• Ad Age, Wednesday, July 14, 2010 12 PM

Rich Thomaselli collects some colorful descriptors -- irascible, cantankerous, monster -- in a roundup of George Steinbrenner's impact, not only on New York and his beloved Yankees but also on the way sports brands are built and nurtured.

David Carter, sports-marketing instructor at the University of Southern California and principal of Sports Business Group, tells Thomaselli that The Boss may have been a marketing liability early in his tenure but that that by becoming "a caricature of himself," he ultimately drove interest in the team.

Robert Boland, professor of sports marketing at New York University, says that sports-business experts will be studying Steinbrenner, "a cantankerous bully for his first 17 years of ownership," for years to come. In the end, he was "a game-changer who understood his inherent market advantage and constantly reinvested in his product and pushed the accelerator down to extend the gap between the Yankees and their rivals," he says.

Harvey Schiller, who worked with Steinbrenner for 30 years, says he was crazy like a silver fox. "Knowing George, most everything he did that appeared to be emotional was actually planned," Schiller says.

Time, meanwhile, has compiled a list of "Top 10 Steinbrenner Moments," and the Wall Street Journal puts together notable quotes about the eminently quote-worthy Boss .

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