fans at Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium against the Dodgers on Oct. 28, 2024. Credit: Newsday/Howard Schnapp
The Yankees’ run to the World Series last season helped set a franchise record for ticket and luxury suite sales.
The team reported $411.7 million in sales for tickets and luxury suites for the 2024 season, which includes a boost of $101.9 million from the postseason, according to the team’s financial filing to bondholders obtained by Newsday. The Yankees lost the World Series to the Dodgers in five games, but the postseason run resulted in seven sold-out home games. Thirty percent of the $101.9 million is subject to refund or credit to ticket-holders because three potential postseason home games were paid for in advance but were not played, the report said.
The filing provides a partial window into the team’s finances and does not include other revenue, such as television and radio rights and purchases of merchandise or food and beverages at the stadium, and does not include the team’s expenses.
The $411.7 million is a 39.8% increase over 2023, when the team failed to make the playoffs and reported $294.9 million in revenue from ticket and luxury suite sales. The Yankees drew 40,822 more fans in the 2024 regular season compared to 2023.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
The Yankees reported $411.7 million in ticket and luxury suite sales for the 2024 season, which includes a boost of $101.9 million from the postseason, in a report to bondholders.
The $411.7 million is a 39.8% increase over 2023, when the team failed to make the playoffs and reported $294.9 million in revenue from ticket and luxury suite sales.
The seven home playoff games averaged $14.56 million per game in ticket and luxury suite sales.
“These numbers are pretty extraordinary,” said Robert Boland, a sports law professor at Seton Hall who also concentrates on gaming, hospitality and entertainment. “It is good to get to the World Series. I think that’s a big factor in this. It is that value that they were at the top of the division through much of the season, that they got to the World Series, and they’re in a great place now to look ahead.”
The Yankees lease their stadium from New York City’s Industrial Development Agency, which sold the tax-exempt bonds to pay for construction.
The data obtained by Newsday comes from end-of-year statements the team files with the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, a regulatory organization that oversees the municipal securities market. The reports are designed to show bondholders the team has enough money to support the annual bond payment. In 2024, the Yankees’ bond payment was $84.2 million, according to the IDA.
The Yankees, through a spokesman, declined to comment on the filing.
Forbes valued the Yankees at $7.55 billion in 2024, the highest among MLB teams. The Mets were sixth on the list at $3 billion.
The Mets have filed similar 2024 financial reports with MSRB, but the information is not yet available.
The Yankees’ previous high total of reported ticket and luxury suite sales was approximately $397 million in 2009, which was the first year of the current Yankee Stadium. The Yankees won the World Series that season.
In the filing, the Yankees added a footnote: “The significant costs associated with the postseason [e.g., players share, visiting teams share, stadium operation, etc.] need to be considered in assessing the financial results of the postseason.”
In their seven postseason home games, the Yankees averaged $14.5 million per game in ticket and luxury suite revenue.
“It’s in a way a wild question, right?” Boland said. “Why aren’t more teams thinking about this potential revenue that relates to a postseason run and the opportunity to go into the playoffs? But I think it actually kind of goes with the idea that the management of risk and the economics of the game set it up that there are two ways to be effective economically in baseball. The first is to spend a lot and win the World Series, or go to the World Series, like the Yankees have, and the other is to spend very little and rely on the overall revenue of the game.”
The Yankees had a payroll of nearly $311 million, according to figures from Major League Baseball obtained by The Associated Press. That was second to the Mets, who reached the NLCS with a payroll of $333.2 million. The Dodgers were third at $270.8 million, but that figure does not include the full value of the $680 million Los Angeles deferred in superstar Shohei Ohtani’s 10-year, $700 million contract, which he signed before the 2024 season.
The Yankees are projected by Cot’s Baseball Contracts to go into this season with a payroll of $304.7 million, which is fourth behind the Dodgers ($333.3 million), Mets ($326.2 million) and Phillies ($307.8 million). The season opens for most teams on March 27.
Owner Hal Steinbrenner said on Feb. 21: “Does having a huge payroll really increase my chances that much of winning the championship? I’m not sure there’s a strong correlation there. Having said that, we’re the New York Yankees, we know what our fans expect. We’re always going to be one of the highest in payroll. That’s not going to change. And it certainly didn’t change this year.”
Payrolls in MLB last year ranged all the way down to the A’s, who spent $66.4 million on players in their final season in Oakland.
The range of those figures — which mainly has to do with wild disparities in MLB’s local TV revenue and market size differences — has fans and the players’ union worried that not enough teams are spending enough to win.
“The problem is at times in the history of baseball that you have a few teams that can pay, that are paying, and what is the competitive balance?” said Mark Conrad, professor of law and ethics at Fordham University and the director of its sports business concentration. “Although there have been teams with lesser payrolls that do well. But it does make it more challenging, and especially with the Dodgers just pushing their way in the wake of winning the World Series, it creates challenges for teams, even like the Yankees, apparently, to keep up.
“The Yankees, yes, they can spend and they’re making money. The Dodgers are spending money and making oodles of money, from what we hear. But the other reason is their broadcast deals, because the Dodgers’ home cable deal is enormously lucrative. The Yankees are not bad because they own part of YES [Network]. If you’re the Kansas City Royals, if you’re the Minnesota Twins, you’re not going to have those goodies at your disposal.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
