What is the (economic) value of the Most Valuable Player?

This morning I was thinking about the value of an MVP award in sports.  Specifically, I wondered whether two star players with similar stats over their careers would garner the same salary if one had an MVP trophy and the other did not.  Similarly, I wondered if a team with an MVP player would garner more interest, sell more tickets, and ultimately make more money than a team with a similar player without the trophy.  I am not quite sure how I would go about testing either question empirically, but it is something I will look into in the future…As I was checking up on my geeky fantasy baseball team (NL-only, auction, keeper, contracts, minor leaguers), I found that the Padres sent Anthony Rizzo to the Minors one day before he lost rookie eligibility.  He has 44 days of Major League service and the cut-off is 45 days (excluding September 40-man roster expansion service).  While I know, understand, and appreciate why teams wait to bring up a prospect to extend arbitration (http://phuturephillies.com/2011/05/13/domonic-browns-service-time-a-consideration/) I wonder if the cut-off for rookie status impacted the Padres decision at all.Taking a slight variation from the original questions I posed in this post: Does a team with a Rookie of the Year candidate garner more interest, sell more tickets, and ultimately make more money?  Was Anthony Rizzo's 44 days of service a coincidence or were the Padres trying to preserve his ability to make a run at next year's rookie of the year award?  As I said earlier, I'm not quite sure how to test this yet, but as the link above referenced, Dominic Brown of the Phillies had significant service time last season, but preserved his status as a rookie for 2011.  I'm just not sure that Dominic Brown is the driving force behind the Phillies selling out every night...