Cubs get a new owner

Can Ricketts hit better than .140 in the playoffs? No? Meet the new boss, etc.

 

No. But he can probably play left field better than Alfonso Soriano.

 

The first thing he needs to do is make sure the GM signs a player--a Kevin Millar type--to help this team get past all the curse talk. I think Millar is still out there, I would make that number one on the list of things to do.

 

for mariotti, this ain't bad. a little long as usual, but he's pretty right on at the beginning (full disclosure; i started to skim toward the middle) about ricketts. way too much provincial crap about how he's a cubs fan, etc. the fact is, ricketts and co. have no sports background, so this will be interesting to watch play out.

http://jay-mariotti.fanhouse.com/2009/01/23/101-years-of-hell-lots-of-luck-to-new-cubs-owner/

 

I don't care about any of this but find it amusing that the word "Cubs" in the thread means I get to look at ads for gaybeardating.com

 

Neither do most Cubs fans.

 

I don't get the economics of this deal. Can someone help out here, please?

Cost of the team + Wrigley Field = $900M

Renovations to Wrigley = $250M (estimate from Crane Kenney current Cubs CEO)

Total investment = $1.15B

Cubs payroll = $140M

Cubs operating expenses = $160M


Therefore, return on investment comes from revenues in excess of $160M. OK, so if the new owners hope to get only 5% on their investment, they need a profit of $57.5M meaning revenues of $217.5M.

Where is that supposed to come from?

 

40,000 fans per game * 81 games * $50/average per ticket = $162 million.

Just off ticket sales.

Add concessions, merchandising, the Cubs Convention, tours, their own legal ticket scalping business and revenue sharing, and $217.5 million looks like a pretty easy number to hit, doesn't it?

 

TV and radio, too.

Baseball teams are like licenses to print money.

 

The "return on investment" comes when the owner sells the team.

Anything he makes while actually doing the owning is gravy.

 

Precisely. Like paying my mortgage, insurance and maintenance on my house. I "make" money when I sell (or would have, before everything crashed).

With sports teams, there's always the next fool willing to pay a higher price.

Newspapers, alas, ran out of those fools in the past year or three.