Cubs ownership talks losses as franchise pushes $4 billion in value

The pandemic hit a lot of sports fans, including Chicago Cubs fans, right where it hurts.  But the owners of MLB franchises? Not so much.

Every year right before the season starts a number of financial gurus crunch the numbers on the value of professional sports teams.  That news, amid soaring ticket and concession prices, somehow kind of makes me feel a little like Tevye in that song from Fiddler on the Roof. You know the one:

"“If I were a rich man,Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.All day long I’d biddy biddy bum.If I were a wealthy man.”"

After hearing all the wailing and gnashing of teeth from MLB owners about the losses from the pandemic-shorted, fan-less 2020 season, especially from the Ricketts family, we find out that the Cubs are worth somewhere on the order of $3.36 billion to $4.14 billion.

That’s five percent more than in 2019 and a tidy gain from the $846 million Daddy Ricketts put out so Tom and the kids could have the Cubs. Financially it seems, Tom and his siblings did alright.

"“I wouldn’t have to work hard.Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.If I were a biddy biddy rich,Yidle-diddle-didle-didle man.”"

Cubs: Ricketts family has done a lot since purchasing the franchise

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When Papa Ricketts plunked down his TD Ameritrade dough in 2009, Wrigley Field was a mess, the team was a disaster, the farm and scouting systems were a shell of what they are now and the Cubs hadn’t won a World Series in over 100 years.

To be fair all those flaws were corrected, at some great expense, too. Wrigley Field is renovated and updated but still retains that Wrigley Field charm we’ve come to love. Though I do miss those foul territory bullpens just a little.

The team was torn down and rebuilt along with the entire scouting system and the farm system was restocked and reset as Theo and the gang implemented their ‘Cubs Way.”

That led to the best six years of Cubs baseball since the 1930s.  Three division titles, two NLDS wins, an NLCS win and, of course, the 2016 World Series championship.

No sports franchise hardly ever loses value. Not the currently hapless Baltimore Orioles or Detroit Tigers who haven’t sniffed .500 since 2016.  Not even the very hapless Montreal Expos before they were moved to Washington, DC.

Although, if the aforementioned exorbitant ticket and concession prices keep going up we might all be reduced to wishing we were rich, just to go to a game.  That’s something the owners might want to think about with these team valuations being what they are.