Yes, it's cool we have owners that do bleed cubbie blue (not to be confused with ABATT), but some of the initial statements made by the ownership group have me questioning exactly the type of fans they are.
We all know, Wrigley Field is a huge revenue generator for the Cubs. Unfortunately, Wrigley Field is a dump. It's a dump for the players (and Ozzie Guillen) and, honestly, it's a dump for the fans as well. If it wasn't for the ivy and the beautiful brick wall around the playing field, the stadium would have met the wrecking ball back in the early to mid '80s.
But then that magical 1984 season which pretty much saved the ballpark...
Before 1984, the Lakeview/Wrigleyville neighborhood was in bad shape. There were no bleachers built on the rooftops of the flats on Waveland and Sheffield. The bars and night life around the ballpark was rather minimal. No lights. And the Cubs average attendance was less than half of what it is now.
Fast forward 26 years. The Cubs sell 99.9% of all their tickets. Wrigleyville is a prosperous locale. All is going great. And the best part about it for the previous Cub owners was they barely had to do anything to achieve this. There are a list of minor renovations that have occurred...the new dugouts, the replacing of the cat-walks in left and right field with seats, the lights, the new pressbox and patio in the upperdeck, the addition to a row of seats in the front of the upper deck, the sky boxes, various incarnations of scoreboard strips around the ballpark, the addition of seats behind home plate and beside each dugout, and the replacement of the bleachers.
Most of the renovations were to add small bits of new revenue sources to an outdated ballpark. Nothing very large as to maintain the look and feel of Wrigley.
I'm not going to go into the "Wrigley Field: keep it or replace it" debate today...but the Tribune Company has tried to squeeze out as much revenue as possible from the stadium and the team.
The Ricketts have taken over. Here is a list of things they have said that have no current plans to do.
- video boards
- stadium naming rights
- PSL (personal seat licenses)
- Added advertising around the ballpark
- Re-working of the broadcasting rights
- Major Renovation to the ballpark
- Adding luxury boxes
The Ricketts's have already said they indend to have some work done to the stadium this year which will likely have to do with clearing (and cleaning) up of the concorses, and (don't ask me how) making the bathrooms a little less hellish.
Well, Tom and friends, right now you guys are $450 million dollars in debt. In fact, Major League Baseball doesn't usually allow an owner to carry this high of a percentage of debt. It was only through some creative bookwork that this was allowed. Even these minor renovations that have been talked about are going to cost some money. So, you are going to have to sacrifice something here. I wouldn't mind any of the listed items to occur except the PSL's because that would affect me directly as a season ticket holder. Unfortunately, PSL's, I feel, are the most likely thing to happen because, simply, they are the easist thing to do...especially with a waiting list of over 100,000 for season tickets right now.
But, back to the point, this team is going to need revenues if it is to continue to work toward being a consistent contender with world class facilities. Unfortunately, in this case, that is going to conflict with trying to preserve the Wrigley Field experience.
So, I just hope that the Crickets are not actually Wrigley Field fans. True Cubs fans should be willing to sacrifice some parts of the Wrigley Field experience in order to win a World Series.
Their statements, to this point, seem to not reflect this.
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