AP Alex Rodriguez

The question was posed to me over the weekend. Who loses financially if Alex Rodriguez did indeed take performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, as reported?

Is it Rodriguez? Of course not. He'll likely leave baseball as the richest player ever.

Is it the Yankees? Of course not. They're losing more from bankers eating their deposits now that they can no longer afford season tickets.

Is it Major League Baseball? Of course not. We've gone through so many names already and attendance still holds up.

Is it a little town in upstate New York with a population of 1,900 people? You got it.

Induction weekend has the potential to make up more than 10 percent of annual attendance. So you can imagine what happens if you have more weekends like you did last year with Goose Gossage (14,000 people) versus the year before when Cal Ripken Jr. and Tony Gwynn were enshrined (75,000 people).

Attendance at the National Baseball Hall of Fame broke the 300,000 mark this past year for the 11th straight year, but it barely made it at 301,755 fans and attendance was down 14 percent.

You can imagine how bad it's going to be when there are literally no stars to induct. Without pushing for a steroid wing (can you imagine an entrance with a giant asterisk?), the Hall is going to be hard pressed to keep their attendance streak going for long.

Forget about Sosa, Bonds, Palmeiro, Clemens, McGwire and now, perhaps, A-Rod? I don't know about you, but Andre Dawson, Roberto Alomar and Fred McGriff probably don't get me to make the inconvenient trip up to Cooperstown anytime soon.

• Subway Keeps Phelps
Questions?  Comments? 

POPULAR SPORTS BIZ POSTS

• 

• Twitter Fan Becomes BFF 

• 

• Victor Cruz ‘Understands’ Gisele's Super Bowl Frustrations 

• 

• Could Eli Manning Be A Better Endorser Than Tom Brady? 

COMMENTS

More Comments

 

« First | « Previous

Next » | Last »

Thank you for joining our discussion. Your comment has been posted.

ADD COMMENTS

Please Sign In or Register to participate.

In order to add a comment you must click here and accept our terms and conditions.

Edit Screen Name

Please sign-in/optin or register to be able to submit comments.

Remaining characters

CNBC welcomes your contribution. Please respect our community and the integrity of its participants. CNBC reserves the right to moderate and approve your comment.

Sorry, we are no longer accepting comments.

PREVIEW COMMENT

Your comments have not been posted yet.
Please review your submission to make sure you are comfortable with your entry.

Your Comments: