Broadcaster Calls Out Yankees for False Definition of Success

Championship or bust has been the mantra for the New York Yankees since the mid-90s. It was a period where the organization saw Hall of Famers in Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera make winning the World Series look easy.

It was what the patriarch, George Steinbrenner, conveyed rather bluntly every day while he was alive. Outside of 1997, which saw a rare hiccup in Rivera's early days of closing, every season usually ended with a parade down the Canyon of Heroes.

Things have changed since then. The Liberty held the last professional championship in New York. Not many follow soccer, so before then, Eli Manning and company were responsible for a parade.

New York Liberty Parad — Jonquil Jones and the New York Liberty go up the Canyon of Heroes as fans cheer during the ticker-tape parade held in their honor, Thursday, October 24, 2024, in Manhattan. The Liberty won the WNBA Championship on Sunday. | Kevin R. Wexler-NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The last time the Yankees won a championship, though, was 2009. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez are Fox analysts now, and the lone member of that team who was still in the league, David Robertson, just retired. The closest they came to winning one again was in 2024, but the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Yankees handily, and that team will be remembered more for dropped balls and a Freddie Freeman grand slam in the grand scheme of the sport's history.

Michael Kay on "Championship or Bust"

With the Yankees so far removed from their championship days, one person in particular who has been down on their championship mantra was broadcaster Michael Kay. According to Kay, he didn't blame fans for still holding the Yankees to that standard, since that is always the message coming out of spring training.

"And I don't blame people that gauge success by World Series titles because many of the fans that the Yankees have lived through the glory years," Kay said on his afternoon radio show for ESPN. "And there are men of women of a certain age that grew up with George Steinberg as the owner and he came right out and said it. Bottom line is World Series are bust. If we don't win a World Series, we're failures. We failed."

Kay then said that if the Yankees truly believed in their championship-or-bust mantra, manager Aaron Boone would have been out of a job years ago.

"If the Yankee organization thought it was an abject failure when they didn't win a World Series, then they would not keep Boone," Kay continued. "If they thought, like some do, that not winning a championship is a failure, he'd be fired. He's not fired. He's about to start his ninth year."

Oct 8, 2025; Bronx, New York, USA; New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone signals to the bullpen during the seventh inning against the Toronto Blue Jays during game four of the ALDS round for the 2025 MLB playoffs at Yankee Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images | Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Rise and Repeat?

The quotes will likely be the same once the Yankees break camp. You'll have the obligatory Boone quote about how they're trying to win it all. Aaron Judge will say that last year was a failure and that any year they don't win is a failure.

It's a glass-half-empty look at the team, but chances are, when you see how the last decade and change went for this organization, they'll find themselves on the other end of another disappointing season finish, and it will be rise-and-repeat next spring.

Of course, the best way to counter this is to win a World Series. They could be a Miguel Andujar away from winning it all.

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