First of all why not be a little fair here. Iím old enough to remember the original stadium and was lucky enough to attend a number of games prior to the stadium being gutted after the 1973. Thatís right gutted. The current stadium looks nothing like the original; in fact the current playing field itself was lowed below street level. So get off the BS about how this is the same field Ruth, Mantle, Ford, etc. played on. The only accurate claim you can make is that the current field is in the same location as the original stadium and thatís where it ends, period.

Yankee stadium was taken away after the 1973 season, its gone get over it. Anyone who stepped foot in the pre 1976 stadium and is honest knows this post 1973 stadium is NOTHING like the old stadium. In fact the new stadium being proposed is much closer to the look of the original. Maybe this time they will get it right and capture the look of the old Yankee stadium.

Hereís the deal like it or not. There are two choices. A) the Yankees get approval to go ahead and build this stadium or B) they get jerked around enough that they say screw it and they opt for New Jersey. Either way they are getting a new stadium. The best option for everyone is for the team to stay in New York, but if they start getting jerked around enough youíll see a stadium being built in New Jersey in a heart beat. At a cost about $300,000 million less that what itís going to cost the Yanks to build it in New York.

As I stated, the Stadium has been gone since 1973 so get off the soap box about how this is some dark day because ownership wants to improve its product. I for one am looking forward to the new stadium.

I've been to both the old and new Yankee Stadiums, and I agree that the present one is a pale shadow of the original. That said, the new stadium unveiled yesterday would bear almost no resemblance to either, unless you're more interested in what it looks like from outside than what it's like to watch a game there. At least the current stadium retains the original grandstand dimensions; the new one would thrust the upper-deck seats much higher and further back from the field to make way for more luxury suites and concessions concourses. (I'll have photos of this tomorrow.)

And as for New Jersey, Steinbrenner has been rattling that saber for 20 years now. Isn't there a statute of limitations on crying wolf?

Actually, no, there isn't a statute of limitations on crying wolf. There was a report issued by the City in the late 90's that cited fan surveys indicating that almost 50% of Yankee attendees come from Jersey. So actually it would make a lot of sense to relocate there, downsize the facility, sell out the stadium upfront on a long term basis to Hummer owning suburbanaites, sell naming rights for untold gajillions, and laugh all the way to the bank.

Which is, no doubt, why the Yankees moved to New Jersey after failing to get a new stadium from New York in 1986. And 1993. And 1998. And 2001.

Look at each of the years you cited - do you notice a pattern? Maybe something that has to do with elections? The reason the Yankees didn't move had nothing to do with whether or not New Jersey was a viable option, but because the Yankees as political opportunists saw the prospects of getting a better deal, in both an economic and non economic sense by staying in New York. This was especially true of their years long pursuit of a West Side Stadium. As the number of sites within NYC that could house them has diminished over the years, the threat of them going to New Jersey has, if anything, gained legitimacy.

Filling a baseball stadium 91 days of the year is a lot tougher than a football stadium 8 days a year with the limited mass transit options available in the Meadowlands or wherever they would have built in Jersey. While the MTA is often misguided in its capital spending, I doubt they would approve an extension of the 6 to Hoboken.

That's a lovely rhetorical argument, but the same study that I cited above, as well as some of the studies flying around in the West Side constroversy, indicate that only 20-25% of fans take mass transit to Yankee Stadium. So, if you figure that of the 3.5MM fans that go to Yankee Stadium today, 2.6MM of them are already in their car, and the vast majority of those fans are in New Jersey already. The Yankees, like any business owner, have to find a balance between risk and reward. If a site in New Jersey offers you significantly lower costs, it is still a viable option even if you lose the small percentage of your fans who come via mass transit. The global point here, which this site continually overlooks in its overly simplified and often overly dramatized tabulations of "subsidies" to team owners is that while in a perfect world the Yankees would indeed pay for every single cost associated with them staying in the Bronx, the reality is that as a business there is only so much they can carry before other options become more appealing. The fact that they have been talked down from the City and State paying for half of the stadium in addition to all the other pieces of infrastructure, parkland, etc. was a significant accomplishment for the current political regime.

I remember those studies - they were done in the 1980s by the Yankees, by handing out surveys to fans entering the field level. So somewhat of a selection bias, since people in the more expensive seats are more likely to be suburban/car drivers. Anyway, Bob, given that New Jersey has repeatedly denied any interest in paying for a stadium for the Yankees (or even for the Giants, for that matter), and that Steinbrenner would risk not just falling attendance (been to a Nets game lately?) but plummeting ratings for the YES Network (would Long Island and Connecticut cable systems still carry them?), I don't think you'll find many in the sports industry who agree with you that Jersey is a viable threat.

Your memory has mislead you - the study I am referring to, "Home Base For Mets and Yankees Fans", was produced in 1998 by the New York City Independent Budget office. So much for selective bias. As for your point on cable systems in Long Island and Connecticut dropping the YES network...are you kidding? Since when do cable systems give a crap where a team is located? All they want are subscribers. Why would they drop a network that carries the lion's share of the games for the arguably the most popular sports franchise in the world??? Look at how many people jumped ship to satellite when they couldn't get YES on cable a few years back. Finally, don't give me generalities about "people in the sports business". The name of the game is contractually obligated revenues, not walk up ticket sales. While NJ may not offer the same bang for the buck in terms of sponsorhip opportunities, it ain't chicken feed either, especially in light of what would be a significantly lower cost structure. Your stated opinion is that many in the industry would not find Jersey to be a credible option, but your questionable grasp of the economics of the situation in question doesn't lend much credibility to that opinion.

I spoke directly in 1998 with Stephen Mark, the IBO economist who wrote that report. (He's no longer with IBO.) He told me those figures came from the Yankees. As for "lower cost structure," the price of steel isn't any cheaper in New Jersey; the main thing that would be cheaper is land, and Steinbrenner isn't going to be the one paying for that.

Well I certainly can not dispute a conversation you had 7 years ago. But if the data was good enough for the IBO its good enough for me. Re construction costs - it is actually substantially cheaper to build in New Jersey than in New York. Your quip about the price of steel misses the point entirely. Materials are typically about 45% of the hard costs of construction, with labor being about 55%. Union work rules in New York City are far more stringent than in NJ. In addition, building in the congested streets of NYC is far more complicated than in exurbs of New Jersey. For example, there are only a select few routes on which a flatbed carrying large pieces of steel can travel on to get into the City. Once they get here, there are is limited area at best for staging. Ideally the truck would drive up to the site and deliver the steel right to the guy working the crain - in practice this never happens because of traffic, etc., so you end up paying the driver of the truck extra money and your steel guys sit around waiting for product to be delivered. The same is true of any other trade - with concrete being particularly difficult to manage since it must be used quickly after being mixed. All of these little things add up to time, and time costs you money no matter what business you are in. So yes, it does cost less to build in New Jersey. Any other arguments you'd like to throw at me?

Well, I could point out that football stadiums are generally slightly cheaper than baseball stadiums, and that the New York Giants are currently looking at a $750 million construction cost for their new stadium in New Jersey - almost as much as what the Yankees are estimating for their new stadium in the Bronx. But I'd hate to interrupt a good narrative about flatbed trucks and concrete drying.