1912 Major League Baseball season. Harper's Weekly conducted a detailed accounting of the expenses of Major League clubs, and came up with a figure of around $175,000 to $200,000. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_Major_League_Baseball_season.

Here are the final stats:

Finish	Team	Manager	Top Batter	Top Pitcher
Champion	Boston Red Sox	Jake Stahl	Duffy Lewis	Smoky Joe Wood
Runner-Up	New York Giants	John McGraw	Red Murray	Rube Marquard
93 58	Pittsburgh Pirates	Fred Clarke	Honus Wagner	Claude Hendrix
91 59	Chicago Cubs	Frank Chance	Heinie Zimmerman	Larry Cheney
91 61	Washington Senators	Clark Griffith	Chick Gandil	Walter Johnson
90 62	Philadelphia Athletics	Connie Mack	Home Run Baker	Eddie Plank
78 76	Chicago White Sox	Jimmy Callahan	Shano Collins	Ed Walsh
75 78	Cleveland Naps	Harry Davis	Shoeless Joe Jackson	Vean Gregg
75 78	Cincinnati Reds	Hank O'Day	Dick Hoblitzell	George Suggs
73 79	Philadelphia Phillies	Red Dooin	Gavvy Cravath	Pete Alexander
69 84	Detroit Tigers	Hughie Jennings	Sam Crawford	Jean Dubuc
63 90	St. Louis Cardinals	Roger Bresnahan	Ed Konetchy	Bob Harmon
58 95	Brooklyn Dodgers	Bill Dahlen	Jake Daubert	Nap Rucker
53 101	St. Louis Browns	George Stovall	Del Pratt	George Baumgardner
52 101	Boston Braves	Johnny Kling	Bill Sweeney	Hub Perdue
50 102	New York Highlanders	Harry Wolverton	Hal Chase	Russ Ford