Imagining a World Where Derek Jeter Owns the Yankees

Though Yankees great Derek Jeter has kept his involvement with Major League Baseball to a minimum following his retirement, a triumphant return as an owner could be on the horizon.

Earlier this week, I wrote about Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner looking to refinance $1.02 billion dollars worth of debt incurred from the construction of the new Yankee Stadium.

Although the club is worth an estimated $3.4 billion, the cost cutting efforts of the front office have been in effect for the past two offseasons, as a limited number of impactful acquisitions have been felt on the field of play.

Now no one is saying the Steinbrenner family is hurting for money, but the tightening of the bootstraps has way more to do with simply wanting to develop the farm system and finally playing the prospects.

In May of this year, reports surfaced that the Yankees were looking to sell 1% of the team, for the fair market price of $24 million. Unbeknownst to the masses, there are actually 20 limited partners that own between 1% and 1.5% of the club.

Those shares change hands with some regularity as a matter of estate planning or investment choices. In 2015, a 1.5% stake was bought and sold, without anyone the wiser.

Here’s where the Steinbrenner boys’ penny-pinching ways may actually benefit the most successful American sports franchise of all-time. Maybe, just maybe, George’s sons will look to bring the one-time ‘Prince of New York’ back into the fold.

Of course, I’m talking about ol’ No. 2, the one and only Derek Jeter.

Before I get into the evidence that Jeter is primed to make the leap into the high-faulting world of professional sports ownership, let me broach this concept.

If you were Hal or Hank Steinbrenner, egregiously reluctant to sell Jeter even a minuscule single percent, you would, at the very least, have to entertain the idea of his inclusion, for fear you’d instantaneously become the pariah’s that drove every millennial’s favorite Yankee to become owner of the Tampa Rays.

Yes, Jeter resides in Tampa. And he might be able to purchase the entire team on his own merits (estimated value of $625 million according to Forbes) but come on, it’s the Rays!

While I’m all for building something in your own likeness, the Rays aren’t long for the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, mainly due to the tackiest Arena Football stadium on the Eastern seaboard. At a capacity of a little over 18,000, Tropicana Field averages 15,933 fans per night, ranking them dead last in all of baseball.

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I’m sorry, but unless Jeter laces up his Jordan signature cleats one more time, how would he, even as majority owner, influence this flailing organization to prosperity? The Rays have been steadfast in their attempts to solidify a land deal in both Tampa and St. Pete but have found no such luck with city or state officials to assist in public funding efforts.

Lastly, as to put the Tampa Bay rumors to rest, don’t compare this situation to the one basketball great Magic Johnson walked into with the Los Angeles Dodgers. That club is located in the City of Angels, has a population of 3.8 million people (unlike Tampa’s 353,000), and is flush with even more cash reserves than you guessed it, the Yankees.

I could care less that current Rays owner Stu Sternberg grew up in Brooklyn and still lives in Westchester; Sternberg’s already on the record saying he likely won’t sell any shares of the club unless the team fails to secure a new stadium deal. So why would Jeter want any part of this headache?

Which brings me to my next point. I’ve heard several people within baseball circles say that Jeter doesn’t know the first thing about owning a Major League team, so he should either take a minority ownership position or purchase a Minor League team much like Cal Ripken did with the Aberdeen Ironbirds.

I scoff at this notion. I’m sorry, but this is a guy who won a Rookie of the Year award in the same calendar year that he won his first of five World Series titles. Jeter doesn’t need to start from the bottom, I mean, now he’s here. See what I did there?

Jeter doesn’t have to prove himself to anyone, though, I’m almost positive he wouldn’t be opposed to it. Look at his success with The Players’ Tribune, the immensely influential Turn 2 Foundation, his 14-year relationship with the Jordan brand, Gatorade, and so on. He’s a businessman, and a successful one at that.

Let us now follow the timeline of happenings and direct quotes that will eventually lead us to the inevitable.

Before the start of his final season in 2014, Jeter told the YES Network’s Jack Curry:

"That’s the next ultimate goal, to be an owner. I would love to call the shots. I think I’ve learned a lot in my career, not only what goes on the field but I learned a lot from our late owner in how to run organization. I have a lot of things to learn but I would like to do that."

In 2015, at The Players’ Tribune Round Table Launch, Jeter spoke to The Sporting News about his goal of owning a team:

"I’ve always been vocal about that. Somebody said I was trying to buy the Buffalo Bills. … They keep associating my name with a lot of different places. Ultimately, that’s the ultimate goal. But there’s a lot of stuff along the way before that ever happens."

Then just this past March, while in Havana, for the historic preseason game between the Rays and the Cuban National team:

"I’ve always been very vocal about my next goal…to be part of an ownership group. … The first step is sitting next to that guy right there to our left [the commissioner]. I’m trying to get on his good side and hopefully get that opportunity."

Jeter is saying all the right things, moving his pieces in place like even the most veteran of chess players.

While accumulating nearly half a billion dollars during his playing career would only be a drop in the ocean to put towards an honest offer for a club such as the Yankees; perhaps he could call some of those celebrity friends of his, namely Michael Jordan, Charles Barkey, and Tiger Woods; see if they’d want to throw down on a piece of American sports history.

We talk about Jeter’s storybook career, the inconceivable accolades–like a home run for his 3,000 hit, a walk-off game-winning single in his final big league at-bat. But perhaps the next chapter, the most defining chapter, would see The Captain become The Boss.

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Because as the Jack Curry of the YES Network stated back in 2014, not only does Jeter want to own a Major League Baseball team, he would want to run it the way George Steinbrenner did. And I don’t know about you, but I really enjoyed the way George ran things.

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