Yankees fans, some questions about The Boss

Factual Questions
1

Some random questions I thought of today.

  1. When did George buy the team?

  2. Whom did he buy them from?

  3. What did he pay then and what is the market value now? (estimates are ok)

  4. How did Steinbrenner make his money?

2

I’m not a Yankee fan, but:

Steinbrenner paid $10 million to CBS in 1973 to buy the Yankees. The market value of the Yankees is well … more … now.

Steinbrenner’s money comes from a shipbuilding business.

3
  1. When did George buy the team?

January 3, 1973

  1. Whom did he buy them from?

CBS

  1. What did he pay then and what is the market value now? (estimates are ok)

$10 million then. Dunno now.

  1. How did Steinbrenner make his money?

Ship building

4

A quick check of Forbes indicates a valuation of $849 million for the Yankees franchise in 2003.

5

Wow, that was fast. Colibri, I figured it had to be nearing a billion, thanks for looking it up.

Now a follow up if I may. How the hell did CBS ever get ownership? I realize they in turn must have bought them from someone else, but that doesn’t sound like the deal Turner has with the Braves. Where he owns the team in addition to the networks, instead of the networks actually owning them.

Or does Time-Warner somehow now own the team?

(Excuse me if this sounds a little disjointed, harvest season started last week and I’m getting about 3 hours of sleep a night. Hope you enjoy your table sugar)

6

CBS bought the Yankees from Dan Topping and Del Webb for a sum between $11 million and $12 million; in other words, a lot more than they sold the team for. (Topping still held a minority share for a few years after that.) Topping and Webb had originally been part of a consortium that had bought the team in 1945 from the Ruppert estate, Col. Ruppert being the man who had built the original Yankee dynasty. The plan was to use them as a CBS flagship product, but the team went to pot after 1965, becoming a lousy team for the first time in almost fifty years.

Whatever else you think of him, it’s hard to dent Steinbrenner reinvigorated the franchise; he put a lot of money into them, including major stadium renovations, after he bought them.

7

CBS bought the Yankees after the 1964 season I believe. Their ownership of the Yankees was a dismal failure. Unless you are a Yankee hater like me, in which case, it was a smashing success!

I believe the CBS ownership was the first corporate ownership.

Time-Warner does own the Braves now. They used to be owned by Ted Turner, but as he sold his assets to AOL/Time-Warner and so on, he got eased out and eventually removed all together from the ownership of the team.

There have been other corporate owners. The Tribune Company owns the Cubs. Disney used to own the Angels. Fox used to own the Dodgers.

8

Thanks RickJay and BobT.

While I don’t hate Steinbrenner personally, I hate the Yankees. (Though I wish George would buy the Brewer’s and goat-f*** Selig into letting him have 2 teams. He’s a pretty good owner)

Now I have yet more questions. (This thread wasn’t meant to get too long, but better to take care of it now than kill more critters).

  1. Were the Braves in some kind of incorporation that Turner had no choice but to give up the Braves during the merger? (This is my assumption)

  2. If not, why would he abandon a proven team instead of finding someone to take over the operations? He wouldn’t have to take time to manage all the aspects of the team, and I doubt the Braves are losing money in any given year.

self answers

  1. He had them inc’d to his empire for some tax/legal reasons and therefore were subject to the merger. (?)

  2. He needed some quick cash for another project
    -or-
    Didn’t really care about owning a team.

9

Stadium renovations, NOT! Crybaby George barely pays his rent and maintennance on the NYC-owned (and rebuilt) Yankee Stadium.

10

For a prototype of corporate ownership, look at what happened to the Cleveland Spiders in 1899, after the owners bought another club–the St. Louis Cardinals. They shunted all the capable players, including Cy Young, to St. Louis. The Spiders’ 1899 won-lost record tells the whole story.
I agree about the smashing success. The corporate groupthinkers wound up with a team that finished last in 1966–same as Durocher. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

11

Nitpick: George is the majority owner, not the out-right owner. I’m not sure what his percentage is. The other owners stay far in the background.

12

Turner “had” to sell the Braves because the buyer, Time Warner, wanted them. The Braves sale took place at the height of corporate enthusiasm for “synergy” between media properties and “content providers” such as movie and TV studios and sports teams. Time Warner wanted to own both Turner Broadcasting and the Braves, who supplied an important part of their broadcast fare. If Turner had insisted on holding on to the Braves, he would have gotten a much lower price for Turner Broadcasting (if Time Warner would still have wanted it at all) and he was too shrewd a businessman to do that.

Since then, the media conglomerates have discovered that there aren’t many “synergies” between running a baseball team and running a TV network after all. (“If you believe in the tooth fairy, put synergies in your business plan.”–Tom Peters) Disney and Fox have bailed, and it will be interesting see if Time Warner and Tribune Corporation ever see the light.

13

I don’t know about Time Warner, but the Cubs are a pretty valuable property for the Tribune Company and make a nice profit.

However because of restrictions imposed by MLB and because of obligations to show more WB programming, WGN, the Tribune Company’s superstation, can’t show as many Cubs game as before. And I’ve read that Comcast is going to be showing some Cubs telecasts next year.

So it could be that the Cubs are more of a “jewel in the crown” for the Tribune Company (despite the Cubs’ checkered history).