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The Rosemont Cubs?

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Dick Whitman, Mar 20, 2013.

  1. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Rosemont would do it. Maybe the Cubs would never take the deal, but it's not an empty threat from Rosemont.
     
  2. Mizzougrad96

    Mizzougrad96 Active Member

    I wonder if there would be some way to give Wrigley a major overhaul so you can preserve the history and still make it more modern.

    The only real example I can think of is what they did at Lambeau a decade or so ago...
     
  3. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I've always thought you completely rebuild the seating bowl and upper deck and retain the bleachers, scoreboard, and outfield wall/ivy. Play at U.S. Cellular for a year or two while the project is underway.
     
  4. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    Rosemont can make a realistic play because it's a tiny town run by a family dynasty (Stephens the younger replaced Stephens the older -- whose name is on the convention center -- as mayor), and it has a fucking shitload of money for being lucky enough to be adjacent to O'Hare. The Ricketts family will go where the money is, and they can get a lot of it out of Rosemont, as well as ironclad promises that they can do pretty much anything they want.

    I don't think it will happen, but I don't think Rosemont is blowing smoke, either.
     
  5. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    When the John Henry group bought the Sox in 2002, they very quickly determined that cramped, no-parking old Fenway was their prime asset, the franchise's real star attraction. So they began a series of incremental improvements (by improvement, I mean things that made more money for them). If the Cubs ownership doesn't see how Wrigley works for them, they really are stupid.
    Mizzou, I see no reason why similar things couldn't be done to Wrigley. Fenway is as cramped by its neighborhood as it is, and cramped by things like hospitals and universities which have major political clout to block what they don't like.
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    But you can build upward at Fenway - like the Green Monster bleachers. You can't do that at Wrigley. Then it wouldn't be Wrigley any more.
     
  7. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

    Exactly.

    They have a good tax base thanks to all the hotels. There's a bunch of office buildings, a convention center, and an arena.

    They just spent a lot of money to open a new "entertainment district" with a bunch of bars and restaurants, near the convention center.

    And, they're going to lose DePaul basketball soon. While it's surely not a big money maker -- they're given the arena rent free -- Rosemont will want to replace that entertainment option with something substantial.
     
  8. swenk

    swenk Member

    The White Sox should do this eventually. The Cubs can't and won't...not as long as the ballpark is the most popular player in the history of the franchise.

    That Rosemont entertainment area is just bizarre. It seems to cater to an odd combination of suburban 24 yr olds who want to drink and party without going into the city, and suburban families who want to show the kids a good time without going into the city.
     
  9. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    The White Sox would be a spectacular failure up there. I guess you could draw from the Western suburbs, but if the White Sox were ever to move, you would think it would be to either the South Loop or somewhere like Orland Park.

    The thing is, the Sox's location isn't the issue that it used to be. The neighborhood is vastly improved and gentrifying. It is, as always, right off of the Dan Ryan. And the bar they opened attached to the park seems to be doing well, and an indication that the possibility of a sort of Comiskey-ville, even if it's Sox-maintained, isn't crazy.
     
  10. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    Figure that entertainment district is really geared toward whomever is staying in the area's hotels, and that may account for its oddities.

    Anyway, the White Sox already have a sweet deal, and if they ever move to the burbs, they're going south, where their fan base is. Plus, Metra just opened a stop at 35th Street, so now it's much easier for suburban fans to come to and from games. (Especially from, so south suburbanites who work downtown can catch the same train home they took to get to work.)
     
  11. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    Re: Sox's location -- the Robert Taylor Homes are gone, Bridgeport and Bronzeville are expensive buys, and Chinatown has crept closer. A fear of getting mugged should not be the reason anyone doesn't go to a Sox game.
     
  12. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    Yep.

    The reason that they don't draw, in seasons they don't draw, is that it's too expensive to go to a White Sox game. I don't have the data in front of me, and I'm not sure it's ever been made public, but I'm guessing Sox fans don't have the disposable income that Cubs fans, do, on the whole. Just from geography alone. People in Hammond and Calumet City aren't exactly affluent. And even in Sox strongholds with money - like Munster, Dyer, or Orland Park - the money doesn't compare to the kind you'll find in the city and in the north suburbs. Plus, those towns aren't that big.

    I haven't heard the, "It's dangerous to go to White Sox games!" battle cry for years and years. Those days are over.
     
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