47 minutes ago, 77 Hitmen said:

If anything, neighborhood and Ald. Lee's opposition could slow things down significantly. If Amtrak and Canal Edge want to head off that possibility, they'd be wise put some effort into coming up with ways to mitigate noise, light, air pollution impacts on the nearby residential areas. Those type of things should be feasible and not uncommon when addressing local concerns.

I think this is what the Bridgeporters will actually be able to muscle. It’s less about killing the project and more about throwing a wrench (or two, three, etc.) into Amtrak’s gears. If the residents are actually capable of delaying this project, I’m sure Ishbia will grease their palms. He/his firm is the one designing the maintenance facility, after all, so sound and light barriers can certainly be arranged if needed.

Another professional sports franchise Billionaire boy toy, this time Jared's brother Josh Kushner buying the Lakers.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/aug/21/los-angeles-lakers-12-5bn-sale-bob-iger-josh-kushner-private-equity-nba

Today teams are flipped with the calculated emotionlessness that a real estate speculator might get rid of a block of cheaply renovated apartments, and the old ideas of heritage, tradition, family, and community that once bound the pro leagues’ owner dynasties to their teams are now mostly useful as a rhetorical device, rather than a set of values to respect in practice.

There are still teams in the NBA holding out against the tide of private money: the Indiana Pacers have been in the same (majority) hands since 1983, the Chicago Bulls since 1985. But many long-time owners are now spying the exit, which is understandable given the boom in franchise valuations.

The NBA opened up to institutional money – investment from private equity firms, hedge funds, venture capital funds, and the like – in 2022, the first big pro league in US sports to embrace the worldwide emergence of sport as an investible asset class like technology or construction. It makes a rough kind of sense, given the NBA’s status as first mover, that basketball is now at the forefront of a fresh intensification in the sports investment cycle.

Iger and Kushner’s deal to buy the team will have to be structured in various tricky and byzantine ways – most likely as a consortium involving a number of individuals and firms, with finance coming via a mix of debt and cash. The families are out; the sharks are in.

What exactly does private equity want from sport? “Good returns” may seem like the simplest answer, and when appraising the surplus a figure like Walter has been able to extract in a single year from the Lakers, it’s hard not to feel that’s also the best answer..Others have speculated that the rich guys’ (and it is almost always a guy stumping up the cash) newfound interest in sport is a bid for cultural relevance, a cry for attention and perhaps even love amid the vexed politics of extreme wealth in an age of populist rage. No doubt there’s some truth to that, too. But the typical sports investor of the future probably looks more like Josh Kushner than Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos/

But to the Kushners of the world, what the Lakers are, above all, is a hedge.

The old NBA of Jerry Buss was about making money, building dynasties, giving the fans a good time, and injecting sport with a slick of Hollywood glamor. The new NBA of Josh Kushner is about saving investor-owners’ bank balances from the consequences of their own poor decisions. Everything else in sport now is secondary to the basic imperative of investor enrichment and protection. Once the Lakers were Showtime; now they are Insurance Time.

I think when Ishbia breaks ground, soxtalk members who can make it should all show up to the ceremony and offer huge thumbs up and carry “In for Ishbia!” Signs

28 minutes ago, Kyyle23 said:

I think when Ishbia breaks ground, soxtalk members who can make it should all show up to the ceremony and offer huge thumbs up and carry “In for Ishbia!” Signs

The sooner he breaks ground the better as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if he would start building the stadium before he actually takes ownership of the team.

9 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

The sooner he breaks ground the better as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if he would start building the stadium before he actually takes ownership of the team.

Good questions good questions

14 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

The sooner he breaks ground the better as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if he would start building the stadium before he actually takes ownership of the team.

I agree that way we can finally end all the talk from some (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, SAY no more!) about the Sox moving to Nashville! 😗

1 hour ago, WBWSF said:

The sooner he breaks ground the better as far as I'm concerned. I wonder if he would start building the stadium before he actually takes ownership of the team.

Probably not. This might be why Reinsdorf and Ishbia agreed to such a long timeline for possible ownership transfer. It doesn't even start until the year the current ballpark lease expires and Reinsdorf's option to sell window of 2029-2033 seems to line up very closely to the timeline of when a new stadium might be constructed.

I don't expect us to hear any stadium proposal from Ishbia until the Amtrak property sale is finalized....and probably sale of the BNSF yard too. Until that's all done, he probably doesn't see any benefit of getting too far ahead of himself.

7 minutes ago, 77 Hitmen said:

I don't expect us to hear any stadium proposal from Ishbia until the Amtrak property sale is finalized....and probably sale of the BNSF yard too. Until that's all done, he probably doesn't see any benefit of getting too far ahead of himself.

Also probably why Ishbia has been phrasing this as a Northwestern Medicine development/campus rather than a potential stadium site. If I’m remembering correctly, Ishbia and his representatives haven’t actually said anything about using the Amtrak yard for a future White Sox stadium. All that talk has stemmed from journalists (correctly) deducing that such is the case. Until he owns the land itself, it’s wise to not make plans known publicly (which is also likely why he and his team made sure Amtrak’s presentation at UIC was never publicly released).

6 hours ago, Kyyle23 said:

I think when Ishbia breaks ground, soxtalk members who can make it should all show up to the ceremony and offer huge thumbs up and carry “In for Ishbia!” Signs

no..."Sell the team".

21 hours ago, tray said:

I went to the last home game with two other couples, inc a former Chicago Policeman, his wife and a few friends in one guys' Wagoneer. They heartily laughed when I asked if any of them or their kids would ever consider taking a train to anywhere downtown, especially at night. Hey, I won't be around to see what thet fellow wants to build but as I told my friends, I hate to see some guy from Detroit do what he proposes doing. It's pretty sad, but oh well.

So someone from Bridgeport is afraid to go downtown?

Do you actually expect someone to believe this "story"

3 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

So someone from Bridgeport is afraid to go downtown?

Do you actually expect someone to believe this "story"

Isn’t Reinsdorf originally from Brooklyn?

Probably his fault the Dodgers went west, too.