The Sun-Times city hall reporter on Tuesday reported that the Cubs were going "all or nothing" with the latest proposal because the team assumes it will wind up in court. Besides stumbling over the moving the bullpens to under the bleachers and destroying ivy and bricks in the outfield walls, the "new" plan contains seven outfield signs, including two video scoreboards, 300 new seats, 300 standing room positions and new outfield light standards rising 92 feet high.
The addition of 600 patrons in the "new" plans is a response to the legal argument that the Cubs have been making that any city approval of "Wrigley Field expansion" would trump the rooftop owners agreement, including blocking the rooftop views. In prior plans, there was no additional seating. This has to be in response to the notion that "expansion" of a park means more seating or spectators. But it is unclear whether this will actually convince a judge to rule in the Cubs favor, since the rooftop settlement really only contemplated the existing bleacher expansion proposal at the time of prior court case. Further, every contract calls for "good faith" performance by both sides. One could argue that the Cubs, who are not selling out every game in the past three years, don't need to sell 600 additional tickets per game in order to make it. One could rule that this was a scheme to circumvent the good faith requirement of the existing contract.
The Cubs claim that the team is moving forward on these plans because of the promises made to their players, fans and advertising partners. The promise made to players was upgraded facilities like clubhouse, which could have been done years ago without any landmark approvals. The promise made to the fans was that ownership would field a championship caliber ball club. The Cubs have been bottom dwellers since those first statements. So the real "promises" at stake in these revisions are the ones made to the Cubs new "advertising partners." Ricketts is obsessed with new revenue sources that he will destroy the look and feel of the old Wrigley Field in order to add a few million dollars in new advertising revenue. No one has told him that he may be about to kill his only golden goose, as iconic Wrigley Field is the historic draw for fans to the park, and not the team.
