Tuesday Rockpile: The Not-All-Star Team

“…. there’s a place in france where the ….” /wobble

“….there’s a place in france where the nak..[murmur]” /wobble

…..

“OUT HERE IN THE FIELDS”

I said I figured you smarter because you are…

doesn’t make him “visionary”!

If any company doesn’t invest profits into bettering it’s product, it usually fails. Not ground breaking stuff.

It’s not always record breaking profits or “OMG we’re in the red!”

The team had plenty of revenue begin with. It had to be a good buy with potential to increase profits. A good business man would have seen that…Steinbrenner was a good business man.

Both are seen as the working class representatives for those cities in question, as well as being the lesser liked of those cities.

In other words, they don’t have the same fan base.

Does he have the ability to do that outside a NY market/resource base?

It’s a question more than an argument.

Nobody else has been able to do it. Nobody’s done the same with KC or Pittsburgh, but Ted Turner was able to achieve some semblance of Steinbrenner’s success in Atlanta, which, at the time, was a lot closer to Pitt or KC’s market than NY, LA or Chicago.

There is plenty of Yankee/Steinbrenner hate around here. Plenty.

You’re retroactively minimizing the accomplishment because a lot of what he did is now standard practice. But it wasn’t when he started doing it. Most of it hadn’t ever been done.

There is no such thing as Yankee love around here—that is, unless you say you hate the Yankees.

But I respect what he did

The Yankee/Steinbrenner love around here is interesting

Do you read any of my posts? :-)

You all have played so nicely in my absence.

Actually, if I could rephrase it using your terminology, I would argue that he was a little bit of both. A little bit of the genesis but CERTAINLY in the right place at the right time. And that’s not a bad thing.

Countless great business transactions have occurred by being in the right place at the right time. I don’t see this as being much different. And as far as him being the genesis, well sure, I’ve never said that he had NOTHING to do with their success. He very well could have been Frank McCourt. But he’s not. He had some good business sense. Doesn’t make him Yoda.

Take any team outside of Chicago and throw out of the argument. 40 years ≠ 100+. 40 is a long time no doubt, but it still doesn’t transcend how long the Yankees have been around.

Chicago: I think Thnikkaman nailed it when he talked about the Sox typically appealing to the blue collar “working class”. And there’s nothing wrong with that approach, nor target market. But that’s also what makes them NOT the Yankees. Sure they might have same storied traditions, and length of existence, but would never have the revenue base simply because the pockets of the fan base will never be as deep. THAT’S NOT SAYING THAT BLUE COLLAR PEOPLE DON’T LIKE THE YANKEES OR THAT INDIVIDUALS OF WEALTH DON’T LIKE THE SOX. I apologize for the caps, but it’s too easy in these types of discussions to take absolute values to avoid addressing what is inherently the point. What does this have to do with my original point? On equal footing at the time of purchase, the Yankees certainly represented more of a “turn key cash register” and it wouldn’t take an obscene business IQ to see that. To see some of the potential…sure. I’ll give him above average marks on his foresight.

As far as the Cubs: The only reason the Cubs aren’t as successful as the Yankees, in my opinion, is that the Cubs have been wallowing with below average ownership. Had the Cubs been for sale instead of the Yankees, I don’t doubt that the “Steinbrenner Model” would have worked for them as well.

As far as the YES Network, I’ll concede that it was good business decision, in my 1st post I acknowledged this as be the 2nd best decision (albeit a distant 2nd to purchasing the team), but I won’t call it “visionary”. The idea of exclusive broadcast rights had been around for years (see: WGN, TBS, et. al.). Steinbrenner took that idea and manipulated it for his own benefit. By creating his own network and giving exclusive broadcast rights to it, he could hold the cable companies hostage to carry the network for his gain. He took an existing idea and improved on it. Hardly revolutionary…in fact, it was almost head slapping at how obvious it was. Maybe the only reason it hadn’t been done previously is because at the time, it seemed a bit shady. Of course now we have, the BTN, NFL, MLB, et. al because of him. Pioneer, sure. Visonary, eh…

My main and general point has always been: Steinbrenner was a good, and even great at times, businessman. I don’t think he was a revolutionary/visionary.

He didn’t create good business sense/principles, he applied them to owning a sports franchise. And outside the above YES example, he took good ideas and improved on them. Putting spokes on a wheel to make it lightweight doesn’t make you a “visionary”.

I’m going to have to get to your other points separately, after all…this is getting lengthy.

I am a D-bag…just cant resist assuming every one thinks like meeeeee.