For the 14th year running, Major League Baseball is posting record earnings approaching $10 billion for 2016, with a $500 million growth from 2015. MLB’s digital media company, MLB Advanced Media, also continues to experience spectacular growth.

If incomes from BAMTech (the MLBAM spin-off that has Walt Disney as a key partner) are included, then the figure would be even higher. The Mouse is making a $1 billion investment, with one-half of this money having been paid to league owners and the remaining half set to be released next year.

With digital media now contributing a huge fraction of MLB’s earnings, TV revenues are higher than gate collections. Just recently, the Arizona Diamondbacks announced a new $1.5 billion TV deal with FOX Sports Arizona for the 2016-2021 period, a huge increase from 2008-2015’s quarter billion.

Club sponsorships starting from 2016 will also rise to $360-400 million, with new sponsors like New Relic, Evan Williams, TuneIn and Papa Johns joining MasterCard, T-Mobile, Scotts, Bank of America and Chevrolet.

The Atlanta Braves are opening a brand new ballpark to likely push the league’s current best all-time gate attendance even higher; the Cleveland Indians secured a place in the World Series; MLB has just signed a better labor deal with players… the league’s prospects can only look up!

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