77 Hitmen

One can only hope. But Jerry has been telling friends he wants to keep doing this until he's 99. Under the franchise sale agreement, Ishbia can't exercise his option to buy until 2034, when JR is 98.

I don't think you're alone in feeling this way. This is what's most concerning about this franchise - JR, through his incompetence, has driven away a significant number of life-long fans and killed interest in the team for many of the next generation. It's going to be hard to bring these people back and just getting good enough again to make it to the first round of the playoffs once in a while isn't going to be enough to turn things around and bring fans back. The good news is that, at age 57, you and your son should outlast Jerry Reinsdorf by several decades and he has a deep-pocketed billionaire lined up to take ownership of the team. We can only hope that the Ishbias will finally turn this franchise around in a meaningful way. Yeah, I know some Sox fans are convinced that Justin Ishbia is going to be just as bad as JR, if not worse, and that fans will simply turn on him too. I dunno, I guess anything is possible. IMO, I would just stop being a fan altogether if I thought this franchise is that doomed such that we'll see this same level of soul-sucking incompetence from the next owner.

Block Club ChicagoTwo Stadiums In The South Loop? Neighbors Weigh In On Pro...SOUTH LOOP — With the possibility of the 14th Street Railyard becoming the future home of the White Sox, some South Loop residents are cautiously

Wow - bad day for baseball player collisions. https://www.mlb.com/news/parker-meadows-and-riley-greene-collision

I don't mean to defend Jerry Reinsdorf in any way, but my understanding is that he's a billionaire mostly because of illiquid assets that he has, including the White Sox, Bulls, and part of the United Center. Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm sure he lives a comfortable luxurious life and is far from broke and his children are surely set for life. But it's not like he has $1B sitting around ready to be cashed. If he did, he wouldn't have to pull in Ishbia right now to pay off their existing debt. The team is dead last in revenue (thanks to his poor stewardship) and he's going to spend on the franchise accordingly. I just wish he'd decide age 90 is a good time to retire and just sell controlling interest to the team to the Ishbias as soon as the labor issue is settled instead of 2029 at the earliest.

Since we're making Mr. Burns posts here. Monty himself has your answer:

Yes, it was a perfect storm of financial hits. Many of this problems were self-inflicted but others (Covid, the collapse of the RSN gravy train) were out of their control. The team completed a rebuild just in time for attendance to be shutdown and then restricted due to Covid and then when things got back to normal, the rebuild utterly collapsed. The timing of if all couldn't have been any worse. The fact that Jerry was able to lock in Ishbia as the next team owner before he went ahead and bought the Twins might turn out to be one of the best moves he's made for the Sox franchise in at least a couple of decades. The Ishbia brothers have the liquidity that JR doesn't and they can do things like pay off that debt, bankroll a new ballpark, and get this franchise out of its death spiral. It's too bad this might have to drag out another 8 years, but better late than never. At least it doesn't look like Ishbia will be totally sitting on the sidelines for the next 3-8 years as shown by his intent to buy that Amtrak yard across the river from the 78.

I wonder what Ishbia is personally thinking knowing that this is his future franchise, but it continues to be run into the ground and Jerry holds the option to sell for another 8 years. Obviously he knew what he was agreeing to when he made the deal with JR last year, but it must be maddening to know he might have to sit on the sidelines until as late as 2034 and watch this unacceptable level of incompetence.

Another great Getz accomplishment is being such a great company man that Jerry let him fail upwards to the GM position.

Yep, and Astros-wannabe uniforms. It would take the team nearly another decade before they finally got the uniforms right as the current, great-looking ones were unveiled late in the 1990 season.

These clowns can't even rearrange deck chairs properly.

On this date in 1981, the White Sox announced they would let fans vote on five options for new team uniforms. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/04/08/april-8-chicago-history/ All the options were very tacky. If you're looking for something to cringe at today, see the photo below.

As the Forbes article points out, the Sox rank 30th in terms of revenue generated and well below the 29th team. They're bringing in significantly less money than the Marlins, Rays, and homeless A's. Think about that for a second, teams like the Marlins and A's are bringing in more money than the White Sox. As a fan worried about the future viability of this franchise, I find that very disturbing It's not hard to believe they lost money this decade with Covid and trying to start up a new RSN that carries 3 crappy teams, but where would they bring in the money to pay down that debt? Attendance is near the bottom of the league, TV revenue is down, I can only imagine sponsorship revenue has cratered, they don't get the revenue sharing that small market teams do. The economics of baseball have changed. There was a time when it was profitable for JR to play in a stadium where he paid little to no rent and got to keep the parking revenue. That's no longer the case. Teams that are making enough money to have huge payrolls are doing so through developments around their ballparks like The Battery or Gallagher Way, high attendance, and the teams with massive fan bases can still bring in a lot of money through their TV deals.

As a much bigger Sox fan than I am a Bulls fan, I'm just thankful that it's not the White Sox that the Reinsdorfs want to keep in the family.

When JR no longer owns the team.

As the Rays return to a refurbished Tropicana Field, their eye is on a new stadium. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7174311/2026/04/06/tampa-bay-rays-mlb-tropicana-field-new-stadium/ $60M in repairs and renovations for a ballpark that might only be around for a few more years. "The plan is to create a massive complex similar to The Battery in Atlanta but nearly twice as large. The site would include not only the new stadium but also shopping, housing and entertainment, all connected to a new Hillsborough College campus."

Ozzie is spot on.

Yeah, but other than the lowest revenue (by far) in MLB, three straight 100-loss seasons (including an all-time record 121 loss season), the 2nd longest drought for winning a post-season series in MLB, an abysmally low number of playoff appearances in the wild-card era for a team that plays in a division full of small market teams, seeing the fanbase shrink such that the Sox are now essentially a small market team within the 3rd largest metro area, an unnecessary public feud with a first-ballot HoFer along with feuds with other fan-favorites, booting a PBP announcer who is now being lauded on a national level, and the only team that saw its franchise valuation actually drop......stops to catch breath......by what metric are the White Sox really a poorly run organization?

The way the Sox are so poorly operated, I can only imagine there will be a massive house cleaning throughout the organization after Ishbia finally takes over.

Same with the Twins partial sale, in which $500M in debt was a factor. That doesn't sound like the usual accounting trickery to me. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6892645/2025/12/16/twins-partial-sale-finances-debt-update/

I'm pretty sure that McCaskey and Warren have recently said they won't make a decision until the IL General Assembly has had a chance to pass the PILOT bill, so I'm not sure what league sources are leaking to the press that a decision is coming in "the next few weeks". There's no way in hell George McCaskey is going to jump to Hammond before the ILGA and the Governor have had a chance to pass that bill and that's not likely to happen until May at the earliest. Arlington Heights is McCaskey's much-preferred location. If the spring session ends with a failure to pass the bill the Bears are looking for, then yeah, I expect them to go ahead and make things official with Indiana. But not until then.

Oh, and I'm sure there will be people in the local media like Paul Sullivan or talk radio blowhards who will continue to take pot shots at any new Sox ballpark because it's not the Cubs and not beloved Wrigley. What people say online? Heck, people on social media are complete assholes about everything. But, if the Sox build a new ballpark that is well-designed and in a location that has more things around it that'll attract more fans AND the Sox start fielding a more competitive team, then what "people say" online or in the media isn't going to kill its success.

I'm shocked that the ballpark's acres of surface lots and proximity to expressway off ramps aren't vaulting the Sox to near the top of the list. /s Note that the White Sox are the ONLY team that has lost valuation on Forbes's list from last year. In fact, they've lost valuation two years in a row according to the article. Way to go Jerry! I wonder if the Ishbias have locked in a sale price with Reinsdorf since JR has been saying he wants to stick around as long as possible and Ishbia's first controlling option to buy year isn't for another eight years (2034).

Speaking of Florida, it'll be interesting to see what the public ends up paying for a new Rays new stadium, if one ever gets built. Reports suggest that the ask will be ~$1B from the city and county to get a new domed stadium built, which will have a total cost of over $2B.

Hey Jerry.....SELL. THE. TEAM. NOW!!!!**, not when you're pushing 100. ** actually, sell after the upcoming lockout is over. So not literally right now.