why does the yankees have a deal with addidas but all other teams have the MLB choosen deal?

Question

What do you think individual teams should do their own deal.maybe smaller market teams can make more money, and sign more of their players.

Uniform deal

Answer 1

They first started their partnership back in 1997. Adidas made an offer, and Steinbrenner broke with the rest of the owners and went out on his own to partner with them. It led to them throwing him off the executive council, and MLB tried to ignore the deal. The Yanks and Adidas then sued MLB for their interference, arguing that they had every right to do their own thing given what they contributed, revenue-wise, to baseball:

http://www.courttv.com/archive/legaldocs/misc/yankees.html

They've now extended the deal through 2013, against the wishes of MLB. It's similar to Notre Dame having their own contract on NBC, or Michael Jordan's allegiance to Nike when USA Basketball had a different sponsor. The big dogs often believe they should be trated differently, even if it's at the expense of the smaller markets.

Small-market teams could do their own deals, but I'm not sure that it would really net them extra revenue. The Yankees are an exception to the rule of bargaining collectively on merchandise and licensing, and I think some of the smaller teams would be left with nothing but the bare bones.

Answer 2

I believed the Yankees own Adidas or one of the Yankees owners owns Adidas. everyone always talks about their payroll and fail to mention the luxury tax they pay to the league which it gives to the smaller market teams. Alot of people hate the Yankees just because of how often they won but they never bad mouth other teams or show up any players. they conduct themselves in a 1ST class manner. They are not out getting into trouble. They have a high standard they set for themselves and tried to reach it. mark grace was ask why he started wearing suits on the trips to away games his answer was he watch the Yankees comimg off the bus and all players were in suits and he was so impressed how classy they looked he started doing it himself. Staying on top is a lot hard than getting there. The fact they the Yankees haven't won since 2000 people will start looking at 96 thru 2000 team for how great that team really was. the best I ever watch in the 39 years I've been a baseball fan.