MLB Recovers From Lockout, The Pandemic And Now Expects To Surpass $10 Billion In Revenue For 2022 Season

As it turns out, a nearly 100-day labor dispute, 40-year-high inflation, recession fears and lingering fears of Covid-19 didn’t impact Major League Baseball business for the 2022 season.

MLB estimates it will surpass $10 billion in revenue for the first time since 2019, the league’s chief revenue officer Noah Garden tells Forbes. “I think it’s safe to say we’re going to be higher,” he says. “The final numbers, when they come in, we’ll see. But it’s certainly going to be over ($10 billion).”

MLB will end the 2022 regular season next week, and the postseason begins Oct. 6.

In a wide-ranging interview with Forbes senior writer Jabari Young, Garden updates the business around professional baseball, including revenue which immediately saw a jump when the league struck a five-year labor agreement with players in March 2022. That same month, MLB replaced its banking sponsor with Capital OneCOF
via a five-year, $125 million pact and struck two exclusive streaming deals with technology giant AppleAAPL
and NBCUniversal’s Peacock. Forbes reported those deals would pay MLB roughly $115 million annually.

The pandemic, Garden says, accelerated streaming consumption of sports and entertainment content. “I never thought that my mom was going to figure out how to use NetflixNFLX
, call me, and say, ‘Do you watch Ozark?’” Garden says. “But the pandemic changed things for us, so it’s our job to adapt.”

Garden also discussed MLB attendance, which has declined from a league-high 79 million fans in 2007. After two years of interruptions, MLB projects it will finish the 2022 season at 95% of 2019’s figure. That year, MLB clubs drew a total of 68.5 million spectators. Garden attributes lingering Covid-19 concerns for MLB’s slow start this year. However, Garden adds, MLB is now “peaking” as historic home run chases bring fans to the ballpark. They feature New York Yankees star Aaron Judge’s pursuit of a single season league record and the St. Louis Cardinals’ Albert Pujols, who became only the fourth player in MLB history to reach 700 home runs.

Garden also discusses how MLB’s rule changes, including a pitch clock, will affect baseball revenue, gives an update on the league’s uniform sponsorship patch asset and talks about what’s ahead with ads on helmets coming online in 2023.