Boston's Teams Know How to Spend Their Dollar (Except the Red Sox)

Moneyball image via Yahoo!

According to a new study, Boston’s sports teams are some of the most efficient spenders in professional sports, so let’s just pat our fiscally prudent selves on the back and—what? oh, ha, just kidding, that should read “Boston’s sports teams except the Red Sox are some of the most efficient spenders in professional sports.” Yes indeed, the Celtics, Bruins, and Patriots all came in among the top 10 “Smartest Spenders” in professional sports in a new Bloomberg Businessweek study. And then there’s the Sox, who came in 70th place.

Businessweek used team budgets to calculate how much a franchise spends per win and then compared teams against their league averages to create an “efficiency index.” (They present the data in a cool, interactive format, so we highly recommend you check it out.) They ranked the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB teams both against their own leagues and overall. The Tampa Bay Rays, if you’re curious, come out as the most efficient spenders in professional sports. More locally, the Celtics came in fifth overall (second among basketball teams), the Patriots came in seventh overall (first among football teams), and the Bruins came in 10th overall (third among hockey teams.) Hey, that’s three teams in the top 10! Someone call Michael Lewis to gloat! Nothing to worry about here! What? Oh right, baseball. Sigh. Count this as one more reason we’re weirdly excited by this week’s salary dump trade that leaves the Sox with a lot more money and some minor leaguers. Baby steps!