News broke this week that the Big Bang Theory leading triumvirate, Jim Parsons (Sheldon), Kaley Cuoco (Penny), and Johnny Galecki (Leonard), reworked their salaries to net them $1 Million per episode–roughly what Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Zack Greinke makes per start. The Big Bang Theory stars also negotiated their way to 1.25% of the show’s ownership, which spells long-term payoff as the sitcom stampedes towards syndication heaven.
These high salaries struck me as outlandish and insane. Sure, the Big Bang Theory is a good show and Jim Parsons’ character will live in pop culture for the foreseeable future, but $90-$100 Million over the next three years? And so, with only my limited knowledge of TV economics, I delved into a murky soup-world of viewership ratings, MLB salaries, Kaley Cuoco, and Clayton Kershaw, in an attempt to understand these numbers. I’m not sure that I’ve reached the epiphany just yet (is there a plane of enlightenment where $90 million over three years ever makes sense?), but have found some interesting kernels worth sharing.
First, we have to understand where The Big Bang Theory stands in its place among TV comedies. We know we would never pay Jake Arrieta like an all-time Ace, so paying Jim Parsons so handsomely only makes sense if the show is among the best in its arena. Last season, The Big Bang Theory was watched by an average of 19.96 Million viewers. That ranked at the top of the viewing totals, just behind Sunday Night Football. The number marked the highest in The Big Bang’s 7 season run, but ranks lower than every season of Friends. So, it seems like Big Bang is the best in the game right now, but is a long way off from Legend status.
This is a mostly baseball blog so we need a good baseball comparison. Big Bang to Clayton Kershaw and/or Felix Hernandez seems unfair as both pitchers are heading to Legend status and I’m not confident that Big Bang is on that path, or will ever near that path.
Zach Greinke’s not necessarily the best pitcher in baseball right now. He might not even be in the top 10; his fWAR ranks him 20th on the season, but 5th since the start of 2008. However, Greinke is an established star capable of big things, and a reliable performer. A better comp might be David Price, but MLB’s complicated salary structure makes Greinke easier to handle.
Greinke is making $28 Million this year, making him the highest paid player in baseball. He’s on pace to make 33 starts. This factors out to about $850,000 per start. My first inkling is to consider TV viewership for the 33 starts the Greinke makes this year, though that’s a very imperfect system. The Dodgers signed a big exclusive TV contract this winter, but as of July had yet to finalize deals to reach some 70% of the Los Angeles market. As a result, only about 40,000 households are watching Dodgers games this year. Even if we take 2013 totals, 154,000 viewers per game makes it look like Greinke is far more expensive than Johnny Galecki (Leonard).
Those are only local TV audiences. What about Sunday Night Baseball? That has to be a more accurate reflection of people who actually watch baseball games. ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball viewership is up to nearly 2 Million viewers. Still, Galecki looks like a bargain.
But, I’ve come to the realization that comparing TV actors’ salaries and MLB players salaries based on TV viewership isn’t a fair method. (This should have been obvious given the many other revenue streams for MLB teams, including attendence, merchandise, food, and parking, but it takes some of us longer to get there.)
Instead, let’s compare apples to apples. The Big Bang should be compared with other TV Shows. House’s Hugh Laurie made $700,000 per episode in the last season of the show and they averaged just 8.69 Million viewers (down from 19.95). The 6 Friends stars each made $1 Million per episode over the show’s last season (something like $1.38 Million in 2014 dollars), but we already agreed that Friends is in a different category.
The Big Bang deal may look like an overpay now, but may pay off if the show can climb into Legend status. There is a precedent for TV’s most popular stars to make this much money. The bigger issue at hand is that we, the general public, are so surprised by the salaries because we don’t yet consider The Big Bang to be at the top.
In a way, then, the show is more like Evan Longoria. Quietly, he’s the best in the game and signed to a deal that pays him handsomely. It may turn out that this deal turns to gold for CBS as the Evan Longoria deal did for the Rays, but it may turn out that Big Bang is already on the wrong side of the age curve. Have people lost interest? Surely not; they’ve got a baseball blogger talking Kaley Cuoco and Nielson Ratings. But paying for future production is always a risky proposition. Just ask the Phillies.
-Sean Morash
Stat of the Day: Since 2008, Evan Longoria has the highest WAR in the Majors.
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