Baseball Trades Mean Big Bucks

With the 2008 baseball trading deadline expiring on Thursday, a few All-Stars have already called in the moving vans.

Former Cleveland pitcher CC Sabathia and ex-Atlanta first baseman Mark Teixeira are two big prizes that have already been shipped off, to the Milwaukee Brewers and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, respectively.

As teams with playoff dreams jockey to snag a big name and stumbling squads try to unload big contracts and start building for next year, it's easy to forget about the people who pay the players' salaries. No, not the owners, but the fans, whose ticket, concession and merchandise purchases help fuel franchise payrolls.

So how do the fans react when the best players in the league switch addresses?

The arrival of a new player, especially a star player, can cause an instant bump in ticket and merchandise sales. Sabathia's first start for his new team was a rare Tuesday night sell-out of 42,500. Normally the team draws about 34,000 on a Tuesday night, so in his first start alone, including estimated money spent on tickets, parking and concessions, Sabathia brought in an additional $238,000 in revenue, according to Brewers officials.

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