So before baseball gets around to setting new ground rules, if it ever does, Steinbrenner is mining every possible source of outside income for his New York Yankees. The arrangement will start slowly with shared marketing ventures. But you can see where this is headed. A global broadcasting network is a likely goal in the near future, with the bulk of the programming going to Yankees baseball and Man U soccer, two of the most popular sports entities in the world. The Red Devils' Web site draws eight million hits per day.
U merchandise flies off the racks in places like Singapore and South Africa.
Now that Yankee caps and jerseys will be displayed side by side in such exotic locales, Steinbrenner can truly say the sun never sets on his empire. The other 29 teams in baseball greeted this latest news with a collective shrug. Having been outfoxed, both on the field and off, in so many different ways over the past five years, they seem almost beyond outrage. I don't blame the Yankees. If we had the chance to do it, we'd do the same thing.