The Yankees are worth $6bn: why won’t they pay $9 for their players’ wifi?

Y ou would think that playing for the most valuable franchise in baseball would come with all the perks, but that turns out not to be true. Apparently, signing with the New York Yankees means paying for your own wifi on team flights. Is this merely cheapness on the part of team ownership, or another example of the Yankees being trapped in the past?

Let’s start with Stephanie Apstein’s bombshell (well, bombshell-ish) report for Sports Illustrated that revealed that when the Yankees take team flights on Delta, players have to pay out of their own pockets if they want to check their emails. Apstein’s research uncovered that only one other MLB team fails to provide free wifi for its players: the Cincinnati Reds. This means that in this one instance, the Yankees are actually cheaper than the Miami Marlins.

We’re not here to paint a sob story about rich athletes – after all, they can afford the $9 fee (some of them could afford to buy the plane). It’s not like they don’t have other ways to amuse themselves during these long flights. Apstein’s story quotes pitcher Jameson Taillon, who spent two years with the Yankees, who reports that “the Yankees fly on a pretty cool custom plane with poker tables and stuff,” he said. “So, I would take that over free wifi, if I’m being honest.”

It makes cosmic sense that the Yankees would offer poker tables but not internet access to their players. They are still living in a past where card games rather than video games were a way of passing idle hours. And, in fairness, why wouldn’t they? The Yankees established their reputation as MLB’s premier franchise by winning 27 World Series titles. That’s a past worth celebrating, particularly in a sport that values tradition (or at least did before