Con_Alma;1027345 wrote:It was a leading question.
Location dictates revenue, which dictates the ability to put greater talent vs competitors in the game.
But to a degree, it's a chicken-egg thing. If a team is winning, they make more revenue, which in turn they (in theory) invest into higher payroll, whether that be in free agency or by resigning their young players. I'm pretty sure that when Cleveland was competing for the WS a couple years in the mid-90s, their payroll was much higher in comparison to other teams than what it is now (using "in comparison" because the overall landscape has raised a lot over the past couple decades).
Or to phrase things differently...is a market like, say, St. Louis really THAT MUCH larger than a Cleveland or Pittsburgh? Or is it that St. Louis is a baseball town while those two are more football towns. Cards fans will support that team die hard all the time, while the Rams seem to be more in the "popular ticket when good" category. In Pitt or Cleve, the excitement's there when the team's doing well, but during lean years, it evaporates. So, those teams don't have the consistent revenue input that a team that's the epicenter of a city's entertainment would bring in.
