Darren Rovell--why the Yankees can spend more

CNBC's Darren Rovell thinks spending of some baseball owners is restricted due to their other business interests. Following the Teixeira signing he notes:

• "Sure, the Yankees have contracts that come off the books, but that's not the reason why the Yankees can do this.
• The reason the Yankees can do this is because their owners, the Steinbrenners, have no other primary business besides the Yankees....

Think about all the other owners who have gotten pounded this year in the sector of the economy that they might still have their money in.

• Think about the New York Mets, whose owners not only lost money from the Madoff mess, but are in the real estate investment business.

• So too is Theodore Lerner, the owner of the Washington Nationals, who were hoping to land Teixeira.

• The Chicago Cubs are being sold by an entity that is bankrupt.

Go down the list and you can see that there's a lot of people that lost money this year in other businesses....

• Here's a quote from an owner: "One of the challenges I have is buying into a falling market," he told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. "When you buy into a rising market, you can't move fast enough. The challenge here is that,

• look, any investment you made in 2008 on Wall Street, 12 months ago, 12 weeks ago, 12 days ago, even 12 hours ago, you are down. We have to be careful with what is going on here."

That owner was Mark Attanasio. He is the owner of the Milwaukee Brewers.

• He gave up C.C. Sabathia. And you have to believe that some of that has to do with the fact that

• he's an investment banker.
• Hank and Hal Steinbrenner are not."...

Interesting, though I thought the Steinbrenner family still had shipping interests, horses, and a few other things. But not enough to be considered a primary business. The YES Network (not to mention the new stadium) is almost

• more a factor putting together a team than the Yankee team itself. There are other YES shareholders who've been looking to sell for a long time. (sm)

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