Why Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner says it would be 'ideal' for payroll to go down for 2026 MLB season

New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner says the club remains committed to winning a championship in 2026, but at the same time he expressed uncertainty over future payroll commitments. 

Steinbrenner said Monday that the team's payroll in 2025 was $319 million, likely referring to the team's payroll as calculated for Competitive Balance Tax purposes. The more familiar measures of team payroll -- Opening Day payroll and 40-player roster payroll -- were quite a bit lower than Steinbrenner's figure, according to Cot's Contracts data. Of that payroll figure, Steinbrenner said, "Would it be ideal if it went down? Of course. But does that mean that's going to happen? Of course not. We want to field a team we know can win a championship, or we believe could win a championship."

The obvious counter to this is that a team with the Yankees' resources should be prepared to spend what it takes to prime itself for a serious World Series run. On that point, Steinbrenner also said this regarding the assumption that the Yankees are running profits, via MLB.com: 

"I don't want to get into it, but that's not a fair statement or an accurate statement. Everybody wants to talk about revenues. They need to talk about our expenses, including the $100 million expense to the City of New York that we have to pay every Feb. 1, including the COVID year. So it all starts to add up in a hurry."

Whenever an owner says anything about a team's finances, it's worth noting that, with the exception of the publicly traded Atlanta Braves, clubs are under no obligation to reveal anything about those finances. Stated another way, anything an owner says about a team's profitability or lack thereof, the assumption should be that those claims are designed to influence perception as opposed to reflecting actual facts. Such words from owners who are not legally bound to speak the truth about financial matters involving their clubs should not be trusted. The larger truth is that MLB franchises are investments, not cash-flow businesses. The next owner not to make hundreds of millions of dollars -- or even billions -- on the sale of an MLB team will be the first.

Insofar as the heart of the matter is concerned, Steinbrenner's Yankees are coming off a 2025 season in which they won 94 games and claimed a wild card berth. After bouncing the Red Sox in the Wild Card Series, they fell to the Blue Jays in the next round. That means the Yankees still haven't won the World Series since 2009.

Looking toward 2026, the Yankees have a number of question marks, including the possible loss of outfielder Cody Bellinger on the free-agent market. Given the competitive nature of the American League East, Steinbrenner needs to have an appetite for more than just half-measures. His Monday comments hint that he might not.