There are a lot of compelling storylines to the Dodgers-Yankees Fall Classic: Ohtani vs. Judge, Tinsteltown vs. the Big Apple, Dodger bullpen vs. Yankee starters are just some. But for the Yankees ownership, there’s another admittedly secondary story line: World Series baseball means the team makes a lot more money.
Based on disclosures in bond documents showing Yankees revenue back to 1997, the World Series probably will generate an additional $70 million in ticket and luxury suite revenue on top of the regular season. How significant is that number? It’s nearly equal to what the team paid sluggers Aaron Judge ($40 million) and Juan Soto ($31 million) in combined salary this season.
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That $70 million estimate comes from the fact the Yankees disclosed selling $72.6 million worth of seats for the 2022 playoffs, a year in which the team would have had a maximum of 10 home games through the World Series, the same as this season. However, the most home playoff games the Yankees can now have is seven if the Fall Classic goes at least five games, because New York won its rounds with Cleveland and Kansas City without needing all possible home dates.
A spokesperson for the Yankees didn’t respond to a request for comment. The Yankees open the World Series Friday night at Dodger Stadium, with Game 2 there Saturday, before moving to New York for as many as three games starting Monday. The World Series concludes with Games 6 and 7 back in Los Angeles, if necessary.
The Yankees disclose annual ticket sales because the money is a backstop supporting the bonds that were used to build the current Bronx stadium. The club didn’t make the playoffs last year and so didn’t disclose any sales of postseason tickets, while in 2021, New York’s pandemic attendance restrictions likely played into postseason sales of $37.6 million (in 2020 there was no attendance due to the pandemic). The 2022 postseason sales aren’t an outlier, however: In 2017, ’18 and ’19, the club averaged nearly $62 million in playoff ticket sales, according to reports to bondholders.
Since 2017, postseason ticket sales roughly account for one-fifth to a quarter of total Yankee ticket revenue. Full season sales for 2024 haven’t been disclosed yet, but 2024 is looking like a banner year for the Bombers: As of June 30, the Yankees had sold $257.6 million in regular season tickets, far outpacing mid-season 2022, a year in which the Yankees later reported $344.7 million in regular season and playoff ticket sales.
While the ticket and suite revenue numbers show strong demand for playoff baseball in New York, the figures represent total sales, including for games that didn’t get played. Since the organization began reporting the dollar amounts of playoff ticket sales in 2013, the Yankees haven’t made the World Series and often were bounced from the playoffs before playing the full number of possible home games in early rounds. In those cases, sales for games not played were refunded to buyers or rolled over to next year ticket sales at fans’ requests. In 2013, for instance, a lackadaisical season in which the team largely fulfilled low expectations, all $21.2 million of reported postseason sales were refunded to fans when the Bombers missed the playoffs.
While totals for 2024 and the World Series run won’t be disclosed for months, there is one thing certain: The Yankees’ culture of winning pays off. In 1997, the earliest year disclosed by the franchise and the one following its first World Series berth after a 15-year drought and a period of sometimes-awful teams in the early 1990s, the team sold $52.1 million in total tickets and suites to 2.58 million fans. The dynasty that followed started drawing fans back in greater numbers, however, and by 2008—the last season at the old Yankee Stadium—the club drew 4.3 million fans and made $266.6 million in ticket revenue.
Having a nicer building with more premium seats helps, too: In 2009, the first year of the current stadium and the last time the Yankees won the World Series, the franchise made $397 million in ticket revenue, the highest amount before or since. The lowest ticket revenue at the current stadium was $194 million in 2021, due to COVID attendance restrictions.
It’s worth noting ticket and suite sales are far from the Yankees’ only revenue source. Things not disclosed by the club as sales include in-stadium concessions, parking and television revenue. In 2023, the Yankees produced $720 million in total revenue, according to Sportico’s latest MLB valuations. That amount was the most in baseball, $87 million ahead of the Dodgers.
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