Question: Do all MLB Teams have to lie about their finances?

Answer: Only before they get their stadium built.

In attempting to deny profitability, Florida Marlins President David Samson ends up stating obvious lies as I document in my posting [Why Silence is Golden]. But apparently, it doesn’t always have to be that way.

Pittsburgh Pirates Team President, Frank Coonlley, states the following in an April 18th article by Bob Biertempfel of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:

• The Pirates are profitable.
• The Pirates have chosen to broadly define “on-field performance” to include paying down team debt.
• Therefore, the Pirates don’t believe that using Revenue Sharing monies to pay down their debt violates the CBA provisions on how they must spend their Revenue Sharing monies.
• The Pirates expect to receive $35 million in Revenue Sharing monies in 2008.

Two things to note regarding the statements:

• No one who follows MLB finances will be surprised by the things being admitted to.
• All of the above is largely true of the Florida Marlins as well, except that the Marlins are accumulating revenue sharing monies to pay for their portion of the planned stadium constriction costs instead of the debt in the case of the Pirates.

Now Pirate fans can make informed opinions about their team’s ownership and their current actions vs their promises when they were attempting to secure public monies for a stadium.

I wonder what us Florida Marlin fans will get first, a completed stadium [opening 2011] or a similar admission as to the real use of RS monies?