by Richard McGowan, Ph.D.
When I was growing up, baseball was the only professional sport that received considerable national attention. I rooted for the team my father rooted for, the Milwaukee Braves. I asked why and he said, “I rooted for the teams Babe Ruth played for.” As an 8 year-old, I cut out the NY Daily News coverage of the 1957 Braves-Yankees World Series. Subsequently, I laminated them and now show the pictures and coverage to my baseball friends.
Also subsequently, the Braves went to Atlanta and at the end of Hank Aaron’s career, he went to the Milwaukee Brewers. I root for the last team he played for, the Milwaukee Brewers, so I was well pleased by this year’s fall classic.
Not a lot of people were pleased. By population, Milwaukee, like Tampa Bay, is considered a “small market” team. The recent World Series (WS), therefore, garnered a lot of talk about the economics of baseball inasmuch as the competitors were not ‘big market’ teams. Research shows that the now-reigning champs play in the metro area with the smallest population. Population, however, is not the only consideration for distinguishing small from big market teams. Designated Market Area (DMA), as established by Nielson, also contributes to the distinction. DMA refers to the unique geographic region involving counties for television viewing.
More often than not, heavily populated MLB cities have expansive DMAs.
The Yankees, Mets, Angels and Dodgers are in areas with more than 10 million people, but they also have wide designated market areas, according to the Nielson ratings. For example, the Boston Red Sox have almost the whole of New England as a fan base and source of revenue. On the other hand, the Reds, Brewers and Royals are in areas with around 2 million people and little geographic coverage.
The Milwaukee’s Brewers are squeezed by the two Chicago clubs to the south and the Minnesota Twins to the west. Small market teams lack the budget to sign star players. Anyone who followed this year’s playoff knows that the LA Dodgers had a payroll greater than the other three semi-finalists combined.
The presumption is that bigger budgets translate into greater success. If that is so, then MLB competition is unfair and the MLB should join the other major sports leagues and institute a salary cap. The team owners would like a cap, the players would not. So this year’s result, a small market team providing a thorough dismantling and sweep of the vaunted LA Dodgers is fodder for the players in the upcoming labor negotiations.
Yet, since 2000, only one team in the lower half of the DMA has won a World Series and only one, the Astros, in the lower half of payroll. The latter WS win happened in 2017 and that team, the Astros, cheated, which, I suppose is a way to level the playing field. In the last 26 years, the Red Sox won four WS, the Dodgers and Giants won three, the Astros (with a huge asterisk), the Cardinals, and the Yanks won two. All the rest took one crown: Braves, Nationals, Cubs, Royals, Rangers, Phillies, White Sox, Angels, D-backs, and now, the Brewers. In other words, big market, middle market and small market are sprinkled around in the WS winner, with big market teams winning about half the titles.
However, were I presenting the owners’ case for a salary cap, I would argue that all playoff games must matter. Playoff games generate more revenue and continued fan interest. Since 2000, every team has appeared in the playoff, however, the two teams that have played the most playoff games since 2000 are the Yankees, at 187 games, and the Dodgers, at 167. Their 2026 payrolls, along with the Mets, are over $300,000,000. The Cardinals played 140 games and the cheating Astros played 136, followed by the Red Sox at 110 and the Braves at 93. The bottom five teams, the ones with the least playoff games, are the Marlins (24, though the team did win the WS in 2003), Rockies (20), Orioles (19), Reds (13) and the Pirates (8). All are considered small market teams.
My late friend, Frank Thomas, often accounted for the dismal performance of the Bucs. “Dick, the owner is in it for himself. He won’t spend money on players. So they develop with the Pirates and then he trades them because he doesn’t want to pay them.” No small market team can get to the World Series with inept management — which can also doom big market teams, as the Mets proved this year and many of the preceding years.
Small market teams can win with savvy minor-league development, smart trading to fill holes in the line-up and good field management, as the Brewers with manager Pat Murphy showed. Good assessment of young talent when drafting players contributes as well. Intelligent management appears to be the key to small market team success.
And unintelligent management accounts for a team’s demise. If the Dodgers do not replace their aging players soon . . . My Dad, who grew up in New York City, hated the Bums. And like father, like son.
Richard McGowan, Ph.D., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, has taught philosophy and ethics cores for more than 40 years, most recently at Butler University. Sources for this article can be accessed at www.inpolicy.org.
Sources
The Bleacher Report said, “Key Characteristics of Small Market Teams
- Lower Financial Resources: They generally have smaller overall budgets and lower payrolls, making it difficult to compete with big-market teams for high-priced free agents.
- Reliance on Smart Roster Building: To win, small-market teams often have to rely heavily on smart drafting, minor-league player development, analytics (“Moneyball” strategies), and strategic trades rather than simply buying all-star veterans.
- Revenue Sharing: Leagues often use luxury taxes, revenue-sharing pools, or salary caps/floors to help bridge the financial gap between wealthy franchises and smaller markets.
Population of team city
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/stories/baseball/stories-baseball.pdf
Payroll:
Payroll data
https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/_/year/2026
Interesting commentary
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/961412-mlb-power-rankings-all-30-mlb-teams-by-market-size
AI, but several sources made the general claims
Key Characteristics of Small Market Teams
- Lower Financial Resources: They generally have smaller overall budgets and lower payrolls, making it difficult to compete with big-market teams for high-priced free agents.
How Market Size is Defined: Market size isn’t just about total population. For instance, the Tampa Bay Rays play in a reasonably sized media market (roughly 11th nationally), yet they function as a small-market team because of regional corporate support and lower local revenues. Conversely, teams like the Chicago White Sox share a massive market (Chicago) but operate with a smaller “big-market” footprint and lower relative spending compared to the Cubs. [1, 2, 3]
The Brewers finished the regular season with the 19th-highest payroll among the 30 MLB clubs and the Rays were 25th. In terms of market size, Milwaukee ranks as MLB’s smallest Designated Market Area, defined by Nielsen as non-overlapping geographic regions that group counties based on television viewing areas, while Tampa Bay ranks 15th.
No team in the bottom half of DMA has won a World Series since the 2015 Kansas City Royals. The 2017 Houston Astros were the last champions in the bottom half of MLB in payroll.
Retired Commissioner Bud Selig used to love to say that all 30 franchises should have “hope and faith” every season. Baseball’s imbalanced economics, coupled with natural competitive cycles, ensure that not every team reports to spring training with a realistic chance to advance to the World Series.
