The gap between the two clubs halved on the Forbes list in one year, yet the Yankees still rose 4%. Both facts are good news for the brand: the second-ranked team is growing quickly, and the first-ranked team has not stopped growing.
What makes the Yankees' visual identity so consistent?
The Yankees' visual identity stays consistent because the club has held three elements fixed for decades: pinstripes, permanent uniform numbers and jersey backs without player names. Wikipedia's history of Yankees uniforms dates each element.
Three fixed elements of the Yankees uniform
| Element | When it became permanent | What happened |
|---|
| Pinstripes | After 1915 | The team added pinstripes briefly in 1912, then made them permanent soon after Jacob Ruppert bought the club in 1915. |
| Uniform numbers | 1929 | The Yankees became the first team to make numbers a permanent part of the uniform. |
| Blank jersey backs | 1960s onward | Other teams began adding names in the 1960s and the Yankees did not follow. |
The club has offered no official explanation for the blank backs in the sources reviewed for this page. Commentators commonly read the choice as a team-first signal, and that reading fits the other two elements.
EPR's reading is that a look that never changes lowers the cost of every partnership and every product, because a sponsor or licensee borrows an identity that already exists. It also makes the changes the club does choose to make easy to notice, which is what happened with the beard policy in 2025.
How does the YES Network support Yankees marketing?
The YES Network gives the Yankees control over how their games, shows and history reach fans at home. In 2019 a group that included the club's parent company, Sinclair and Amazon bought Disney's 80% stake in the network at a total enterprise value of $3.47 billion, according to Axios' report on the sale.
Yankee Global Enterprises, the club's parent company, took a 26% stake in that deal, the largest single holding. Sinclair's Diamond Sports Group took 20% and Amazon took roughly 15%, per the same report and Sports Video Group's coverage. Those holdings were as of 2019, and ownership may have changed since then.
Sports Video Group's purchase report lists what the network carries: 128 regular-season Yankees games a year, pre-game and post-game shows, the biography series Yankeeography and Yankees Magazine. Randy Levine, the Yankees' president, said in that report that YES had set the gold standard for regional sports coverage.
The network's rights agreement with the Yankees runs through 2042, according to a Sports Video Group report from 2012. The mechanism for marketing is simple: a team that owns part of its own channel decides how its stories are scheduled, framed and repeated, and it holds an ownership stake in the network that carries them.
How does HOPE Week work as public relations?
HOPE Week works as public relations because it puts the Yankees' players and staff into the communities of inspiring people for five consecutive days, then brings those people into Yankee Stadium. The program started in 2009 as the idea of Jason Zillo, the Yankees' vice president of communications and media relations, according to MLB.com's 2026 award report.
What has HOPE Week produced since 2009?
HOPE Week has produced nearly 500 events, 78 unique honorees and more than $1 million in donations, according to MLB.com's March 11, 2026 report. Major League Baseball presented the club with the Allan H. Selig Award for Philanthropic Excellence for 2025, which MLB.com calls its most prestigious team award for community outreach.
HOPE Week by the numbers
| Measure | Figure |
|---|
| First year | 2009 |
| Length | Five consecutive days during a homestand |
| Unique honorees | 78 |
| Event days, including reunions | 80 |
| Events across New York and affiliate cities | Nearly 500 |
| Donated to honorees and related charities | More than $1 million |
| 2026 New York dates | June 15 to 19 |
Source for every row: MLB.com, March 11, 2026. The same report says each Yankees minor league affiliate holds its own HOPE Week, in its 13th year in 2026.
Zillo received the 2014 Robert O. Fishel Award for Public Relations Excellence, and MLB.com's profile of Zillo notes that President Barack Obama publicly recognized HOPE Week during the club's championship visit to the White House in April 2010.
Why does HOPE Week work as a communications tool?
HOPE Week works because each event happens in the honoree's own community, at a place that symbolizes the person's accomplishment, and ends with the honoree joining the team at Yankee Stadium. That structure gives photographers, local reporters and the honoree's own social circle a real scene to cover, so the coverage does not depend on a press release.
The program also gives sponsors a reason to take part without taking over the story. A Sports Business Daily profile from 2019 reported that more than 50 companies had taken part by then, with Delta flying in participants and Party City supplying props. Zillo told the publication that the team wanted each event to be great, not just good.
What can other organizations copy from HOPE Week?
Other organizations can copy four parts of HOPE Week: a fixed annual date, a small number of honorees, in-person visits by senior people, and a ceremony that ends at the organization's own venue. The Yankees have repeated the same format for well over a decade, which means each year's coverage reminds readers of the earlier years.
Who leads Yankees public relations and what has the office done?
Jason Zillo leads Yankees public relations as vice president of communications and media relations, according to MLB.com's March 2026 report on the club's HOPE Week award. MLB.com's Fishel Award announcement from 2014 gives the longer record: Zillo was finishing his 19th season with the club and his eighth as head of media relations.
That announcement said Zillo had worked seven World Series and 16 postseasons. It also said he oversaw the club's communications for the 2008 All-Star Game, during the final season of the old Yankee Stadium, and played a key role in the league-wide celebrations of Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter as each player retired.
That record helps explain how the office could sustain a program as long-running as HOPE Week. A communications leader with two decades at one club can promise honorees a repeat visit and can ask players and coaches for time every summer. EPR's reading is that this continuity, more than any single event, is the asset.
How did the Yankees change their beard policy in 2025?
The Yankees changed their beard policy on February 21, 2025, when owner Hal Steinbrenner announced in a statement that players could wear well-groomed beards. Steinbrenner, the Yankees' managing general partner and chairman, posted the statement on the club's X account ahead of the first spring training game, as WHIO's report on the change described.
The rule dated to 1976, three years after his father George Steinbrenner bought the team. Players could wear mustaches but not beards. Pitcher Gerrit Cole, for example, shaved the beard he wore with the Houston Astros when he signed with the Yankees, Fox News reported.
Steinbrenner said in the statement that he had spoken in recent weeks with a large number of former and current Yankees from several eras before deciding. Social media had speculated days earlier that a change was coming, after new reliever Devin Williams appeared in his team photo with a beard that was not fully shaved.
How the Yankees announced the beard policy change
| Step the club took | Why it helped the brand (EPR analysis) |
|---|
| The owner issued the statement under his own name | A named decision-maker gave the change weight and ended speculation about who was responsible. |
| The club consulted former and current players first | The change read as a decision shaped by Yankees alumni, not a break with them. |
| The announcement came before the first spring game | The story reached fans before the season started, when the club had full attention. |
| Only the beard rule changed | The pinstripes, numbers and blank jersey backs stayed exactly as they were. |
The lesson for any organization with an old rule is to change one visible rule, name the person responsible and show whom the organization consulted. Organizations preparing for harder announcements can pair this approach with the response steps in EPR's crisis communications guide.
Why did naming Aaron Judge captain work as a marketing move?
Naming Aaron Judge captain worked as a marketing move because one news conference on December 21, 2022 carried three stories at once: a nine-year, $360 million contract, a new franchise captain and a link to Derek Jeter. Judge became the 16th captain in club history and the first since Jeter, who held the title from 2003 through 2014, according to ESPN's report on the contract.
Judge had hit an American League record 62 home runs in 2022 and won the AL MVP award. Jeter and former captain Willie Randolph attended the announcement, CBS Sports reported.
Hal Steinbrenner said at the event, "It's difficult to imagine the Yankees without Aaron." Judge said, "This is an incredible honor that I don't take lightly." ESPN reported that Steinbrenner asked Judge to be captain after the two sides agreed to the contract.
The captaincy matters to the brand because it is scarce. Sixteen players have held the title since 1922, so the announcement tied a modern contract to the names of Lou Gehrig, Thurman Munson, Don Mattingly and Jeter. A contract alone would have been one day of sports news, and the captaincy gave the story a longer life.
Who speaks for the Yankees brand in big announcements?
Members of the Steinbrenner family speak for the Yankees brand in its biggest announcements, and every announcement covered in this article names a family member. Hal Steinbrenner issued the 2025 beard statement and spoke at the 2022 news conference that named Judge captain.
Jennifer Steinbrenner Swindal, the club's general partner and vice chairperson, spoke for the Yankees when MLB presented the Selig Award in March 2026. She called it the club's privilege "to share their stories with the world," referring to HOPE Week honorees, and said the club would continue the program for years.
EPR's observation is that a named person at the top gives each announcement a speaker reporters can quote and fans can recognize. An unsigned statement carries less weight than a family name that has been attached to the team since 1973.
What happens to the Yankees brand when the team loses?
The Yankees brand has held its valuation lead through a championship drought that the Associated Press counted at 17 years after the Rays swept New York in the 2026 American League Division Series. The Yankees last won the World Series in 2009, the same season the new Yankee Stadium opened, according to MLB.com.
The 2026 season itself had real accomplishments. The Yankees finished 93-68 and clinched a playoff berth on September 14, according to Wikipedia's 2026 Yankees season page. They then swept Boston in the Wild Card Series before losing three straight to Tampa Bay, with Judge off both postseason rosters because of a calf injury, the Associated Press game report said.
Brand measures that held during the drought
| Measure | Figure | Source |
|---|
| Forbes valuation rank | First since 1998 | Forbes, via Wikipedia and CBS Sports |
| Forbes valuation, 2025 to 2026 | $8.2 billion to $8.5 billion | Forbes, via CBS Sports and Wikipedia |
| Years since last title | 17 | Associated Press, October 8, 2026 |
| Regular season record, 2026 | 93-68 | Wikipedia |
Sport marketing research gives one explanation for why a brand can hold up through losing. The study below surveyed fans of US professional teams, and it found that loyalty was tied to a fan's sense of identity with the team and to nostalgia.
What the Gladden and Funk loyalty study found
James Gladden and Daniel Funk surveyed 929 professional sport consumers in the United States and tested 13 kinds of team brand associations against brand loyalty. Their paper, published in the International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship in 2001, is summarized in the Gladden and Funk study abstract.
The regression results showed positive relationships between loyalty and fan identification, escape, nostalgia and product delivery. They showed negative relationships between loyalty and tradition, star players and peer group acceptance. The study did not examine the Yankees, so these results describe professional sport fans in general.
The Yankees' fixed identity and a captain's title that links eras both give fans something to identify with and to remember. That is EPR's application of the study's findings, and it is a reasonable explanation, not a proven cause.
How full is Yankee Stadium compared with other MLB ballparks?
Yankee Stadium ranked second in MLB in average home attendance in ESPN's 2026 report, behind only Dodger Stadium. ESPN's 2026 attendance report, in a snapshot that counted 68 Yankees home dates, listed 2,822,935 fans and an average of 41,513 per game.
2026 home attendance in ESPN's report (snapshot)
| Team | Home dates counted | Total attendance | Average per game |
|---|
| Los Angeles Dodgers | 66 | 3,306,815 | 50,103 |
| New York Yankees | 68 | 2,822,935 | 41,513 |
| San Diego Padres | 69 | 2,848,897 | 41,288 |
| Toronto Blue Jays | 72 | 2,955,981 | 41,055 |
Yankee Stadium holds 46,537 fans, according to a Sports Illustrated report. An average of 41,513 is about 89% of that capacity, by EPR's division. The snapshot counts a different number of home dates for each team, so the totals are not directly comparable, but the averages are.
Which Yankees brand assets are fixed and which have changed?
Three Yankees brand assets are fixed, and four other assets were added, revived, regained or changed on purpose between 2009 and 2025. The table sorts each one by what the club did and when.
Fixed and changed Yankees brand assets
| Asset | Status | Date | What happened |
|---|
| Pinstripes | Fixed | After 1915 | Made permanent after Jacob Ruppert bought the club. |
| Uniform numbers | Fixed | 1929 | The Yankees were the first team to make numbers permanent. |
| Blank jersey backs | Fixed | 1960s onward | The club did not follow other teams in adding names. |
| HOPE Week | Added | 2009 | Jason Zillo's community program began, per MLB.com. |
| Television network | Control regained | 2019 | A group including Yankee Global Enterprises bought Disney's 80% stake in YES. |
| Team captain | Revived | December 21, 2022 | Aaron Judge became the first captain since Jeter's tenure from 2003 through 2014. |
| Beard rule | Changed | February 21, 2025 | Well-groomed beards were allowed after a policy dating to 1976. |
The pattern is that the club changes one thing at a time and announces each change through a named person. The assets that carry the look of the team stay where they are, which is EPR's reading of the dates above.
What can other brands learn from the Yankees?
Other brands can learn five practical steps from the Yankees, each tied to a documented example in this article.
- Choose the few identity assets that carry value, as the Yankees did with pinstripes, numbers and blank jersey backs, and treat every other rule as open to change.
- Pair news with tradition, as the Yankees did when they announced Judge's contract and captaincy at the same news conference.
- Build a recurring program run by the communications office, as Zillo did with HOPE Week, so each year's coverage reminds people of earlier years.
- Own part of the channel when the economics allow it, as the Yankees did with YES in 2019, so the organization controls how its stories are scheduled.
- Announce a change yourself, with a named executive and a date, as Steinbrenner did with the beard policy.
A brand with an old rule or an old logo should start with step five. Pick one visible policy, name who decides, consult the people it affects, and announce it before the news cycle does.
Readers comparing team brands can continue with EPR's analyses of Manchester United branding strategies and the Kansas City Chiefs marketing review.
