Newspapers Relying On Sports Betting To Stay Afloat

At least that's what news site Philly.com is banking on (Image via Taylormadetirade.com)

Philly.com, the online home of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, is turning to sports betting for an extra source of income.

The Philly-focused news site just teamed up with FanDuel.com to create an online betting service called Instant Fantasy Game.

The service (which is legal) allows readers to put up wagers on fantasy games.   According to paidContent, in Instant Fantasy Game, readers pick an opponent, set a wager, and then draft their fantasy team.  Games only last one day and whoever wins gets a cash prize of up to $90.

Yoni Greenbaum, the VP of product development at Philly.com, told CNET that Philly.com partnered with FanDuel.com to satisfy two major goals: “content differentiation and revenue.”

Though a bit outside the box, Instant Fantasy Game could be the type of money-maker Philly.com desperately needs.

More than 30 million fans a year play fantasy sports on sites like ESPN, and if Philly.com is able to attract these users to its site, it could translate to huge dollar signs for parent company, Philadelphia Newspapers.

The media company was forced to file for bankruptcy last year, as readership and ad revenue continued to decline industry-wide.

Philly.com is banking on services such as legal sports betting to attract readers, but will it work?

The Baseball Information Every Fan Needs To Know

Baseball season is in full swing, and fans across the country are ready to hit the parks and enjoy a game.

And lucky for them, ticket prices barely increased from last year. According to the 2010 Major League Baseball Cost Index, the average ticket to a MLB game increased just 1.5% to $26.74.

The Minnesota Twins moved into a new open-air stadium this year, allowing the MLB team to charge higher ticket prices (Image via Twins Directory)

The cost to take a family of four — which includes ticket, merchandise and concession purchases — to a MLB game dropped by more than one dollar to $194.98.

Here’s how the teams stack up, according to the Index issued by Team Marketing Report:

• The Boston Red Sox hold the stop spot  on the FCI; the cost to take a family of four to a game at Fenway will cost you $334.78.  This is about $5 more than the Chicago Cubs and $18 more than the New York Yankees.
• The Cubbies may not offer the most expensive game day experience, but they do sell the priciest tickets, at $52.56.
• The Chicago Cubs increased their ticket prices by more than 10% this season (perhaps the new management?)
• Eleven other MLB teams, including the Minnesota Twins, raised ticket prices.
• Six teams dropped their average ticket prices this year; 13 remained flat, or showed an increase of less than 1% (like the Yankees).
• The Diamondbacks offer the cheapest average ticket for the fourth straight season, at $14.31.
• The Los Angeles Angels are the best bargain.  The AL West champs dropped ticket prices by 5.6% to $18.93.

Bad Break for Baseball

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Attendance at Major League Baseball games is 7% lower than last season, leaving clubs forced to lower playoff tickets, said said Tom Van Riper in his Forbes.com article Baseball’s Bargain Playoffs.

During the 2009 season, only four of the 30 major league teams played to 90% capacity or higher, and 16 of them played to 60% or lower.  The average number of fans per game dropped from 32,543 in 2008 to 30,302 in 2009, and attendance at nine clubs dropped by at least 4,000 fans a game, according to Van Riper.

Typically, regular season ticket prices will increase 30% to 50% going into post-season, however franchises are trying to respond to the economic distress felt by their fans. 

“Four of baseball’s eight likely playoff teams – the Angels, Yankees, Cardinals, and Rockies – have announced their post-season prices,” said Tom Van Riper.  ”Non-suite seats aside, all but the Angels are offering up plenty of cut-rate tickets from the regular season.

For example, the New York Yankees dropped their $325 regular season tickets to $275, and the St. Louis Cardinals reduced their prices from $16 to $99 to $26 – $52 for Division Series Tickets and $38 – $82 for the League Championship Series.

Will the drop in prices work?  These teams hope so, but similar efforts implemented during regular season play were wholly unsuccessful.  Many teams attempted “to combat the recession with aggressive price promotions, like the Washington Nationals offering a package of five games for the price of four, and the Yankees’ attempts to fill in some empty seats in their expansive new stadium with a “Buy Three/Get One Free Program,” said Riper. 

The one hope for these clubs is that fans who refused to pay for regular season tickets on the chance their team could lose will come out and support their favorite players as they fight for their chance to play in the World Series.

Who needs their fans to buy tickets the most? 

Here are Baseball’s Top Five Most Valuable Teams and their Five Least Most Valuable Teams (from Forbes.com: The Business of Baseball):

Rank	Team	Current Value1 ($mil)	1-Yr Value Change (%)	Debt/Value2 (%)	Revenues ($mil)	Operating Income3 ($mil)
1	New York Yankees	1,500	15	95	375	-3.7
2	New York Mets	912	11	76	261	23.5
3	Boston Red Sox	833	2	29	269	25.7
4	Los Angeles Dodgers	722	4	58	241	16.5
5	Chicago Cubs	700	9	0	239	29.7
26	Tampa Bay Rays	320	10	19	160	29.4
27	Oakland Athletics	319	-1	28	160	26.2
28	Kansas City Royals	314	4	13	143	9.0
29	Pittsburgh Pirates	288	-1	35	144	15.9
30	Florida Marlins	277	8	32	139	43.7