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Would The Cubs ACTUALLY Move From Wrigley To Rosemont?

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Almost assuredly not, but that won’t stop the team from using Rosemont mayor Brad Stephens’ offer as leverage against local businesses, citizens, and government officials who are standing in the way of the franchise’s inalienable right to print money. At CSN Chicago, David Kaplan reports:

Stephens told me this morning in a CSN Chicago exclusive that he is willing to give the Cubs and the Ricketts family a 25-acre parcel of land in the village that is a prime piece of real estate large enough to accommodate a new ballpark as well as parking and anything else the Ricketts family would desire to have as a part of the new complex.

Two weeks ago at Fangraphs, Wendy Thurm detailed the Cubs’ plan and its impediments:

Wrigley Field is falling apart. The Ricketts family, which bought the Cubs for $845 million in 2009, has a plan to spend $300 million of their money to renovate the 98-year-old ballpark. There will be structural upgrades, improved clubhouses, new underground batting cages, upgraded luxury suites and club facilities, more and better concessions and restrooms, and a new patio area in left field to serve the new upper deck. The Cubs also want to add new LED signage and billboards in the outfield. The classic Wrigley look will remain the same: the brick, the marquee outside the ballpark, the ivy and the old scoreboard. Cubs blog Bleacher Nation has conceptual drawings, which you can view here.

The Rickettses are prepared to spend an additional $200 million to develop a hotel across the street from Wrigley, an office building and an open-air plaza to be used for neighborhood and family activities. The open-air plaza will be developed in a triangular-shaped plot just west of Wrigley on Waveland and Clark avenues.

The key point is that the Rickettses want to spend their own money in lieu of seeking public funding and tax credits. Because this is a novel concept in the parlance of professional sports, these plans are a no-brainer, right?

Wrong.

The Cubs want more night games so they can sell more beer. The local bars want more day games so they can sell more beer. The Cubs want to increase their advertising space inside and outside the stadium in a manner which may obstruct some of the surrounding rooftop bleacher views. Those business owners, who pay 17% of their gross revenue to the Cubs as part of a 20-year agreement signed in 2004, are unsurprisingly against that.

The Cubs also want more concerts and street festivals; some neighborhood citizens feel this would erode their quality of life. (This is something they did to themselves when they signed leases in Wrigleyville, a dire mistake I made when I was 23–anyone who has lived in Chicago for more than a few months, and doesn’t like skipping home through pools of vomit, should know better.)

Neighborhood alderman Tom Tunney is the most public opponent of the Cubs’ plans. Why would he be so interested in the plight of the rooftop owners? The Wall Street Journal‘s Ben Kesling reports:

In both 2004 and today, the now 16-building-strong group called the Wrigleyville Rooftop Association has counted on a powerful ally in Democratic Alderman Tom Tunney, to whom they have given more than $140,000 in campaign contributions in the past decade. Mr. Tunney declined to comment, but in a news release he pledged to protect the “quality of life for all our neighbors and local businesses in the ward.”

So there’s that, except $140,000 seems comparatively insignificant, right? Like, if I were going to publicly stand in the way of an organization worth almost $1 billion, I feel like I’d want a bigger cut. Maybe that’s just me?

At the end of the day, though, you know what the bars and rooftops want even less than more night games and partially-obstructed views? The Cubs to leave town. If it were to actually happen, those businesses would be almost entirely worthless. Wrigleyville would give way to Lakeview yuppie residential sprawl and there would be substantially less demand for cavernous, cookie cutter bars that charge $8 for a Bud Light and blast Pitbull on repeat.

So, yeah, the idea that Cubs would actually move out to Rosemont is pretty laughable at this point. The only way it would ever happen would be if the bar and rooftop owners — through their mouthpieces in city government — act in extreme and negligent self un-interest and refuse to engage the Cubs in good-faith negotiations. You’d have to believe they are smarter than that.


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