This makes me nervous.
Fortune magazine is reporting that the YES Network is for sale. I won't pretend to even begin to understand all the financial consequences such a sale would have, but it is definitely surprising, considering the tremendous success of the network, and its relatively recent vintage. It's out of character for the Yankees to sell off such a valuable property, both in terms of revenue and the ability to control the way the team is presented to the public. We can only hope that Hal Steinbrenner is telling the truth when he says that selling the network doesn't indicate that a sale of the team is imminent.
In the article, The Boss is described as "inconsistently lucid," and we are reminded that the Yankees' ownership situation is a gi-huge-ic question mark once he's completely gone. If Hal and/or Hank take over, we don't know how competently they'll run the franchise, or in what style. And if they sell off, God only knows who will be the buyer. It could be a maverick like Mark Cuban, who will run things in the style of The Boss. Or, it could be a corporation like Wrigley or Time Warner, in which case we can say goodbye to winning as the top priority of the organization.
The bottom line: I think we're all going to miss that crazy turtlenecked bastard a lot more than we realize.
