Spotlight on the Seminar Series: A Conversation with MLB's Jonathan Mariner

On Tuesday, February 21st Business Today proudly hosted a conversation with Jonathan Mariner, the Chief Financial Officer of MLB. In addition to his daily responsibilities for overseeing the MLB’s central office budgeting, financial reporting, treasury, and risk management activities, Mr. Mariner's duties include overseeing all Club-level financial reporting through the team CFO's, administering MLB's $1.5 billion league-wide credit facility, and providing updates at Owners' Meetings on the industry's financial health. Mariner's heightened public profile and responsibilities led Sports Illustrated to rank him as No. 11 on its 2003 list of the 101 most influential minorities in sports.

MLB is about much more than just the sport. Mr. Mariner explained that the issues and challenges professional sports leagues now face can be broken down into 5 main areas: enhancing revenue, controlling labor costs, competitive balance, engaging fans further, and expanding the fan market.

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Who’s Your Runner?

At a time when the NCAA, sports agents, state legislatures, the media, and impenitently college coaches, are tossing around blame due to the recent headlines involving a number of athletes of amateur status receiving improper benefits from sports agents – we must step back and take a hard, yet comedic look at these events and those to come.

It’s annoying and to some standpoint frustrating to listen and take in much of the discussion among agents and professionals in the industry. It seems that many – if not all, are completely missing the mark when it comes to truly making money. Even given a recent comment I cast on Facebook:

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Sports Business: The King James Affect

Among the major sports leagues [NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, PGA), nearly $16 billion is generated annually, realizing a sizable portion to the national GDP (Hoovers). These leagues are dominated by captivating figures including Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant, Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, and of course -- Lebron James.

These individuals are not only excellent athletic performers, but are to a greater extent an image – of franchises, cities, and a collective people, allowing stakeholders to capitalize on their marketability, creating value regionally, nationally, but also globally. It may surprise some that Kobe Bryant is the most marketable basketball player globally today. This marketability and popularity is largely due to championships.

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College Basketball isn’t what it used to be

Over the last few decades, the landscape for college basketball and to some extent, the NCAA, has changed. Today, the NCAA is nearly a $6 billion collaborative institution, with over 1,200 members – all benefiting from media contracts, merchandise licensing, and of course -- exceptional athletic talent. If the BCS Championship series as well as the NCAA Basketball Tournament has proven anything, it is that money plays a crucial role in the direction and structure of the landscape of collegiate sports, especially football and basketball. As March Madness rolls along, it seems fitting to articulate two serious issues, (I) ‘the one-and-done rule’ by the NBA and (II) it’s correlation to mass sports media and the NCAA.

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