The Yankees are known for their profuse spending habits. In the modern era they buy whatever and whoever they want. Historically this has also been true but to a much lesser degree, infamously starting with their purchase of Babe Ruth from the Red Sox. Stadium and players alike lets take a look at what some historical expenditures of the Yankees would cost today.
The historical numbers and figures are courtesy of mlb.com and ballparksofbaseball.com.
In 1913 the New York Yankees signed a 10 year lease to play at the Polo Grounds, the stadium of the New York Giants. The two teams co-existed for the next seven years. However in 1920 the Yankees bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox for $100,000 in what was to become known as the worst trade in baseball history (for the Red Sox), and also sparking arguably the greatest rivalry in sports. $100,000 in 1920 was an exorbitant amount of money for an athlete, but when you put the numbers into today’s terms, its really not that bad.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator, $100,000 in 1920 is approximately equivalent to $1,147,390 today. This is still a lot of money, put it pales in comparison to the $275 million the Yankees agreed to pay A-Rod.
After buying Ruth Yankee attendance skyrocketed, and they became the first team to attract over 1 million fans. In 1921 the Giants asked the Yankees to vacate the Polo Grounds as soon as possible, as they were now outdrawing their landlords. Yankees co-owners Colonel Jacobs Ruppert and Colonel T.L. Huston bought 10 acres of land in the Bronx from the estate of William Waldorf Astor for $675,000. According to the CPI inflation calculator the land for Yankees Stadium cost the owners about $8,653,500 in today’s money. Although this is adjusted for inflation, someone needs to figure out a formula to adjust for the current popularity of pro sports because the numbers still seem ridiculously low!
On May 5, 1922 the construction contract for the new stadium was awarded to New York White’s Construction Company. In the deal it stated that construction must be completed for $2.5 million, and by opening day April 18, 1923. The job was done in time and for budget. Yankee Stadium at the time was the “largest and most magnificent stadium in baseball” according to ballparksofbaseball.com. The construction took 284 days to complete and again according to the CPI inflation calculator the $2.5 million price tag would cost approximately $32,050,000 today. This adjustment does not appear to be reasonable especially not after you look at the cost of the current Yankee Stadium.
New Yankee Stadium was financed by the organization for $1.6 Billion dollars. Not only that, but New York City also invested $220 million of its own money in infrastructure improvements in the area. Now New Yankee Stadium is obviously technologically superior to the one built in 1923, but if all things are relative how does it cost $968 million dollars more? Were our turn of the century ancestors better businessmen, faster builders, and just all around more efficient? Or is there a factor left out of the CPI inflation calculator? I don’t know but the number discrepancies are pretty astounding.
More recent examples are available and still just as out of whack. In the 1970’s old Yankee Stadium needed a makeover. Then New York City Mayor John Lindsay announced that the city would buy Yankee Stadium for $24 million in 1972 and fix it up. According to the inflation calculator the city got a deal in today’s terms, owning possibly the most valuable piece of baseball history for what would cost in today’s dollars $131,757,703.
That same year Steinbrenner bought the team, and we all know where the spending went from there!
