A typical Yankees fan on why “good” is the most dangerous word in business.

My brother Bob has a name for me. He’s had it for decades. Whenever I complain about a season, a deal, a quarter, a sales number, anything at all, he shakes his head and says, “You’re a typical Yankees fan.”

He doesn’t mean it as a compliment. He means I expect to win every year, and anything less is failure.

He’s right. I do. And after thirty years in this business, I’ve decided that’s not a character flaw. It’s a job requirement.

So let me tell you about my year as a New York sports fan, and then let me tell you why it matters to your brand.

First, the vocabulary

George Carlin would start with the words, and sports has a beauty.

“Rebuilding year.” Translation: we’re going to lose, and we’d like you to buy tickets anyway. It’s the only industry where you announce in advance that the product will be bad and ask for the same price.

“Culture.” Every losing team says it’s working on the culture. Every winning team says it has a great culture. Nobody has ever been able to explain what it is, but everybody agrees you can’t win without it and you can’t buy it. You can, however, apparently fire a coach and get some.

“A new voice.” Remember that one. It’s coming back.

The Knicks: they fired a good coach

For most of my life, being a Knicks fan was less a hobby and more a medical condition. Their last championship was in 1973. Fifty-three years. Entire careers began and ended in that drought. Mine nearly did.

Then in June 2025, the Knicks did something that made half of New York want to throw a chair. They fired Tom Thibodeau.

Not a bad coach. A good one. He’d gone 226 and 174 over five seasons, made the playoffs four times and just taken the team to its first conference finals in 25 years. They lost to Indiana in six games, and three days later he was gone. When people asked why, the answer, according to a source who spoke to the Associated Press, was that the organization felt it needed a new voice.

There it is.

They hired Mike Brown. The Knicks won 53 games, and in June 2026 they beat the Spurs four games to one for their first championship in 53 years.

Read that again. They didn’t replace a bad coach. They replaced a good one, because good had stopped getting better.

The Giants: same backup, different result

Now the Giants, who have spent the last few years making Knicks fans feel lucky.

Brian Daboll was Coach of the Year in his first season, 2022. Then 6 and 11. Then 3 and 14. He was fired in November 2025 at 2 and 8, with a record of 20 wins, 40 losses and a tie.

Enter John Harbaugh, a man with a Super Bowl ring and 18 seasons in Baltimore. And here’s the part I love: Baltimore fired him too, in January 2026, after an 8 and 9 season. A Super Bowl coach. Out. Sometimes the coach doesn’t need replacing. Sometimes he needs a new building.

Then in Week 2, the Giants lost their young starting quarterback, Jaxson Dart, for the season. For most Giants teams in recent memory, that’s where you’d start planning your Sundays around something else. Instead, with Jameis Winston at quarterback, they’re 3 and 1 through four games and sitting alone in first place in their division.

Is five games a season? No. I’m a Yankees fan, not an idiot. But the same kind of roster, with a backup quarterback, is playing like a different team. That tells you something about what the person on the sideline is worth.

The Yankees: good isn’t the same as winning

And now the team that made me who I am.

On Wednesday, the Rays swept the Yankees out of the playoffs. That makes 17 straight seasons without a World Series title. The last one was 2009.

Let me be fair, because they deserve it. Brian Cashman has been general manager since 1998 and has four championship rings. Aaron Boone has managed since 2018, has made the playoffs in eight of his nine seasons and got the team to the World Series in 2024. These are smart, hardworking men who are good at their jobs. If you ran a normal franchise, you’d be thrilled with them.

But this isn’t a normal franchise, and I’m not a normal fan. I’m a typical Yankees fan. Seventeen years.

I’m not saying fire anybody. I’m saying that when two very capable people have been looking at the same problem for this long, they’ve stopped being able to see it. Not because they’re bad. Because they’re human. Familiarity is the most comfortable blind spot there is. Sooner or later, the people closest to the work are the last ones who can judge it honestly.

Stack it up

So let me give the floor to my inner Lewis Black, who has been screaming at a television for most of this year.

The Knicks fired a coach who’d just made the conference finals and won a championship. The Giants lost their starting quarterback and went to first place. A Super Bowl coach got fired by the team he won it for and is winning somewhere else. And the Yankees, with one of the biggest payrolls and the best intentions in baseball, are telling me that “we made the playoffs again” is the goal. It’s not the goal. It’s the ticket to get in the building. Seventeen years! I don’t want a nice season. I want a fucking parade.

And now the Knicks won, and you know what? I want more. That’s the whole point. Being satisfied is how a drought starts.

Now, about your brand

Here’s why any of this belongs on a food and beverage blog.

Most of the brands I meet aren’t failing. They’re good. Sales are up a few percent. The distributor is the same one they’ve had for six years. The broker has been there since launch. The pitch to buyers hasn’t changed since the first trade show. The founder makes every call, because the founder has always made every call.

Nothing is broken. That’s exactly the problem. Nobody is asking whether it could be great, because good feels safe, and everyone involved has a reason to keep it that way.

The Knicks didn’t wait for disaster. They looked at “good,” decided it wasn’t the goal, and brought in a new voice.

You don’t have to fire anybody. Not your team, not your partners, and definitely not yourself. But you might need someone from outside the building, with no history to protect and no feelings to manage, to look at your business honestly and fairly and tell you what they see. Where the money is leaking. Which accounts are carrying you and which ones you’re carrying. Whether the people you’re paying are doing the job you think you’re paying for.

It’s common sense. It’s just very hard to do on yourself.

That’s what we do at Cascadia. We look at a brand the way a new coach looks at a roster: no grudges, no sacred cows, no agenda except getting you to win. Sometimes we find a few small changes. Sometimes we find the big one. Either way, you’ll know.

Be a typical Yankees fan about your business. Expect to win every year. And if you’re not winning, give us a call.

Sources & Receipts

1. Knicks fire Tom Thibodeau on June 3, 2025, three days after being eliminated by the Indiana Pacers in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, their first conference finals in 25 years; Thibodeau’s record of 226-174 over five seasons with four playoff berths; a source telling AP the team felt it needed a new voice: NY1, “Knicks fire coach Tom Thibodeau after first Eastern Conference finals,” June 3, 2025; Yahoo Sports, June 3, 2025.

2. Knicks defeat the San Antonio Spurs 4-1 in the 2026 NBA Finals, June 3 to 13, 2026, their first title since 1973; 53-29 regular season; Mike Brown as head coach: Wikipedia, “2026 NBA Finals”; NBC Sports Bay Area, “Former Kings coach Mike Brown leads Knicks to 2026 NBA Finals win.”

3. Brian Daboll: AP Coach of the Year 2022; records of 6-11 (2023) and 3-14 (2024); fired November 10, 2025, at 2-8; regular-season record of 20-40-1: Wikipedia, “Brian Daboll.”

4. John Harbaugh: 18 seasons with the Baltimore Ravens, Super Bowl XLVII win, fired January 6, 2026, after an 8-9 season; hired by the Giants in January 2026: Wikipedia, “John Harbaugh.”

5. Jaxson Dart’s season-ending knee injury in Week 2, Jameis Winston starting, and the Giants at 3-1 in first place in the NFC East after Week 4: Wikipedia, “2026 New York Giants season”; Yahoo Sports, “Week 5 Power Rankings Index,” October 6, 2026.

6. Yankees swept by the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2026 AL Division Series, 17 seasons without a title since 2009; Boone managing since 2018 and signed through 2027; Cashman GM since 1998 with his contract expiring this offseason: CBS Sports, “Grading the Yankees hot seats,” October 7, 2026; U.S. News & World Report, October 7, 2026.

7. Yankees’ 2024 World Series appearance (lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers) and Cashman’s four championships as GM (1998, 1999, 2000, 2009): Major League Baseball records.

In the new Cascadia blog:

→ Why the Knicks changed a coach who wasn’t failing

→ What a new voice does that an old one can’t

→ Why the people closest to the work are the last ones who can judge it

→ What that means for a brand that’s “doing fine”

Read it here: cascadiafoodbev.com/blog

Founders: when was the last time someone outside your company looked at your business with fresh eyes?

#CPG #FoodAndBeverage #Leadership #EmergingBrands #BrandStrategy #Knicks