Bleacher Creature Feature

#9: Just Say No to YES

30 April 2002

Lots of posturing has gone back and forth on the subject, but ultimately what it boils down to is a bad business decision by George Steinbrenner, who let greed get in the way of good common sense.

Let's look at the progression of events here.

The vast majority of Yankee games were carried on MSG -- a fine network that is built on New York sports. They carry the Knicks, the Rangers, the Liberty, and the MetroStars, in addition to the Yankees. But the Yankees -- by dint of being the Yankees, as well as the sheer length of the baseball season in comparison to that of the NBA, NHL, WNBA, and MLS -- were the centerpiece.

The Yankees decided they didn't want to continue with MSG. Never mind the fact that the contract with MSG was by far the most lucrative TV deal of any team in baseball. The Yankees wanted more -- or, more precisely, YankeeNets, the corporate entity overseen by Steinbrenner that controls both the Yankees and the Nets, wanted more. So they pulled Yankee broadcasts from MSG and formed Yankees Entertainment and Sports, or YES. They promised advertisers that they would be on every cable system in the New York City area by Opening Day.

Opening Day came and went, and millions of New York City area fans were bereft because neither Cablevision nor Dish are carrying YES.

And Steinbrenner should've seen that one coming a mile off.

Cablevision and MSG are both owned by Charles Dolan. Steinbrenner has just cut the guts out of Dolan's channel. MSG was built around the Yankees. Without the Yankees, MSG is a shadow of its former self -- especially with the Knicks and Rangers in a tailspin. Yes, the Mets -- who were aired on MSG's sister station, Fox Sports New York -- are now on MSG, but the Mets have never been the draw the Yankees are, and aren't likely to be any time soon. Besides, Dolan already had the Mets, he's just moved them to another station. But the Yankees took their ball and went home.

So what possible motivation does Dolan have to make things easy on Steinbrenner?

Of course he's going to drag things out. He's been screwed. He can either say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?" or he can screw right back.

And time is not on YES's side. See, there's the matter of those advertisers. The longer YES isn't on Cablevision or Dish, the worse things get. After all, the ads bought on YES were based on the anticipation of a viewer base that is several million short of reality. This, in an ad market that's already crummy on a station that is the textbook definition of "niche market." MSG has very limited appeal in the first place, and YES's is even more so, as it's basically a Yankees propaganda machine. YES is probably going to have to shell out a bundle in make-goods and drop their rates unless and until the situation changes. There's no indiciation that that change will come any time soon. Cable channels live and die on ad revenue, and YES will continue to take a hit on that as time goes by.

Remember the XFL? They promised advertisers a viewership that nowhere near matched reality. They had to do a ton of make-goods, viewer interest continued to plummet, and the XFL died in a sea of over-hype and no returns. I have a bad feeling that YES may go the same way.

What's most aggravating about all this is that the Yankees' TV coverage wasn't broken, and is being badly fixed. On MSG, the Yankees had Michael Kay doing pre- and post-game interviews and analysis, which is his strength. On YES, Kay is doing play-by-play, at which he sucks rocks (at least he's not doing it on the radio anymore). On MSG, Al Trautwig subbed on play-by-play and did post-game with Kay. On YES, there's no Trautwig, as he's still with MSG, and it's being handled by Suzyn Waldman, whose strength is play-by-play; she sucks at analysis, as she has no objectivity. Worse, YES employs Bobby Murcer, who is the biggest imbecile ever to sit behind a microphone. At least Jim Kaat and Ken Singleton are still there....

Dish has chosen not to carry YES because they'd have to charge their viewers an extra $4/month to pick it up, and they don't want to screw their customers. Several Yankee fans have urged us to just switch to DirecTV -- which does carry YES -- but why should we do that? We are very happy Dish customers, and see no reason to deny a fine satellite service our patronage over this.

Look, I've got no love for Cablevision. I lived in Manhattan for eight years, and was very happy with Time Warner Cable. I moved to Weehawken, where the house I lived in had Cablevision, and the owners and I agreed to get Dish because we were sick of how much Cablevision sucked. When my girlfriend and I moved to the Bronx, we lasted about three months with Cablevision before we got totally fed up with overpriced crappy service, and got the Dish Network.

But I've got no love for YES, either. The network was formed in an effort to make more money at the expense of the fans of the game, and I can only hope it'll bite them on the ass sooner or later.

The real question is whether or not the Red Sox are a real threat. Will Pedro remain dominant, or will his torn labrum come back to haunt him? Is the Derek Lowe who threw the no-hitter what we can expect from Lowe as a starter? Can the rest of their rotation hold together? Is this the real Shea Hillenbrand, or will he revert to his 2001 form ere long? If the latter, can the Sox afford to keep giving at-bats to offensive black holes like Rey Sanchez, Jose Offerman, and Carlos Baerga? What if someone (anyone) gets injured?

That last is the kicker. The Yankees are prepared for injury. Andy Pettitte's elbow is acting up, but the Yankees have Ted Lilly to fill in. When Rondell White has his yearly sojourn to the DL (and there will be one, you can count on it), the Yanks have Shane Spencer, John Vander Wal, and either Marcus Thames or Juan Rivera to fill in. They have outfield depth for the first time in a long time -- hell, they have a real left fielder for the first time since the days of Steve Kemp and Mel Hall. A team with Vander Wal as their primary outfield backup is in much better shape than a team with Clay Bellinger as their primary outfield backup.

Besides -- it's easy for Boston to be in first place in April.....

NEXT: Notes on a Sunny Sunday in May

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