NY Yankees merchandise is a lot more popular than ever now that The Boss has left the stadium. Many are the opportunities – in fact, much more numerous than ever before, it would seem, as a casual glance around online and off suggests – to sell everything from an NY Yankees flag to a NY Yankees clock, only now with Steinbrenner’s own mug along with the team logo.
Indeed, a disinterested observer might even mistake him for the Yankees mascot, given the ubiquity of images since his passing! NY Yankees merchandise is a big business, and it was Steinbrenner himself who made it so. Like no other club owner, he turned an already storied brand into a literal franchise, complete with its own cable television channel.
Steinbrenner revolutionized the business of baseball by being the very first owner to capitalize on other methods of making money beyond the games themselves. Under his stewardship, the NY Yankees went from a ten million-dollar outfit to one worth over a billion.
The business of the Yankees might now change under the helm of his two sons, particularly Hank, who is said to resemble his father very much in temperament. But merchandising deals are expected to proceed as they ever have, with a slew of goods bearing the famed team logo and cap insignia – and now, for a while yet at least, the face of the man who has been most often associated with the ball club for nearly four decades.
Indeed, it would be fitting should he become a brand in himself now, as in some ways he almost was in life. Charismatic CEOs transcend their companies, and one wonders whether The Boss himself might be looking down on his most successful business venture this very moment, even as he was wont to do in life.