The fast-approaching end to the Philadelphia Phillies' television rights contract with Comcast is the team's best hope for a quick reversal of fortune.
Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports analyzed the unique position the Phillies can exploit given Comcast's desire to keep them and Fox Sports 1's perceived need to add another East Coast team since the New York Mets and Boston Red Sox are out of play.
Then just recently, Ryan Lawrence of the Philadelphia Daily News put round numbers to the heretofore rank speculation of just what this deal might mean to the Phillies.
According to data from sportsbusinessjournal.com, the Phillies' current deal yielded them an average annual rights fee from Comcast of $35 million. It's not out of the realm of possibility that a new deal could be six times as large.
And it's highly probable that a deal would be in the neighborhood north of $150 million annually.
In the immortal words of Phil Rizzuto, "Holy cow."
That sort of money could buy the Phillies out of a lot of problems. Here is how they should spend at least some of it.
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