high-priced free agents<\/a> this offseason, including outfielder Cody Bellinger and Japanese starting pitcher Tatsuya Imai. But last year Steinbrenner said it would be \u201cnot sustainable\u201d for the club to continue having a $300 million payroll.<\/p>\nOn Monday, Steinbrenner said the Yankees\u2019 payroll could \u201cgo slightly down one year and then up the year after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean,\u201d he said, \u201cit all depends on what\u2019s out there and what the possibilities are, and how much I feel we\u2019re able or we need to pull the trigger on those possibilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/GettyImages-2178709557-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Hal Steinbrenner and the Yankees celebrate after the team beat the Guardians in the 2024 ALCS to advance to the World Series. (Mary DeCicco \/ MLB Photos via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Steinbrenner added that he hasn\u2019t given general manager Brian Cashman a budget, but that he\u2019d rather task Cashman and the front office with presenting their best ideas, and for him to ultimately decide whether he\u2019ll finance them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can talk before (Cashman) goes into Winter Meetings about a (payroll) range,\u201d the owner said, \u201cbut because it\u2019s a fluid situation, that range can go bye-bye in two seconds if there\u2019s a deal that arises that I feel would be very beneficial to some area of need that we have. It\u2019s hard to give you a number.\u201d<\/p>\n
A reporter then said he had \u201cseen it suggested that the Yankees\u2019 revenues were over $700 (million)\u201d in 2025. He appeared to be referencing Forbes, which said the Yankees had made $728 million in revenue. The reporter then asked if it was fair to assume the Yankees made a profit this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d Steinbrenner said. \u201cIt\u2019s not fair, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n
But do the Yankees lose money?<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to get into it,\u201d he said. \u201cBut that\u2019s not a fair statement or an accurate statement.\u201d<\/p>\n
A Yankees spokesman later clarified to The Athletic that Steinbrenner was saying that it wasn\u2019t fair to assume the Yankees made a profit in 2025.<\/p>\n
Steinbrenner also said it was important to consider the Yankees\u2019 expenses, and he referenced the yearly bond payment the club makes to New York City to finance Yankee Stadium, which was built in 2009. Steinbrenner said that alone cost $100 million this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all starts to add up in a hurry,\u201d he said. \u201cNobody spends more money \u2014 I don\u2019t believe \u2014 on player development, scouting (or) 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later during the call, The Athletic asked Steinbrenner directly if the Yankees didn\u2019t make money in the 2025 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to get into our finances,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rare for teams to discuss financial particulars in public. The Atlanta Braves are MLB\u2019s only publicly traded team. The Toronto Blue Jays are owned by a public entity, Rogers Communications, but the Braves are their own public company.<\/p>\n
With the collective bargaining agreement set to expire Dec. 1, 2026<\/a>, and with a potential battle between players and owners over a salary cap looming, Steinbrenner reiterated that he would be open to the idea of a cap \u2014 as long as it came with a spending floor, too.<\/p>\nHe declined to say how low the spending floor should be.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething that would be reasonable enough that it would improve competitive balance significantly in the sport,\u201d he said, \u201cwhich many fans would argue is not good enough. I think we\u2019ve made strides the last 10 years in some of the things we\u2019ve done. As an industry, probably not where we need to be at least \u2014 or at least that\u2019s what the majority of fans believe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 The Athletic\u2019s Evan Drellich contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner said he would prefer to spend less money on payroll next year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,3980,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-304657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-new-york-yankees","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}