[chaddurbin]

IF you can get in (big if), there's no easier business in sports than being a small-market mlb owner. every year you're getting a big chunk of money from revenue sharing and luxury tax w/o even doing anything. as bill james, billy beane, theo epstein have shown, if you can get a sabermetric-friendly GM and a competent staff that's familiar with the modern measurables like WARs/VORPs/FIP/dERA/UZR etc you're already ahead of the curve. if you draft well and have a good minor league system you can keep churning out quality players at a controlled cost, even taking away some of their FA years with a pre-arb long-term discount contract. no need to overspend on FA busts you see bigger market teams make every year. once they hit their FA years you can always play the small-market team card and trade away for prospects and start over.

i'm oversimplifying it...but the model is there. plenty of teams out there don't even bother with the on-field product and they're still banking.