How long before the credit crunch hits the professional sports leagues? Sports reporters don’t seem to appreciate the economics at play. An example from the AP today:

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Desperate for a closer, the New York Mets landed the top one available: Francisco Rodriguez.
Now, they have to figure out how to hand him the lead.
Coming off a record-setting season, Rodriguez reached a preliminary agreement Tuesday with the Mets on a $37 million, three-year contract.
[…]
K-Rod could fit in with New York in another way, too. Some take exception to his antics on the mound, and the Mets have drawn the ire of opposing teams for their boisterous celebrations.
The fact that several free-agent closers were available probably drove down Rodriguez’s market value. Coming off its second consecutive September collapse, New York got a boost as it prepares for its first season at Citi Field, an $800 million ballpark built adjacent to Shea Stadium.

This reminds me of those people who bought houses they couldn’t afford and then, on top of the mortgage, went out and bought furniture and plasma-screen TVs with credit cards or home-equity loans. The assumption of the sports teams was that revenues would always increase, like home prices. Oops. I don’t care how many saves he has, north of $10 million a year is too high in this economy.

These sports franchises are built on the credit bubble. The banks and car companies, the biggest advertisers, will have to cut back. If Americans won’t buy cars, then how in the world will there be money available to pay the salaries of these players?

And in other sports news, the New York Times is considering the sale of its 17 percent stake in the Boston Red Sox — an asset that Times management talked up in March of this year:

As the New York Times Co. contends with enormous pressure to boost its gutted stock price, one option available to the company would be to sell off non-core assets.
But during an appearance Tuesday at the Bear Stearns Media Conference in Palm Beach, Fla., Times Chief Executive Janet Robinson seemed to suggest that such sales weren’t a front-burner issue for the company.
Even as she made the requisite noises about how “we constantly evaluate our portfolio for both strategic fit and financial performance,” Robinson seemed to take a dim view of calls for divestitures.
Harbinger Capital Partners and Firebrand Partners, which have recently acquired a 19.3% stake in the Times and are fielding a slate of four candidates for the company’s board of directors, are reportedly calling on the company to sell off The Boston Globe, the company’s smaller regional newspapers and its stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team.

There used to be a Bear Sterns, right? If Bear Sterns wasn’t too big to fail, what exactly will keep the Times in businessl?