77 Hitmen

If the Ishbias commit to privately financing a baseball stadium there, I sure hope so.

You don't think they'd find a buyer for 300 acres of prime, undeveloped real estate close to 2 major expressways and a Metra stop? Did they overpay for the land? Serious question, I'm not being facetious. What does that kind of parcel right in the heart of a thriving area go for?

I think landing the Bears would be a major coup for the State of Indiana and Northwest Indiana. I expect their politicians would move heaven and earth to get a deal done and NO Indiana elected officials are going to lose an election for bringing the Bears to their area. In fact, I expect the opposite would be true - Indiana politicians from both sides of the aisle will have a field day telling their constituents how they got the iconic Chicago Bears to relocate across state lines. IMHO opinion, it would be a gigantic black eye to Chicago and the State of Illinois to lose the Bears. It would just reaffirm to everyone that people and businesses are fleeing the city and state because it's not friendly to businesses. Other cities and states get major projects done while Illinois/Cook County is where projects like this go to die so that politicians can say they stuck it to business owners because they're rich. It would be different if the Bears were asking for public funding for the stadium itself. But for a state to blunder its way out of an NFL franchise and $2B in private investment for the stadium itself because they won't budge on infrastructure spending and property tax relief sends a bad signal to the business community. Oh, and Illinois and Cook County can say goodbye to a lot of Taylor Swift-type mega concerts, NCAA tournaments, etc. if NW Indiana builds a climate-controlled 65k seat fixed-roof stadium. It won't only be about the 9 or 10 Bears games per season they're losing.

Rumor has it there is a state whose borders come right up to the Chicago city limits and is within the Chicago TV market. Maybe someone could fact-check that.

Okay, you've mentioned the 5 franchises out of 30 with bad owners that everyone knows about. Of course, then there's of the top 12 or so teams from the biggest markets that can hand out insane contracts. What about the other half of teams in the league? Move them to some inferior league? May as well roll back MLB to the original number of franchises at 16 for the biggest markets and push cities like Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cleveland, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Tampa Bay, Baltimore, etc. to some sub-par league. The Brewers payroll is equivalent to the Dodgers luxury tax, so they'll be in this second rate league for sure. Terrible idea, just awful.

Perhaps baseball will devolve into a regional sport if the competitive imbalance isn't addressed somehow. A sport that fans in the biggest markets follow, but sharply declining interest in the bottom half markets.

Dallas/Ft. Worth is the 4th largest metro area in the US. 8.3M people vs. 9.4M in Chicago's metro. How are they mid market by any metric? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area

But that's the problem. In the NFL, Green Bay and KC can be powerhouses and nobody talks about them as small market teams. In MLB, it's gotten to the point where the only powerhouse franchises are in the top 12 or so markets. Everyone else has to either catch lightning in a bottle or keep tearing down and rebuilding like the Guardians and Rays do.

I disagree with this. Over the last 20 Super Bowl champs, here are the small market winners: Green Bay, Kansas City (x3), Tampa Bay, New Orleans, Pittsburgh. That's 7 times in 20 seasons. Plus 3 arguably "middle market" SB champs: Baltimore, Seattle, Denver. That's half the SB titles in the last 20 years that weren't in a top 12 market vs. only 4 out of 20 in MLB. If Kansas City and Tampa Bay are small markets in MLB, then they're small markets in other sports too. Green Bay/Milwaukee, too.

So, by your logic, the Brewers should be sold because they can't get past the big market teams to make it to the World Series. The Guardians should be sold, too. In fact, using this litmus test, about half the league (all smaller market teams) should be put up for sale. The Rays just got sold. What if the new owners can't get past the big market teams, either? Force them to put the team up for sale again? The Pohlads tried to sell the Twins and ran into issues with their $400M in debt. Two things can be true: their are some bad owners who just don't want to compete (Reinsdorf, Nutting, Fisher) and there's a systemic competitive balance problem in the league that is only getting worse.

Fun with statistics. We can cherry pick which ones to use to further our argument. Here's another way to look at the disparity problem in MLB by looking at all the recent World Series winners: 2025: Dodgers - BIG MARKET 2024: Dodgers - BIG MARKET 2023: Texas -- BIG MARKET 2022: Houston - BIG MARKET 2021: Atlanta - BIG MARKET 2020: Dodgers -- BIG MARKET 2019: Washington - Medium Market? 2018: Boston - BIG MARKET 2017: Houston - BIG MARKET 2016: Cubs - BIG MARKET 2015: KC - Small Market 2014: San Francisco - BIG MARKET 2013: Boston - BIG MARKET 2012: SF - BIG MARKET 2011: St. Louis - Medium Market (at the time, small market now) 2010: SF - BIG MARKET 2009: Yankees - BIG MARKET 2008: Philadelphia - BIG MARKET 2007: Boston - BIG MARKET 2006: St. Louis - Medium Market It's almost always the same top 10 or 12 big market teams that win the World Series. All but 4 times going back 2 decades. You just don't see this in the other major sports.

If this is based on the eventual new owner being announced this year, the option to sell to Ishbia doesn't even begin until 2029 and might not even happen until a few years after that. I see no reason for the future owner to want to spend money now on free agents who either won't be here or will be past their prime by the time he takes over. The money he's spending on the team over the next couple of years are for long-term fixes such as scouting, player development and a new stadium, not to land FAs in the short-term.

With the #1 pick, the Sox also get the largest amount of bonus pool money. They are NOT going to skip over the person they like best because of signing bonus money.

Bring back those cardboard cutouts of fans from the Covid season!

That must be the reason. I wonder how often they have their roof open in Arizona (comparable climate to Vegas) and in Miami (comparable to TB) or Houston for that matter during their 81 home dates. I thought one reason for a retractable roof was to allow for natural grass and avoid that awful Metrodome-type astroturf. But synthetic turf has improved enough that Miami and Arizona has switched to it even with their retractable roofs and Globe Life Field has artificial turf, too. Domes like Tropicana Field look dreary with no natural light but having ETFE as a roofing material changes that.

I agree with everything said here, but man, that's a lot of money! I guess it's just hard for a regular schmo like me to conceptualize someone dropping $2B for a sports franchise and then coming up with another $1B or so for a stadium like that. But I looked it up and the Ishbias (his brother Mat being primary owner) bought the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury (WNBA) for $4B and the brothers still have a net worth of $5B and $10B. I wonder how the Sox franchise sale price gets intertwined with the need for the incoming owners to privately finance a new stadium (if they don't want to stay at Rate Field). If JR had somehow gotten the state to pay $1B toward a new stadium, surely the asking price for the team would have been higher.

If they're working on a new stadium, he's absolutely deeply involved in that since he'll be funding much of it and he'll be the owner going forward. Jerry already screwed up one ballpark design big time and there's no way Ishbia is just going to sit back and see what JR comes up with this time around. But yeah, he's not going to be involved in day to day operations of the team until at least 2029. Maybe he'll infuse some cash to shore up their scouting/player development, etc. now. But he's not making roster or staffing decisions for the next few years.

....also, previous renderings for a Rays stadium show a fixed roof. The new A's stadium in Vegas will also have a fixed roof. Is the era of retractable roof stadiums over? I thought the whole point of having at least a retractable roof is that people didn't like going to baseball games indoors in the spring and summer. Several of the new NFL stadiums have fixed roofs (Minnesota, LA, Vegas) and it looks like the Bears, Commanders, and Browns proposals have a fixed roof. So, they're trending away from retractable roofs in football thanks to ETFE ceilings.

This could be a huge boost to that franchise. I hope moving to a better ballpark at a better location resolves their attendance issues. With a more accessible location and 100 acres to develop a stadium district, it could be very successful. Once a new Rays stadium and the new A's stadium open, there won't be many ballparks left that are arguably worse than Rate Field. Maybe Angel Stadium or Chase Field? I fully expect the Royals to get a deal done to leave Kauffman Stadium soon since they will have 2 states bidding against each other.

And if, after those 7 years, he's good enough for a huge payday, it'll likely be Ishbia signing the checks at that point.

Yep, that would be typical White Sox luck and with the Twins and even the Royals getting the picks ahead of them.

I've said a few times that JR runs the Sox like they're the Pittsburgh Pirates instead of a team in the 3rd largest market. I guess I was wrong, we're not even up to the Pirates level.

The only thing I can think of that makes 2029 a "magical year" is that it's the year the Sox lease at Rate Field expires. Otherwise, I agree that it is a weird arrangement. Sell the team....but Jerry's option to sell doesn't even kick in until 2029 and Ishbia's option to buy doesn't kick in until freaking 2034 - nine years from now and when Jerry will be 98. What happens if Jerry passes before 2029? I have no idea. @southsider2k5 is totally right that JR saw that Ishbia was about to buy the Twins and had to do something now. JR also realized that his plan to get public funding for a new stadium was DOA in Springfield, so he didn't want to lose Ishbia as not only purchaser of the team, but also perhaps financer of the new stadium. I found it interesting that they officially announced the team sale/infusion of cash agreement only a few days after the Fire announced their stadium plans at the 78. It's possible that was just a coincidence, but it does make me think that JR saw his window for a Sox stadium at the 78 closing and wanted to get financing for the ballpark going while the property was still available.

Yep, they would have gotten the 2nd WC spot that season. They had a 19-inning victory just before the All Star break that gave them a 57-31 record - on pace to win over 100 games. Then they went 2-10 right after the break.

I totally agree. This change may be the reason why MLB has seen an increase in viewership over the last few years. The 7:00 games dragging on until 10:30 or close to 11:00 night after night was getting ridiculous. On the other hand, I think potentially the worst thing that may come out of his tenure is the complete destruction of the American League and National League. He sure seems to be setting MLB up to make this a reality. IMO, it just won't be the same when the Sox and Cubs are both in the "Great Lakes Division" of the "Eastern Conference" or whatever the hell they end up with.