[whoman69]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

I think there's more parity in baseball than there is in football. A lot more. How many times have the Steelers, Colts, or Patriots missed the playoffs? And the Yankees have won as many championships as the Patriots have over the past 20 years. The Yankees are a powerhouse, but no moreso than the NFL powerhouses.

If anything, Steinbreinner is one of the few things that kept baseball going. What killed attendance was the player's strike... popularity was artificially spiked by juiced up players hitting exciting home runs, then deflated after the steroid scandal. Like or hate the Yankees, they fill stadiums at away games, and people tune in to root against them.

I must have missed two of the Patriots five Super Bowl victories then. The Yankees have won more World Series since '96 than all but five other franchises have in their whole history. I must have also missed the football franchises that have won 27 titles in their history like the Yankees. Since '96 the Steelers have missed the playoffs five times, the Patriots four, the Colts three. The Colts only had one playoff appearance from 1978-1994. The Patriots were not a powerhouse franchise before 1996 having lost at least 10 games in 6 of the previous 7 seasons prior.

I don't think that outside New York you could make any sort of statement that Steinbrenner has done anything positive for baseball. He was at the forefront of the free agency movement. He skewed the payroll scale which cost millions for mediocre players who were judged in arbitration by what they could have made if they played for the Yankees. They made it so that many franchises were not able to keep their stars once they became free agent eligible, so were forced to trade them for prospects. Even before the free agent market they commonly bought players from other teams and the joke was that the Senators and Athletics were their farm teams.

The Yankees payroll is $40 million more than their closest competitor. Their payroll is more than total revenues for most teams.