Steinbrenner Oversaw 15,900% Rise in Yankee Value: Chart of Day

In George Steinbrenner’s 37-year tenure as owner, the value of the New York Yankees increased by about 15,900 percent.

The CHART OF THE DAY shows the estimated value of the Major League Baseball franchise increased to about $1.6 billion from about $10 million when Steinbrenner, who died today at 80, bought the team in 1973, according to analysis by Forbes magazine.

That change shows Steinbrenner’s success at using baseball’s free-agent market to transform the Yankees into a title-winning global brand, said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

“He was a trailblazer,” Zimbalist said. “He came along just before the era of free agency and he realized that he was in the entertainment capital of the world and there was a lot of commercialization he could do.”

The Yankees have won a record 27 World Series championships, including seven under Steinbrenner, most recently in 2009.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rodney Yap in Los Angeles at ryap@bloomberg.net

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