Yankees Owner Cries Poor During Embarrassing Video Call

Yankees Owner Cries Poor During Embarrassing Video CallStory byTom CarrollTue, November 25, 2025 at 3:01 AM UTC·4 min read

On Monday, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner met with reporters via video conference.

And, well, he probably already wants this one back.

In addition to saying it would be “ideal” if the Yankees could lower their payroll, he also challenged the notion that his franchise made a profit in 2025, suggesting they lost money after Forbes reported the franchise generated over $700 million in revenue this calendar year.

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"I don't want to get into it, but that's not a fair statement or an accurate statement," Steinbrenner told reporters. "Everybody wants to talk about revenues. They need to talk about our expenses, including the $100 million expense to the city of New York that we have to pay every Feb. 1, including the COVID year. It all starts to add up in a hurry.

"Nobody spends more money, I don't believe, on player development, scouting, performance science. These all start to add up. If you want to go look at the revenues, you got to somehow try to figure out the expense side as well. You might be surprised."

This, candidly, is absolute B.S. from the son of the late legend George Steinbrenner, who famously spent more money than anyone over the course of his 37 years of ownership.

On licensing the Yankees’ logo alone, this team could bankroll a small nation.

Dec 21, 2022; Bronx, New York, USA; Hal Steinbrenner during a press conference at Yankee Stadium. (Jessica Alcheh/Imagn Images)

I’m not going to pretend to understand the numbers on a micro level. But on a macro level, I’ll offer a couple examples:

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- A buddy of mine just got back to the states after working on a film in Australia the last six months. We had him and his girlfriend over for dinner on Friday, and I asked him if he noticed that the locals were into baseball at all, since Australia is routinely mentioned as one of the countries internationally that has embraced the sport. My friend, a lifelong Sox fan, said with a tone, “Yep, and they’re all f****** Yankees fans.” Told me that when he would go on his morning runs, he would see no less than a dozen Yankees hats every single day, without fail. When he would wear his Red Sox gear around town, he would hear casual heckling - the same type you hear Boston fans give New Yorkers on the T if they dare wear an NY hat in the hub.

If this was my friend’s experience in Australia, what do you think this team is clearing financially in real baseball hotbeds like Japan, South Korea and throughout the Caribbean?

My guess? Well into the hundreds of millions.

- During a rain delay this summer at Fenway, I was chatting with an accountant for the team. I asked him how much money the team would lose on a rainout, given how much prep work is done food and beverage wise ahead of games, on top of energy costs, labor, and everything else that powers a park on gameday. He told me that on an average rainout, the team loses somewhere between $500,000 and $600,000.

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That number might be eye-popping, but let’s remember for a second that rainouts are all made up eventually.

With that said, my follow-up, naturally, was, “How much revenue does the team generate on an average gameday unencumbered by weather issues?”

He said depending on the opponent, the team is clearing somewhere between $1 million and $2 million on any given home game.

Good work if you can get it, I guess!

Oct 19, 2024; Cleveland, Ohio, USA; New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner raises the American League Championship trophy after the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians during game five of the ALCS for the 2024 MLB playoffs at Progressive Field. (Scott Galvin/Imagn Images)

Now use that number to realize how much money the Yankees are making during their 81-game home slate. We’re talking about a 10-15% increase just based on standard of living price increases alone, on top of the fact that Yankee Stadium holds about 10,000 more fans.

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So on a good day in the Bronx, we’re talking close to $3 million in revenue.

Do that 60 times in your 81-game home slate, and there’s $180 million right there for you.

Add in all the events Yankee Stadium is used for in a given calendar year outside of baseball, and you really have to laugh.

Steinbrenner suggesting his franchise wasn’t profitable in 2025 is to do one of the great self-owns in modern sports.

If he’s actually not lying (he is), it would be one of the great displays in the history of modern American business.

In an entertainment world that’s been controlled by IP for the last 15+ years, the owner of the New York f’ing Yankees should know how to turn a profit.

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Reading these quotes from Steinbrenner on Monday made me, for a brief moment, appreciate John Henry and the Fenway Sports Group.

…then I remembered the Mookie Betts trade happened and I went back to hating the guy.

Sports hate, of course.

Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.

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