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As I did the 'research' for the article, I was struck by how stagnant the M's value has been compared to the Angels. If MLB were like normal business, the M's would have been bought up years ago. Surely some corporation in the business of baseball would have been confident that they could do more with the M's market share than the M's have.
So how do the M's still have the same corporate leadership (Armstrong and Lincoln) in place after a decade of underperformance? Fans have complained about the baseball product, but we have usually presumed that the M's do well as a business. After looking at the numbers, it is now clear that the M's do miserably compared to their peers. Think about it. What other franchise in the AL has underperformed the M's as a business in the last decade? I'd say the Orioles and maybe the Royals. My only explanation is that the board of directors, blinded by the steady, but unspectacular franchise value appreciation, have remained blissfully ignorant of the general trends in the baseball industry and let the good ship Mariner sail forward rudderless.