The thing which worries me the most is if YES and the team don’t end up with the same owner.  The current structure causes the Yankees to see a large fraction of the marginal revenue which comes from making the team better (excluding revenue sharing and minority YES owners….)  In a hypothetical future arrangement where the team makes a long term rights deal with YES, the short term incentive to spend to keep the team good might be a lot lower.

Yeah, that’s a concern, but it seems to me the team is a lot less valuable without YES.  I can’t imagine someone willing to buy the team without it, although I suppose it’s possible.

The Dodgers sold for a pretty penny, and the new owners didn’t get a piece of YES.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Steins tried to peddle the baseball and retain the media, or part the whole thing out individually.

Well, the FO unequivocally shot this down.

[4] Yeah, but I’m certain that the Dodgers price tag made some of the Yankees ownership wonder if they could top $5 billion.

The Dolans??????  Arrrgggghhhh!!!!!

It’s the collective bargaining agreement that worries me the most.  It passed without the slightest whimper from the Steins. Do you honestly think that would have happened if George were alive?  Maybe it is just growing pains but I could also see it as a sign that they aren’t as invested as their father. It was George’s passion and life’s work.  Maybe it’s not theirs.

I think they’re passionate about owning the Yankees. That’s the thing, though. There are plenty of owners who are THRILLED that they own a baseball team. What is rare and what George Steinbrenner was big on, is owners who are devoted to owning specifically a WINNING baseball team. That is where I think the two generations differ, because I agree, the elder Steinbrenner would never have let an agreement go by smoothly that would affect his ability to outspend other teams like this new CBA does.

Some of us have the impression that under the new CBA the Yankees would lose an additional $40 million per year via revenue sharing rebates if they go above the luxury tax threshold in 2014 ($40 million p/y above and beyond the luxury tax costs).  It seems this is overstated and may not even be true.

I think our ideas came from a Joel Sherman article partially posted here on Dec 4th.  But the posting omits the next paragraph from Sherman who estimates that going under the threshold for just 2014 would save the Yankees just $10 million from revenue sharing rebates ($40 million is Sherman’s estimate for cumulative savings from revenue sharing rebates, presumably if the Yankees stayed under the threshold through 2016).

You will be shocked to know that I am wondering if Sherman was a little overly enthusiastic about the Yankees reducing payroll.  Until we get to read the actual CBA (anybody find it?) we have to go on MLB’s own “summary” (http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/downloads/2011_CBA.pdf).  As we know, the summary says that the 15 large market teams will be disqualified from receiving revenue sharing.  The money saved will be refunded proportionally to the clubs that paid the revenue sharing “except that payor Clubs that have exceeded the CBT [Luxury Tax] threshold two or more consecutive times will forfeit some or all of their refund”

So if the Yankees do “reset” the luxury tax in 2014 they will receive full revenue sharing rebates in 2015 no matter how much salary they carry that year (2016 is a different matter).  I don’t see how even cumulative savings to 2016 rise to $40 million. And, until we see the actual contract, no one knows what forfeiting “some or all” of the refund means.

I still think it shows that the public and the fan interests were callously neglected in the structuring of the huge public contribution to the stadium.  The taxpayer money has created some actual disincentives for ownership to spend money on improving the team!

Is CBS Viacom looking to buy?

[9] I think I understood or believed from discussion here that they only need to be under the cap every three years or maybe every third year.