77 Hitmen

If we're talking about the last time the Sox talked about a new stadium, I don't remember many people feeling all that warm and fuzzy about New Comiskey going up. To begin with, Jerry and Eddie immediately soured the whole new ballpark situation with their threat to move the team to what is now Tropicana Field and ended up pissing everyone off for extorting taxpayer money for their new park. Then, they built (at the city's insistence) at the same site that they've had problems with for decades. The Robert Taylor Homes were still around back then and the area wasn't that great at that time. There was even an incident where workers found a bullet hole in one of the new upper deck seats being installed at the new park, which wasn't great for PR. Finally, while people looked forward to moving to a modern, baseball-only facility, a lot of people (rightfully) groaned when they saw how high and steep that 29-row upper deck was sitting above 3 levels of premium seating. If we're talking about being excited about new ownership, yeah Sox fans were excited in 1980......about Ed Debartolo buying the team. Then the AL shot that down and we ended up with Jerry and Eddie as the fallback option. And people might not remember, but Jerry was the more likeable of those two. Yes, fans were eager to see an end to the austerity this franchise had under Veeck, but it didn't take JR and EE long to rub fans the wrong way.

JR has the controlling option to sell until 2034, when he'll be 98.

Yeah, I don't know what the hell the Sox Machine guy is talking about. The Master Plan for the site shows the area south of the Fire stadium full of buildings. Even if the Sox don't build there, they aren't going to use all that prime real estate for a surface lot and a retention pond.

Here's an interview with Scott Merkin on Fox32. Not much new on the stadium situation, but he says Jerry told Roger Bossard this offseason that he wants to do this until he's 99. FOX 32 ChicagoInside scoop on potential White Sox stadium site in the S...In this week's Toyota Talks, Tina Nguyen chatted with MLB.com White Sox beat writer Scott Merkin about the new potential White Sox stadium site after Matt Ishbia purchased a plot of land in the South

The process is super strict — no shoes, no hats, knees exposed, back against the wall — and to account for potential shrinkage

Same with the "let's move them to Arlington Heights next to the Bears" speculative nonsense.

Looking at the comments, Josh Nelson believes there is no room at the 78 for another stadium because of the surface lots and retention pond that are in the Fire's plan. The Sox apparently don't agree with him since Boyer is still talking about the 78 site as the team's primary focus and I find it hard to believe that surface lots and a retention pond are going to stop someone from building on the south portion of the site. But, I usually take what Nelson says with a grain of salt. He is right, though, that the Alderwoman does not support a Sox stadium there and there will be more community pushback if the Sox announce they will build there.

Yeah, I'd be very interested in seeing what they envision for the Amtrak property and the southern portion of the 78. Would they put the Sox ballpark just south of the Fire stadium on the 78 and use the Amtrak land for a stadium district/parking? Or would the Sox stadium go on the west side of the river? What are the benefits or drawbacks to either option? They mentioned Shore Capital's plans to develop some sort of medical campus with Northwestern Medicine on that site, but I don't imagine that would take up the entire 47 acres of the Amtrak property. They could very well build both that and a stadium district on that land. Ishbia must surely realize that they aren't getting public funding for the stadium itself.

And don't forget that is brother Mat is also going to be an investor in the Sox ownership group and is separately worth another $10B. The Sox ownership arrangement will be reversed from that of the Phoenix Suns, where Mat is the majority owner with Justin is part of the Suns ownership group.

@Sleepy Harold Here's a little more from Brooks Boyer in this NBC 5 interview. He says at 62 acres, "certainly there's room" for a Sox stadium on the 78 site and says the Amtrak site and the 78 could create an "amazing sports district". He said any talk about financing was above his pay grade.

Here's an article from the Athletic by Jon Greenberg: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7129164/2026/03/18/white-sox-justin-ishbia-new-stadium-amtrak-railyard/

Because the new owner of the Rays is from Florida and didn't buy the team to move them to Montreal. He was also previously part of a group that was trying to bring an expansion team to Orlando before he bought the Rays instead. I should amend my post - they'd move to Orlando if the city/county provides a huge chunk of public money toward a new stadium. They aren't moving to any city unless there's a boatload of public money for a stadium waiting for them. Unless Montreal is going to put up close to $1B in public money for a new stadium, MLB is not going back there. The only cities/states that I know of that are offering public money for a new MLB stadium are Portland ($800M) and Salt Lake City/Utah ($900M). One of those cities will likely get an expansion team.

My first guess would be to Orlando. To answer @WBWSF 's question, yes I think the new owners would move the Rays if they don't get a stadium deal done. They're no way they're staying at Tropicana Field long-term.

Perhaps busy mapping out the circuitous route the dump trucks will have to take to haul away all the toxic waste to build Private Equity Field. Then he'll come here and have a meltdown over this latest news.

Yep, this gives the Sox more options in pursuing a stadium in the South Loop while leaving space for parking and commercial development (aka "ballpark village"). The fact that Isbhia is working on purchasing a huge, 47-acre tract of land right across the river from the 78 sure makes it look like he intends to have the team leave 2nd Rate Field in the not to distant future. It sounds like Amtrak was already wanting to move their railyard to another location. From the Crain's article: "Relocating Amtrak’s maintenance facility to a larger space with modern improvements was previously identified as a necessary step in the broader Chicago Hub Improvement Program, or CHIP, to improve Midwest passenger transit."

The Fire only play 2-3 home games a month and the new MLS schedule will have a summer break from when the playoffs end in May to mid-July. So, many prime summer weeks with no Fire games. I know Mansueto envisions using the Fire stadium for concerts and other events, so it won't sit empty for 7 or 8 weeks, but how many other events can they book there? That's a lot of downtime in the middle of the summer for any entertainment district that they want to build at the site. I know the Alderwoman is against the Sox moving there, but if the city actually roadblocks a $1B privately-financed stadium development on land that's been vacant for over 50 years, then it's another sign that businesses just can't get things done with the city. Use the Rate Field land to build the much-needed housing if the Sox want to move to the South Loop.

I'm trying to visualize whether the Amtrak yard is wide enough to accommodate a stadium. They still need to keep tracks for trains to go through. Also, if you look at the train yard there that is between Canal St. on the west and the river on the east, note that the western half of that yard is Metra's rail yard and Amtrak's yard is on the eastern half of that piece of land. Maybe a stadium would fit there, I don't know. Perhaps it's the 2nd option that @Dick Allen mentioned above - use that land for parking and ballpark village. I'm sure someone with graphic editing tools could take a ballpark shape and superimpose it over that tract of land. Either way, there would need to be a pedestrian bridge over the river to connect the two sites. At any rate, it's a strong indicator that the future Sox owner is serious about moving the team to the South Loop.

I only see the total number of pages in the tread and a link to the last page of the thread.

Yep, it was a perfect s%*# storm for the Sox. Covid hit just as the team started getting good and made the playoffs and just as payroll started going up. Then, just as Covid restrictions lifted, the rebuild fell apart in 2022. Also, the RSN money was drying up at the same time. Add that JR's incompetence as you mentioned with bringing in TLR and with their stadium situation. The best thing Jerry has done for this franchise in years was help line up Ishbia as the next owner and to have him give the franchise some cash infusion now.

How do you change it to dark mode?

The site is still slow to load for me. Often I'll briefly get a site not found message for a few seconds before I get through to the site. Hopefully the site maintenance scheduled for this afternoon will fix this. Thanks, Admins, for all you do to keep this site running!

Every team had to go through Covid, but it's probably when the Twins and Sox amassed their debt. The Sox aren't alone in the loss of broadcasting revenues. It's been a problem for many teams outside of the top 10 or so franchises. But obviously 2025 was the nadir of broadcasting revenues for the Sox.....and no doubt the low point of other revenues too coming off a 121-loss season. Seems to be that these things affect revenues more that franchise valuations. That's why the Sox are last in revenue but #17 in franchise valuation since they are in the 3rd largest market.

I don't know which 9 teams. It's mentioned in the video and I've only heard of the Sox and Twins having debt. They actually do compare the MLB situation to the NBA in the video clip above. They said the NBA gets more revenue from national TV deals, so they don't have the same revenue disparity problem that MLB does.

CNBC's analysis also determined that 9 MLB franchises are losing money. I read the article to say that this was based on their own analysis and not solely based on whatever numbers the owners report. So no accounting loopholes (depreciation, etc.). This is also after revenue sharing as they say that more than half the teams would be losing money without the existing revenue sharing.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with the Padres pending sale. We've already discussed in other threads their somewhat unique situation (no other teams in their market from any of the 4 major sports, top-tier ballpark, near-perfect weather, but market size is somewhat boxed in on all sides). The article says the Rays, who were recently sold for $1.7B, saw a 21% increase in valuation from last year as did Detroit. The Pohlad family seemed to have trouble selling the Twins and now they're keeping the team but bringing in additional investors. Jerry was counting on a tax payer-funded new stadium to boost the Sox valuation. That ain't happening, so the team isn't going to be worth as much if the next owner will need to pay for a new ballpark (if he wants one) in addition to paying for the franchise itself.