Winning cures everything. Yes, even the monetary woes of the world champion Arizona Diamondbacks.

	When Jerry Colangelo's D-Backs won the World Series, it catapulted the team into financial stability.

Despite dealing with millions in ballpark overruns, making two cash calls reportedly worth a combined $60 million and negotiating the deferral of more than $150 million in player salaries, managing partner Jerry Colangelo insists there's a clean slate and the Diamondbacks will be able to compete for a championship every year.

"The fact that we had the run we did, getting to the World Series and winning, actually put us in the black for the season," Colangelo said. "Each playoff game was worth about $1 million, add the food and beverage sales and the $15 million of merchandise we sold from September to December."

The Diamondbacks, whose operating losses last season were reported to Congress as $44.5 million by Major League Baseball, also helped relieve the majority of their long-term debt with a cash infusion in February. Colangelo announced last month that four investors, each of whom already had a stake in the team, would invest $160 million over the next 10 years, giving them a combined 50 percent ownership of the team by 2012.

"In effect, I've already sold the team," said Colangelo, who stressed that the deal enables him to transfer his title as managing partner at his discretion. "It was a perfect situation -- you take your run at it, you win it and you determine how the future ownership situation is going to unfold."

Thanks to the new money, the Diamondbacks are closer to complying with MLB's 60-40 rule, in which a team cannot have more than 40 percent of its franchise value tied up in debt. On March 7, commissioner Bud Selig informed teams that they must comply by June or face fines or loss of revenue sharing from the national broadcasting contracts.

"That might have been an issue before, but it sure isn't now," said Mel Shultz, one of the four investors, who also owns a piece of the Phoenix Suns. Rob Manfred, baseball's labor management lawyer, declined comment on the team's compliance.

In addition to helping solve existing financial problems, the World Series title helped set the stage for an improved future in a city where competition for the sports dollar is tight. This year will be the first since the Diamondbacks came into the league in 1998 in which team attendance has gone up, Colangelo said.

The team reportedly made $21 million in profit in its inaugural season, selling 36,000 season tickets and drawing 3.6 million fans. But the season-ticket base has shrunk each season since. In 1999, 9,000 fans elected not to renew their season tickets, reducing the base to 27,000. In 2000, the number was 24,000, and last year, the team's championship season, saw only 21,500 season-ticket holders.

Because of the rapid decline in projected ticket revenues, Colangelo, who had planned to build the team slowly, had to speed up the process.

"The only reason I had to change my plan -- which was going to be a four- to five-year, take-your-time, build slowly, Colorado Rockies-model -- is that we had a 25 percent season-ticket attrition after our first season," Colangelo said. "I couldn't afford to take that shot. I said let's go, and if we're competitive, maybe we can get it back. We just won a World Series, and I've locked in our deal (to sell the team) and it's done. That was a grand slam."

Last year Colangelo fielded a championship team by signing good but high-priced players. The team's payroll rose from $32 million in the inaugural season to $65.9 million a year later, mostly due to the signing of six free agents, including Randy Johnson, whose combined contracts cost $118 million.

In 2000, the payroll rose by another $20 million. But since the revenue wasn't coming in as expected, and the Diamondbacks weren't scheduled to receive any of the league's shared television revenue until 2003, Colangelo convinced the team's top players to defer millions in salary. That lowered the team's payroll by about $30 million last season.

But winning the World Series is paying great dividends. The team has sold more than 2,900 new full-season ticket packages, with the goal of bringing its season-ticket base to 25,000 again, said Dianne Aguilar, the team's vice president of ticket operations. More than 1,000 of the full 83-game packages -- ranging in cost from $500 to $5,800 -- were sold during the team's 2001 stretch drive, when the D-Backs offered any fan who put down a deposit for 2002 season tickets the opportunity to buy 2001 World Series tickets.

Single-game ticket sales are also up 70 percent year-to-date, Aguilar said, and that's with a 3 to 5 percent increase in ticket prices since last season.

"We're up $10 million from season tickets, mini-season tickets and new advertising, and that's in a soft economy," Colangelo said. Since the first week of November last year, the team has signed 20 corporate partners.

Although Colangelo said he has completed his franchise's financial turnaround, he remains somewhat bitter about how he has been judged over the past couple years.

"I led an ownership group to buy the Phoenix Suns in 1968, and we borrowed $1 million, which was half the cost of the team," Colangelo said. "At the end of the first year, I paid them back, and never again did they reach in their pockets. In 1987, I paid them $44.5 million for the team. One would have to say based on that -- and the fact that the Suns have the fourth best record in NBA history -- that my financial track record has been extraordinary. Why some people wanted to take shots at what we've done (in Arizona) amazes me."

One of those shots, Colangelo says, was that some in the media concluded that the Diamondbacks were hemorrhaging money based on the reports last August that Major League Baseball had to co-sign a $10 million loan.

"We needed Major League Baseball to stand by us (and co-sign that loan), but three weeks later they were taken off," Colangelo said, "so they didn't give us a penny.

"A lot of teams have spent money, but most often they don't get a return on their investment or you hear so much about those plans that don't work. Our plan worked."

Darren Rovell, who covers sports business for ESPN.com, can be reached at darren.rovell@espn.com.