Fun Facts About The World Series

The World Series, also known as the Fall Classic, gets underway on Wednesday when the American League champion Detroit Tigers head to the city by the bay to take on the National League champion San Francisco Giants. Most fans will be focusing on what looks to be an exciting match-up between two clubs that were not atop many preseason lists of potential World Series teams. At the start of the season, the odds on the Tigers winning the World Series were 8-1,

. The odds on the Giants winning the team's second fall classic in three years were even longer at 18-1. Regarding economics, research from Dr. Michael Bernacchi of University Detroit-Mercy indicates baseball's "final four" – Detroit, San Francisco, the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Yankees – all had payrolls among the league's top-10. However, only the Yankees were among the top four teams overall in terms of payroll with a late September tab of $230 million. All that bought the Bronx Bombers a 4-0 American League Championship Series at the hands of Detroit. At least the Yankees can say they are baseball's most valuable. Citing Forbes, Bernacchi notes the Yankees are worth $1.85 billion. Impressive, but that also means the SPDR Gold Shares

is 40 times more valuable than the Yankees. Last year, none of the final four teams in this year's baseball's playoffs finished in top-four in terms of operating income, according to Bernacchi. By average ticket cost, it is almost $4 cheaper to attend a Giants game than a Tigers game, Bernacchi's research indicates. The two highest average ticket prices in the majors this year were Boston's Fenway Park and Yankee Stadium. San Francisco had the fourth-best attendance this year while Detroit was ninth, though both clubs topped 3 million. The Giants play in a stadium sponsored by AT&T

. Shares of the Dow component are 15.7 percent this year. Regional bank Comerica

is the corporate sponsor of the Tigers' home stadium. That stock is up 13.7 percent year-to-date. In 2011, the year after the Giants last won the World Series, shares of AT&T gained nearly three percent. In 2007, the year after the Tigers last appeared in the World Series, shares of Comerica plunged almost 25 percent.