Five Questions About The New Tax Law and Baseball Revenue

Let's begin by saying I am not a tax expert and don't have all the answers about the new tax law.   In fact, I have no answers but I do have a lot of questions about how baseball will be impacted by it.  Here are just some of them:

1. Will the cut in corporate tax rate help or hurt in terms of companies buying luxury boxes or blocks of seats this coming season?  I could see this going either way.  If the tax rate does give them more profit, why would they cut back on something like corporate seat purchases?  At the same time, maybe they gained some tax advantage by writing these seats off as a business expense that they don't really need anymore given the lower tax rate.

2. Will individual tax rate cuts give people more disposable income that they can use to go to Indians' games more than they do now?  I think this has to do with the product and the audience.   I feel that the people who will get the biggest tax cuts may already go to games but it is possible that even lower income families might go to a game.   Again, where people spend their disposable income is based mainly on what they like and can afford.   If they can afford more they will go to where they like more.  So, in Cleveland, I don't see this changing the Indians' attendance very much, if at all.

3.  Will the lower corporate tax rate help the Indians by giving them more money to operate their business?   Well, let's hope so and let's hope they put that money toward signing free agents and uber-talented foreign players, with heavy emphasis on the latter.

4. Will the cut in personal tax rate help salaries come down a bit?  I don't think so but you never know.   If your accountant says that $2 million will actually be worth $2.2 million in 2018 dollars maybe teams may get a small discount on free agents still unsigned around the start of spring training....but don't count on it...ever.

5.  Does this mean that beer will cost less at a game now since the beer companies are generally large corporations?  Yeah, big corporations always funnel their windfalls back to consumers (ROFLMAO).