In
1998, the
New York Yankees had their most successful season in modern history, winning a combined total of 125 regular season and playoff games, culminating in a
World Series championship. The team was in discussions to be sold to
Cablevision, who at the time owned the broadcast rights to every
Major League Baseball,
National Basketball Association (NBA), and
National Hockey League (NHL) team in the
New York metropolitan area. The proposed deal fell through because the two sides could not come to an agreement that would include
George Steinbrenner continuing to run the team and Cablevision's other pro teams,
New York Knicks of the NBA and
New York Rangers of the NHL, for the new owners. After the proposed sale fell through, the Yankees and
New Jersey Nets of the NBA agreed to merge business operations, creating a combined holding company. This was done to increase the negotiating power of both teams for future television contracts and stadium and arena construction deals. The Yankees' local broadcasting rights with Cablevision's
MSG Network were expiring at the end of 2000 season and the Nets' deal with
Fox Sports New York would end with the 2001–2002 season. Steinbrenner began considering his own regional sports cable channel. Primary Nets owner Lewis Katz was mainly interested in a new arena. Since the founding, the two ownership groups had clashed over team management, players' contract, purchasing the Devils and YES Network. Additionally, Steinbrenner would not subsidize the loss from the Devils. On December 8, 2003, the two sides agreed to split with the Nets owners selling the Nets and giving up their part of the Yankees. The Nets sale did not include the team's stake in the YES Network, which remained with the pre-merger owners. After a reverse stock swap in 2004, the Nets were sold to Brooklyn Basketball LLC, which was controlled by
Bruce Ratner, and 38% of Puck Holdings was sold to an entity controlled by Lewis Katz and Ray Chambers.
Yankee Global Enterprises In 2004, with the exodus of the Nets and Devils complete, the company changed its name to Yankee Global Enterprises LLC, keeping the Yankees and the YES Network as separate entities owned by the same company. When Swindal and Jennifer Steinbrenner divorced in 2007, the Yankees bought Swindal out of his financial stake in the team, with
Hal Steinbrenner succeeding Swindal as chairman of Yankee Global Enterprises. In April 2008,
Legends Hospitality Management won the
Yankee Stadium concessions away from
Centerplate. With no known history, Legends was revealed on October 20, 2008, to be a new stadium hospitality company evenly owned by the Yankees and
Dallas Cowboys and a third owned by some combination of
Goldman Sachs and CIC Partners. In November 2012,
News Corporation agreed to terms on acquiring a 49% stake in YES. As a consequence, each of the network's previous owners had their ownership stakes reduced with Yankee Global's new holdings to be 25% share. As a result of the sale to Fox, the Yankees agreed to keep their games on the network through 2041, which would be the network's 40th year of existence. In March 2014,
Fox Sports acquired 32% of the YES Network leaving Yankee Global with only a 20% stake. In the agreement, Yankee Global has the right to purchase YES Network if Fox puts it up for sale. With
Disney acquiring most of 21st Century Fox, Yankee Global began considering purchasing back the share of YES Network it did not own. Yankee Global Enterprises confirmed it would repurchase a majority stake in YES Network on March 8, 2019. On August 30, 2022, it was announced that Yankee Global Enterprises acquired a 10% stake in Italian soccer club
AC Milan along with RedBird Capital Partners. ==See also==