For the past few weeks, the Cubs have paraded their owner, president, general manager and now a few players (current and former) to tell the city and fan base that without an immediate deal on what Ricketts wants to do with Wrigley Field, the Cubs will or cannot win a championship.
Of course, this is all a shameful scare tactic with no actual supportive evidence. The Cubs made the playoffs twice with Lou Piniella's teams (and when Wrigley was literally falling down on the fans).
Epstein is quoted as saying that the baseball budget has been "maxed out" this season. The Cubs payroll has been taking a nose dive for the past four seasons. The Cubs started the year under $99 million in payroll. The peak payroll was around $157 million. Epstein further went on to allege that without the Wrigley renovation plan with all its new "revenue streams" and new player friendly features, the Cubs will not have the funds to sign free agents.
Well, that is bold lie. Look at this last off-season with a smaller payroll budget and no new Wrigley improvements, the Cubs went out and signed several free agents: Edwin Jackson, Scott Baker, Scott Feldman, Scott Hairston, Nick Schierholtz and a bunch of minor league scrub infielders. It is wrong to say that major league free agents will not come to Chicago because of the condition of Wrigley Field. Players will go to where they will play and/or where they will get paid.
The Cubs "the sky is falling" financial chicken dance may have some internal validity, but it does nothing to help the Cubs case in the court of public opinion. In fact, it continues to damage the fading reputation of the loyal Cub franchise bond between team and fans. Ricketts bought the team and said he had the financial resources to run the club. Ricketts said that every dime would be put
The Cubs are in a financial squeeze by their own doing. The Ricketts family took a strange Zell-debt loaded purchase deal. Instead of putting the bulk of real capital to purchase the team, the new owners allowed most of the inflated purchase price to be covered by new debt. Now, the team must made huge principal and interest payments to its bankers. That burden falls on the owners. Ricketts took the rosy projections of continued sell-outs and 3 million fans filling Wrigley as a golden annuity. But a soft economy and a really bad team has attendance falling like a stone down a deep well. No one knows the real finances of major league teams because they are private businesses. So what is disclosed may not tell the full story. However, we do have one piece of concrete evidence. Cash flow must be a real issue because the Cubs failed to pay the Wrigley Field property taxes when due on March 1, 2013.
The Cubs exceed the league's standard debt-equity ratios. The league is queasy about allowing teams leverage their assets to the maximum because the league does not want to deal with powerful bankruptcy court judges who can sell the teams without league approval (i.e. Baltimore Orioles example). If the Cubs are going to allegedly spend (and borrow) another $300 million to fix up Wrigley, the debt load the team will have should make Commissioner Selig turn blue.
Epstein must be cornered on the baseball side because the normal baseball team president role has been split in two: he controls the baseball operations side while Tom Ricketts and Crane Kenney control the business side. As a result, the business side has more internal clout. And if the Cubs operational revenue stream needs to be diverted to pay family debt service, then Epstein's budget will be constrained (in his opinion).
The story that the big market Cubs have to act like a small market team is a sob-story that few people truly believe; if the Cubs have the resources to spend $500 million to materially change Lakeview into Ricketts entertainment center, then they should have sufficient resources to field a competitive team.
