Ricketts has been posturing that the family would spend $500 million of their own money into the rehab of Wrigley. But that number includes the redevelopment of McDonald's block across the street which the family purchased last year. Ricketts said that the team no longer wanted public funds to pay for his private improvements, which was a non-starter at city hall and the community.
But considering most neighborhood associations have been kept in the dark ("we have not seen any real plans for the rehab project"), in some respects the dealmakers are keeping the various competing parties in the dark until "the deal" is announced next week. Then, the sparks will fly.
To be perfectly clear, the Ricketts are not "caretakers" for the Cubs franchise. The Ricketts are now major property developers on the north side of town. They are attempting to create a theme park called Cubville, with Wrigley Field as the key venue for more than just baseball games. The Ricketts want all restrictions off the field so they can do what they want with their property. But that is naive and arrogant since every business in the city is subject to strict zoning and building ordinances.
Further complicating matters is the Tribune's deal with rooftop owners. In exchange for 17 percent of the rooftop gate, the neighbors bought unrestricted sight lines to the game action inside Wrigley. Ricketts does not like the roof toppers and wants to shut them out. He wants to build large new scoreboards which would block views (which would be a breach of the current agreement). How the city is going to appease both sides on this is going to be a difficult ballet, as the local alderman holds the preemptive zoning veto on any Wrigley plans.
The dirty secret is that the Ricketts want Wrigley Field to be turned into all event, Allstate Arena kind of 12 month, 24/7 kind of destination place. They want corporate events, concerts, football games, hockey contests, college and high school sports. They want to keep the special ball park restaurants and bars open to compete with the neighborhood establishments. They have the paranoid feeling that everyone around them is making money off their team - - - and they want to curtail it. Ricketts wants to own Lakeview and take a bigger piece of the business pie.
And all of these new potential revenue schemes has nothing really to do with improving the Cubs as a baseball team. Wrigley Field's new advertising, new events and venue status is what is going to drive revenue growth, not the Cubs win loss record. Wrigley will be reconfigured to fit more events into its small footprint than just baseball. The plan is to have Wrigley itself be the revenue and marketing star (a self generating resource). But, the whole reason why tourists come to Wrigley during the summer is to see the old ball park, a throw back to a by-gone era. Once you change the character of the field by stuffing it with beer carts and massive jumbotrons, the landmark draw will quickly fade away. The undercurrent is a whisper "so what?" The switch to baseball fan only facility to an entertainment complex is the real bottom line here.
