There was the record-breaking Juan Soto contract and the deployment of robot umps. But perhaps the most shocking move in Major League Baseball this off-season was that the New York Yankees will upend decades of tradition and allow players to grow beards.
A Northeastern University sports media expert says the news reflects more than changing fashion, however; it reflects the changing power of the individual brand.
“In the age of social media, the individual player doesn’t need to go through a team these days — they can set up their own brand,” says Stephen Warren, an assistant teaching professor at Northeastern University. Warren has a doctorate in communication focusing on sports media, and wrote his dissertation on New England Patriots fandom.
“And if a player has a certain look to them,” Warren continues. “It’s a part of their brand.”
Statement from Yankees Managing General Partner Hal Steinbrenner on the alteration of Yankees facial hair policy: pic.twitter.com/UdEuAg3gZy— New York Yankees (@Yankees) February 21, 2025
Statement from Yankees Managing General Partner Hal Steinbrenner on the alteration of Yankees facial hair policy: pic.twitter.com/UdEuAg3gZy
At over $1.2 billion, the Yankees have the most valuable brand in Major League Baseball and the second-most valuable brand in sports.
Since the 1970s, that brand has included the image of the New York Yankees as being a team of clean-cut, business-like players where no hair was allowed below the lip.
“I have nothing against long hair, per se, but I’m trying to instill a certain sense of order and discipline in the ballclub, because I think discipline is important in an athlete,” Yankees owner George Steinbrenner told The New York Times in 1978.
The pennant and World Series titles, the uniforms (the team wears pinstripes, the historical pattern of choice for bankers), the willingness to spend big and the strong top-down management of “The Boss,” as Steinbrenner was referred to, reinforced this brand.
“Winning sort of takes care of everything, and I think part of that was why people became so fixated on the clean-cut image of the Yankees players,” Warren notes.
As did the willingness of high-profile free agent pickups to abide by the policy — even when coming from an archrival band of successful (and hirsute) “idiots.” “Johnny Damon goes to the Yankees and — even though the Red Sox just won a World Series — now Damon’s really going to focus on baseball,” Warren says.
But Steinbrenner’s son, Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner, recently announced that team players, coaches and other uniformed personnel are now permitted to have “well-groomed beards.”
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While Hal Steinbrenner called the no-beard policy “outdated” and “somewhat unreasonable,” Warren says the shift shows that more than just the popularity of beards has changed.
“It was all about the team, and it was a very non-player-focused perspective which — at least for a lot of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s — worked out in their favor,” Warren says. “But it’s been a player empowerment era for a while now in terms of players picking and choosing where they want to go.”
Warren says that no longer do players need a team to promote them to millions of fans; they just need a social media presence.
Warren predicts the shift toward individual branding power will only accelerate.
“Now college athletes are able to profit off their name, image and likeness, and so a lot of college athletes are starting to be comfortable and familiar with developing their own brand even before they get to the professional level,” Warren says. “Players come in naturally understanding how to sell themselves as opposed to getting into the league and having the team say, ‘now we can finally get you an agent.’”
And the Yankees — who are certainly brand aware — recognize that this may make them lose out.
Which is good news to Warren.
“This is my Boston bias coming through, but from a Red Sox perspective — at least a Red Sox fan perspective — it felt like the Yankees were the team that took the joy out of baseball,” Warren says.
“I always saw the Yankees having to shave and cut their hair as them not being interesting and being boring and being not fun,” Warren continues. “I’ll be curious to see if that changes if I see some of their players with facial hair — I’m curious to see how much of my Yankees hatred vis-a-vis the Red Sox is because of the ‘clean-cutness,’ or if it’s just because I hate the Yankees.”