Baseball head sees record 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Major League Baseball expects to set revenue and attendance records in 2008 despite the specter of a long-awaited report on players' use of banned performance-enhancing drugs, the commissioner of the U.S. league said on Wednesday.

Bud Selig told the Reuters Media Summit in New York that 80 million people will take in a game at one of the 30 ballparks in the United States and Canada next year, up from 79.5 million this year. He based his projection on comments from teams about the pace of ticket sales for next year.

"We've had this steroid cloud ... for the last four years, and every year we break all-time attendance records, and we'll do it again next year," Selig said, arguing that fans believed the league was serious about investigating the use of drugs. "Our gross revenues have exploded so that the sport has never been more popular than it is today.

"We'll do 80 million next year, I'm very, very confident of that," he added. "Our revenues will continue to grow ... It just is a reflection of how popular this sport is."

Total league revenue should top the 2007 mark of $6.08 billion, but may not match last year's increase of almost $1 billion, Selig said.

"I'm very optimistic, but this was an historic jump and I'm not suggesting that we'll do this every year," he said.

Selig's rosy outlook came on the eve of a report by George Mitchell, the former U.S. senator and a current director of the Boston Red Sox who launched a probe into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball in March 2006.

The report, expected next month, could be a public relations nightmare as dozens, if not hundreds, of players could be named, including top stars. Selig said he was unsure if the report would identify players.

Selig declined to say whether he would suspend players named in the report who received or used certain substances, including during periods when some were not banned by the sport. The league and the players' union agreed to adopt a tougher drug-testing program in 2005.

"We'll see what the report says," Selig said, when asked what he expected. "I can't speculate on that. I don't know, but I believe that people will say, 'Look, it was an honest and thorough investigation, and baseball didn't hide anything.'"

His comments also came nearly two weeks after Barry Bonds, the game's record holder for home runs, was charged by U.S. prosecutors with perjury and obstruction of justice. The government said he used steroids and then lied about it to a federal grand jury.

Selig declined to speculate on what actions he would take if Bonds was convicted, calling such talk unfair. But he suggested that the sluggers' problems would not reflect poorly on the sport of baseball.

"The Barry Bonds case will play out the way it plays out," he said. "The fact of the matter is this is something Mr. Bonds will have deal with and resolve, and this sport is moving on."

Bonds, who this past season passed Hank Aaron as baseball's all-time home run leader, had been the focus of a federal probe into whether he lied in 2003 to a grand jury.

As for his own status as commissioner, Selig reiterated he expects to retire in about two years.

"At the end of 2009, I'm going to be 75, and I think I'm entitled to a different kind of life," he said.

Selig said at the Reuters Media Summit last year he believed he would retire in 2009, when his contract expired.

(Additional by Franklin Paul; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

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