Tribune Co. is selling the Chicago Cubs franchise, along with Wrigley Field, and part of Comcast SportsNet. The Cubs, as well as Wrigley Field, would be the perfect investment for any billionaire; Cubs fans are not going to simply walk away from their favorite team no matter how long it takes for them to win the World Series. True Cubs fans are fans for life....they will continue to fill the seats every single year no matter the outcome of previous seasons. Call it stupid, some critics do, and I don't want to get into all of that right now, especially since I'm one of those "stupid" people that watches the Cubs every day. Anyway, all I'm saying is that Cubs fans are very loyal fans that will provide continually increasing revenue for the new owner.
So, who are these top billionaire bidders for the Cubs? The bidders include the Ricketts family, which are the founders of TD Ameritrade; Sports Acquisition Holding Corp. which includes Hank Aaron and ex-Congressman Jack Kemp; and the other bidder that made the cut to the second round of bidding is Dallas Mavericks owner and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban.
What a group of bidders.....a rich financially-skilled family, a corporation with an ex-Home Run King and Congressman as figureheads, and a wild, often-fined, NBA owner. While it makes sense that the corporations would offer a higher bid considering they have more than one investor, the one-man bidder Mark Cuban apparently offered the highest bid at $1.3 billion. In 1981, Tribune bought the Cubs for $20.5 million. Not a bad investment in 1981.
Maybe it's just because he is interesting and has a lot of love for the game, but I would love to see Cuban as the new owner of the Chicago Cubs. It doesn't seem as personal if a company owns the Cubs, but if a single person owned the Cubs, it seems a little more intriguing. As he has shown with the Dallas Mavericks, Cuban definitely attempts to bring in big name players and is willing to hand out the cash necessary to do so. The Cubs don't need many more players, as they already have a club filled with All-Stars, but in a year or two a lot of the great young Cubs such as Soto and Theriot will be receiving the huge paychecks they deserve, considering they've been making league minimum so far in their careers. So, having an owner such as Cuban who is willing to throw money at the players would be great for the Cubs.
Not only does Cuban have my own personal approval, but he got approval from a man that has fined him for over $1.3 million dollars. That man is NBA Commissioner David Stern. Stern said that other MLB owners should welcome Cuban. The Commish is a decent letter of recommendation. I'm sure the other bidders would be nice owners too, but I don't know....wouldn't it just be more fun with Cuban?
Keywords: bidders, Chicago, Chicago Cubs, Comcast, Cubs, Dallas Mavericks, David Stern, Hank Aaron, Mark Cuban, MLB, Owner, Ricketts, Soto, Sports Acquisitions Holding, Theriot, Tribune, World Series, Wrigley Field
