The New York City Economy Tracker is a joint project between Investopedia and NY1, using publicly available data to evaluate the economic health of the city across a variety of metrics.
For the week of October 28, 2024, we’re looking at the impact of regular season and postseason home games of the Yankees, Mets, and New York Liberty on NYC’s economy.
Alice Morgan / Investopedia
Yankees, Mets, NY Liberty Projected to Generate Over $1 Billion For NYC
It’s playoffs season for a number of different sports in New York City, and fans across boroughs aren’t the only ones celebrating—local business owners, team employees, and even city economic policy makers are reaping some benefits.Â
The Yankees, Mets, and WNBA team New York Liberty generated nearly $200 million in economic activity from home games during their playoff runs, according to an analysis by the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC). The EDC’s analysis includes spending on tickets, concessions, merchandise, transportation, and lodging by visitors to the ballpark.
The combined total for regular and postseason games could be over $1 billion. For the 2024 regular season games from March to September, the EDC projected that the combined 162 Yankees and Mets home games would bring in an estimated $950 million dollars in economic benefits for the city. This includes $606 million dollars from games at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and $353 million from games at Citi Field in Queens.Â
In October, every home playoff game for the Yankees is projected to generate an additional $25 million dollars and every Mets home playoff game an additional $20.1 million dollars, according to the EDC.
Additionally, the EDC has estimated that the New York Liberty’s WNBA playoff run to their first ever championship in franchise history had an estimated economic impact of $18.3 million, based on the same metrics used for the Mets and Yankees analysis. The EDC accounted for the spending of nearly 24,000 visitors to downtown Brooklyn’s Barclays Center during the team’s postseason games.
Major sporting events in NYC have had a history of making a notable economic impact on the city. In fact, other analyses similar to the EDC have shown that events like the tennis US Open, the NYC Marathon across the five boroughs, and even Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium in New Brunswick, NJ created hundreds of millions of dollars in economic boosts for NYC.
Winning Teams and Athletes Earn Bonuses
Postseason wins aren’t just lucrative for NYC, athletes on the teams competing also get bonuses based on how successful their teams are on the road to the championship. For the MLB teams, this includes a cut of total ticket sales for all playoff games as well as some other concessions and related revenue. Last year’s world champions, the Texas Rangers, earned about $38.8 million split between the players and all other team employees. However, Yankees and Mets players and employees won’t enjoy this year’s World Series bonus as both were defeated by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
WNBA’s New York Liberty players also get a bonus for winning the title. However, their players only get an extra $20,825 each for their efforts. Despite record-breaking viewership and attendance at WNBA games this past season, players are still under a collective bargaining agreement with the league that was ratified in 2020. However, they expect to see much higher salaries and incentives with a new deal in the coming years.