Category: New York Yankees

Back when New York Yankees execs were trying to tear down Yankee Stadium and get a billion dollars or so in public cash and tax breaks to build a new one in a public park, one argument was that moving the Bronx Bombers across the street would be a boon for local residents via all the new jobs it would create. While this was dubious from the start — Yankees attendance actually went down at the new building, in part because it holds fewer fans, and in any event the added dining and shopping options inside the gates only draw off spending from the surrounding neighborhood — it’s doubly so now that MLB has cut a deal with Nike that will apparently prohibit much team merchandise from being sold at local souvenir stores:

The agreement only allows the sale of official league merchandise at Nike “premium distribution points”, and therefore, would prevent several local retailers from selling Yankees merchandise outside of the stadium, which accounts for the vast majority of their revenue, according to [Borough President Ruben] Diaz.

I actually heard rumblings about the implications of this Nike deal a couple of months ago, but wasn’t able to confirm at the time which products would be banned for independent sale, or at which stores. Nike’s deal with MLB is for all “on-field apparel,” so would include replica jerseys and caps; presumably other Yankees-themed shirts and such would still be allowed, though other reports say the ban would affect all “officially licensed Yankees merchandise.” Nike has partnered with the online retail giant Fanatics for sale of its products, and Fanatics presumably doesn’t want Yankee fans buying Aaron Judge jerseys at Stan’s Sports World when they can order them online, though if so that seems to betray a fundamental misunderstanding of where and why sports fans buy team merch. (The Yankees, meanwhile, undoubtedly would stand to gain if fans were forced to buy jerseys from them instead of across the street, as then they could monopolize the market, jack up prices, etc.)

Yankees management fired back with an open letter to Diaz saying they agree with his concerns (if not his decision to go public with the matter, which is just so gauche):

The team said they immediately reached out to MLB with similar concerns when they first learned of Nike’s plan last week.

Quoting an email sent to the MLB dated Oct. 25, the team wrote, “Yankee Stadium is located in a diverse and one of the poorest communities in the United States. As such, the local retailers expend substantial time in developing their businesses, especially with respect to their ability to sell MLB licensed product.”…

The Yankees said MLB feels similarly and wants Diaz and all elected officials to know that the league is “actively working with Nike to resolve the issue and is very confident that our respective concerns will be resolved in a matter that will allow local businesses to sell Yankees merchandise.”

There’s some definite weirdness there — the Yankees only learned of Nike’s plan last week, when even I’d heard about it in August? — but clearly team execs at least are being responsive to the controversy. (And it does seem like this deal was concocted at the MLB level, so it’s not like the Steinbrenners started it, even if it took them a while to address it; for that matter, this is likely to be an issue as well in other cities with lots of local independent souvenir stands, not that I can think of a ton offhand — the Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox, maybe.) The hope is that the local media will continue to shine a light on this issue as the 2020 baseball season approaches — that is, if New York still has any local media left by then.

If you’ve been reading this site for long enough, you may remember the battles over the public parkland destroyed to make way for the new New York Yankees stadium, and whether the new parkland belatedly created was of equal size and usability. (Short version: not so much.) According to today’s New York Post, however, the subject is about to rear its ugly head again, as the city is preparing to take four acres of promised Yankees-related parkland and instead use it for affordable housing:

The area lost more than 25 acres of parkland after the Bronx Bombers in 2005 were greenlighted to build their new ballpark.

At the time, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. George Pataki and the Yankees promised to eventually create more parkland than was lost. But only about 21 acres of new green space has been delivered.

Killian Jordan, a member of Bronx Community Board 4, called it “spectacularly inappropriate” that the city would be dangling the hope of bringing the neighborhood much-needed affordable housing at the expense of losing promised parkland…

The [city-run Economic Development Corporation] said it is considering acquiring a 2.5-acre lot, five blocks south of Mill Pond Park on East 144th Street, to build another park there.

There is a slim chance that all this would be illegal, thanks to the fact that the old parkland was decommissioned on the condition that equal new park space be created. As we’ve seen before, though, the laws surrounding parks alienation are pretty weak beyond “enh, whatever the city council and legislature decides is probably fine,” so this is likely to come down to how big a fight council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito wants to pick with Mayor Bill de Blasio. And either way, all the parkland still hasn’t been replaced, 11 years after it was obliterated. It’s just a win-win for everybody!

The New York Yankees are spending tens of millions of dollars to upgrade their eight-year-old stadium to have better places to take selfies, because of course they are:

In April, they will join this budding ballpark trend, unveiling what owner Hal Steinbrenner described as more “family friendly” and “socially oriented” spaces at Yankee Stadium.

Those spaces include play areas for young children and different vantage points for ticket holders to mingle and, most important, take pictures, videos and selfies they can share on social media. The Yankees declined to say how much they have spent on the project, but, for other teams, it has ranged between $10 million and $60 million.

The actual changes are what we reported on here back in October: finally removing those notorious obstructed-view bleacher seats, adding some more places to drink alcohol and eat “specialty food,” and adding a “SunRun Kids’ Clubhouse” on the third level in right field that Steinbrenner said is meant to make “our youngest fans to feel as if Yankee Stadium is an extension of their local park or backyard.” If their backyard were on the third story of a giant shopping mall, indoors, and contained a six-foot replica World Series trophy to climb on.

What all this has to do with taking selfies isn’t clear, though I suppose people drinking at Yankee-themed bars are more likely to do that than to actually watch the game. Go read ESPN’s full report if you’re interested, as it also has info on what teams like the Cleveland Indians and Colorado Rockies have done in a similar vein, and throws around terms like “FOMO” and “FOBO,” so you can learn to talk like marketing executives think young people do.

The owners of the New York Yankees, facing slipping attendance during the team’s 4th-place finish and a growing acknowledgement that their new stadium is kind of crappy in many ways for watching baseball, have announced some tweaks to the building for next year, including replacing some of the notorious obstructed-view bleacher seats with new “patio bars” and adding a kids’ play area in right field similar to what the Mets have:

Three other lounge and patio areas will also be built. All the additions will be open to all ticket-holders.

The team also said it would make available about 2,500 seats per game at $15 or less.

This wouldn’t normally be big news — offering some discounted seats and additional amenities is common for a team seeking to boost attendance during a rebuilding phase on the field — except that it’s the Yankees, who have traditionally stuck to the line that such niceties as entertainment areas and being able to see the game from your seat are amenities that are beneath them. (The last major change at the stadium prior to this was to remove seats and add tables for rich fans to rest their beers on.) There was no immediate clarification as to which seats will be available for $15 (I wouldn’t hold your breath about “for less”), but at least some of the crappiest views will now come without quite such crappy price tags.

The Steinbrenners will presumably be paying for the renovations out of their own pockets, though again given that it’s the Yankees, we can’t entirely rule out them somehow trying to wheedle a tax break of some kind out of this. More news if and when it becomes available.

Like everyone else on the planet with a mortgage, the New York Yankees owners are looking around at record-low interest rates and considering refinancing, in their case on their stadium debt. The twist here is that it’s not actually their debt — in order to take advantage of an IRS tax dodge, the team had the city Industrial Development Agency issue bonds and pays them off with rent payments labeled “payments in lieu of taxes” — so they’d need the city to reissue the debt to take advantage of lower interest rates.

That could actually be tricky, since the IRS loophole was partly closed several years ago: Any new bonds would have to be paid back based on the actual year-to-year property taxes that the stadium would be paying if it paid taxes, not based on an annual flat fee. That would likely mean somewhat higher interest rates since bondholders like certainty in their bond payments, and could wipe out any benefit from a refi. Also, there’s a new mayor since the original stadium deal was put in place, one who might not rubber-stamp a new bond deal quite so quickly, at least not unless the Yankees, say, turn some of their unused parking garages into affordable housing that isn’t necessarily all that affordable.

And if you’re wondering why the Yankees need to save money on their bond payments, take it away, New York Post:

Shaving perhaps as much as $10 million annually from the stadium loans could make the team profitable, said a source familiar with the team’s finances…

The Yanks are roughly breaking even now. That’s just the team and doesn’t include other businesses, such as the YES Network or Legends Hospitality.

Now that’s what we expect from a business whose owner once hid profits by paying himself a consulting fee to negotiate his own cable deal. Keep on keeping on, Steinbrenners.