Dodgers have so-so season but still score financially.

Cuts in player salary figures help owners shave costs

For the second season in a row, the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team has had a rough year both on and off the diamond. But corporate parent Los Angeles Dodgers Inc. is holding its own financially and is probably profitable.

Team officials last week declined to say whether the Dodgers will make money this year, but indicated the team haa significantly cut costs in one area -- player salaries -- while attendance has held fairly steady from last year.

At the end of last season, team officials conceded the franchise had lost more money than during any other season in its 102-year history. Some published estimates of the loss ranged up to $10 million for the season.

In most other years, the team was believed to make between $5 million and $10 million. The Los Angeles Dodgers Inc. is a private company owned by Peter O'Malley and his family and is therefore not required to release financial information.

Some professional sports team analysts and experts predicted the Dodgers will probaly turn a profit this year and expressed doubt that the team actually lost money last year. They said many professional sports team owners plead poverty as part of their posturing in contract negotions with players.

Both the analysts and team officials said that, in the short term, the two off-field problems associated with the Dodgers this season have probably hurt ticket and merchandise sales. However, in the long run the high-profile incidents will not hurt the team's finances, they claimed.

In July, Vince Coleman of the New York Mets, who was in a car driven by Dodger Eric Davis, threw a large, lit firecracker into a group if fans waiting for autographs outside Dodger Stadium. A two-year-old was hurt in the incident.

Coleman was charged by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office with one felony count of unlawful possession of an explosive device. A court hearing is scheduled in Los Angeles early next month. Davis was not charged with anything but has since been traded by the Dodgers to the Detroit Tigers.

More recently, highly-paid Dodger out-fielder Darryl Strawberry was said to have allegedly hit his girlfriend. The woman has not pressed charges and as of last week police in Glendale, where Strawberry lives and where the incident took place, had not decided whether to charge the player with any crime.

"These kind of incidents hurt the team in terms of reveNue, but only in the short term," said Bob Graziano, Dodgers vice president of finance. "Where it might hurt is in merchandise sales and, to a lesser extent, ticket sales, but only for a short time."

Largely due to a cut in the player payroll from more than $44 million last season to $36.5 million this season, the team has been stable financially, said Graziano. He said attendance has remained steady and, unlike last season, there were no canceled games.

Last season, because of the civil unrest in Los Angeles in late April-early May, the team canceled four home games that were made up in the stadiums of the opposing teams.

On the downside, however, the team has suffered a loss of revenue this year because there hasnht been a contract with a cable television channel, Graziano said.

Earlier this year, Sports Channel Los Angeles, which had broadcast the Dodgers' games to cable owners, closed down. Sports team analysts said the lack of cable coverage may have boosted home attendance, however, and therefore made up for the loss of revenue from a cable television contract.

Last season, home attendance fell 23 percent -- to 2.4 million -- from 3.3 million in the 1991 season. For this season, the National League has changed the way teams publicly measure game attendance.

In past seasons, attendance referred to game attendance. Under the new rules, attendance is measured by ticket sales. Many fans, particularly season-ticket holdres, buy tickets but don't fo to the game, especially late in the season when a team is out of the pennant race. The Dodgers have been out of the pennant race for weeks.

Dodger officials said ticket sales will exceed the 3 million mark this year, but actual game attendance will probably be fairly close to last year's total of 2.4 million. Dodger officials said they will no longer be releasing actual game attendance.

The difference between game attendance and ticket sales can be fairly significant because the team also collects revenue from parking and concession-stand sales.

The Dodgers total annual revenue is believed to exceed $60 million a year. Roughly $30 million is believed to come from television and radio broadcast rights and the rest from ticket, merchandise, concession and parking sales.

Because of the drop in game attendance last season, concession stand sales fell 17 percent, said Carlos Berral, who last year was head of stadium concession business for Marriott Corp., and gate revenues probably dropped by $7 million, said industry analysts who nade their projectiosn based on the decline in attendance.

A representative of Washington D.C.--based Marriott, which holds the stadium concession contract with the Dodgers, did not return a phone call last week for comment on this year's concession revenue.

"I can't talk to you about specific figures on revenue. I can tell tou that our concession and parking has been about flat with last year, but we have been able to cut some costs from last year, and that has made a difference," said Graziano.

Sports industry analysts said one factor in the Dodgers' favor is the rich television market. In a smaller television market, the Dodgers' financial piccture would probably be much weaker, they said. Even though the Dodgers lost the cable contract, the team's agreement with local KTLA-TV Channel 5 is probably worth at least $15 million. In a smaller market, a local television contract would be worth much less, the analysts said.

But Graziano noted that, starting with next season, the Dodgers' share of national television revenue will be almost cut in half from the current $14 million a year.

The drop is due to a new, less-lucrative national television contract negotiated with the NBC and ABC networks and Major League Baseball. The CBS television network's current contract expires at the end of this season. The new contract to broadcast Major League Baseball games nationally on NBC and ASBC is worth less than the current contract because ratings hsve declined for national broadcasts.

The Dodgers local television contract with KTLA is unaffected by the national contract and does not expire until 1997.

A spokeswoman for KTLA said ratings of the station's Dodgers' broadcasts have been about even with last year.