Over the last years sport teams and leagues have enjoyed full benefits of professional sport growing popularity, which has led to maximizing their revenues. Team owners and sport agents maximized their profits in two ways: by growing the traditional sources of the revenue and by creating new sources. There are four main traditional sources of income in professional sports – television and mass media, selling of licensed goods (such as caps, balls and computer games etc. that are carrying official logo), ticket sales which also include stadium, gate revenues and different types of sponsorships.
The major source of income in professional sport is the sale of season and admission tickets. This type of the revenue stream remains the most significant for Major League Baseball (MLB). In 2006 the total gate revenues were almost two billion US dollars. This amount does not include the cost of premium seating, which is growing year by year.
Another substantial part of the revenue stream of MLB is television and mass media. As an example of outstanding type of technology in new media, was the appearance of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM). MLBAM is the internet and interactive branch of the league that was created in 2000 and today brings 300 million US dollars. As for television, there are two main revenue streams: from cable channels, which are prepaid by the fans and from selling the rights to local providers to translate the games.
In 1966 Major League Baseball formed MLB Properties which own and control all the teams and events. In 2006 MLB Properties earned 300 million US dollars, which is 105 million more than in 2003. This enterprise specializes in attracting mutually beneficial contracts for advertising, treaty making with potential investors and controlling the revenue stream from selling the right for the official logo usage.
The development of professional sport industry has become phenomenal. For the past decades it has gradually become a very lucrative business. Now professional sport teams and leagues can make money in more than one way. A new idea of attracting more money is establishing special luxury sport clubs. In such sport club (baseball, for example) the sportsmen from professional teams or leagues will train people, who are willing to pay certain club fees. Establishing of such sport club will kill two birds with one stone: it will bring new income and give additional advertising to the whole team or league. Professional sport industry is developing in leaps and bounds due to the increasing number of fans. That is why many people are willing to pay the club fee just to approach to his sport idol.