Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 237, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1912 — BUSINESS SIDE OF BASEBALL [ARTICLE]

BUSINESS SIDE OF BASEBALL

Fifty Millions of People Witness Professional Games Annually, Paying 115,000,000. The people of the United States spend approximately >15,000,000 a year to see baseball games. The total number of persons registered at all professional ball games during a season reaches 50,000,000, Current Literature asserts. So rapid has been the growth of baseball enthusiasm that—so we are told by Edward Mott Woolley—owners of baseball teams predict the time when the aggregate of baseball patronage, including major and minor leagues, will be 300,000,000. They believe baseball to be still In its infancy, and on this prophecy they are staking their cash in monster stadiums of iron and stone and laying out business plans to take care of their profits that they count up in the millions. As a business investinent, we are assured, baseball has United States Steel and all the stocks quoted on the stock exchange “beaten to a frazzle.” Baseball magnates, Mr. Woolley goes on to explain in Mo* Clurefs, pay salaries of >IO,OOO, >12,000, >15,000, even >IB,OOO to their managers and players. One baseball magnate paid no less than >22,000 bonus for the right to employ a slngje er. Baseball, we are told, la a business—a wonder business.