The key num­bers in assess­ing the MLB’s eco­nom­ic for­tunes are its tele­vi­sion rev­enues: accord­ing to an anony­mous source who spoke to Forbes at the end of 2013, pro­fes­sion­al base­ball took in between $8-$8.5 bil­lion last year. In the last 18 years, the league’s gross rev­enue has increased by around 264 per­cent . The aver­age MLB team is now worth around $811 mil­lion , a 9 per­cent increase from last year.

With Yan­kee short­stop Derek Jeter’s retire­ment, the end of the Kansas City Roy­als’ lengthy play­off drought, and the year­ly shift to the play­offs, Major League Base­ball has seen an increase in nation­al cov­er­age late­ly, despite the NFL’s numer­ous scan­dals swal­low­ing up the bulk of most sports seg­ments. The uptick in atten­tion stands in con­trast to the more com­mon­ly-held per­cep­tion that baseball’s pop­u­lar­i­ty and cul­tur­al impact are dwindling.

Keep those num­bers in the back of your mind, then, when con­sid­er­ing that the Oak­land Ath­let­ics recent­ly reached a set­tle­ment with the US Depart­ment of Labor (DOL), agree­ing to pay $266,358 to 86, for­mer and cur­rent, team employ­ees — stolen wages from those work­ers. Accord­ing to the gov­ern­ment, club­house work­ers were some­times giv­en $70 a day regard­less of how many hours they worked, drop­ping their rate below the fed­er­al min­i­mum. Interns were also occa­sion­al­ly paid less than the required $7.25 an hour.

The Ath­let­ics’ set­tle­ment is the fourth of its kind to hit Major League Base­ball. The San Fran­cis­co Giants have been inves­ti­gat­ed for wage vio­la­tions twice: they paid out $544,715 in 2013, then $220,793 this year. The Mia­mi Mar­lins back wages totaled $288,290. The Bal­ti­more Ori­oles are cur­rent­ly being investigated.

As is usu­al­ly the case with pro­fes­sion­al sports teams’ own­ers, the heads of these teams accused of wage theft aren’t exact­ly hurt­ing. One of the Ath­let­ics’ own­ers is John Fish­er, son of the founders of The Gap and worth about $2.6 bil­lion. The prin­ci­pal own­er of the Giants is Charles John­son, worth $6.2 bil­lion. Jeff Loria, who owns the Mar­lin, is said to be worth around $500 mil­lion.

The MLB seems well aware that this prob­lem is poten­tial­ly wide­spread. After fil­ing an FOIA request, the labor news site Fair­Warn­ing obtained a memo from MLB’s commissioner’s office, request­ing that teams look into whether or not they are com­ply­ing by wage reg­u­la­tions. ​“The DOL believes that the issues it has iden­ti­fied are endem­ic to our indus­try,” the memo explains.

That memo was deliv­ered short­ly before the most glar­ing base­ball labor con­tro­ver­sy of the year at Wrigley Field this past August when the Chica­go Cubs attempt­ed to use an under­staffed grounds crew to cov­er the field dur­ing a rain delay in a game against the San Fran­cis­co Giants. After the game was called for the Cubs, the Giants protest­ed the rul­ing and were allowed to resume the game from the point it began rain­ing lat­er in the sea­son. It was the first upheld protest in Major League Base­ball since 1986.

After the tarp dis­as­ter, it was revealed that the Cubs had sent ten mem­bers of the grounds crew home before it start­ed pour­ing to keep their sea­son­al employ­ees under 130 hours, thus avoid­ing the Afford­able Health­care Act require­ment to pro­vide them with health insurance.

Despite their sto­ried his­to­ry of loss­es, the Chica­go Cubs made $266 mil­lion in 2013, putting their val­ue at around $1.2 bil­lion. The bil­lion­aire Rick­etts fam­i­ly, who secured their for­tune after the father, Joe Rick­etts, found­ed TD Amer­i­trade, own 95 per­cent of the team.

Eco­nom­ic analy­sis of pro­fes­sion­al sports tends to focus on teams’ pay­rolls and the play­ers’ while leav­ing out the thou­sands of work­ers who make the games pos­si­ble. Major League Base­ball appears to have a labor prob­lem. The ques­tion is, what is the league going to do about it?