1 minute ago, nrockway said:

Yeah, but are tourists hanging around Bridgeport? If you're visiting San Diego, chances are good you're going to be in or around the Gaslamp Quarter. Even if you're not, I'd think you're more likely take a cab to downtown SD than you are to Bridgeport. A cab to the 78? I dunno, maybe, but one might think they would've already done something there if developers thought so.

I would bet that Ishbia has a vision of what this franchise is capable of.

2 minutes ago, nrockway said:

Yeah, but are tourists hanging around Bridgeport? If you're visiting San Diego, chances are good you're going to be in or around the Gaslamp Quarter. Even if you're not, I'd think you're more likely take a cab to downtown SD than you are to Bridgeport. A cab to the 78? I dunno, maybe, but one might think they would've already done something there if developers thought so.

I think that is the big idea behind that 78 area, is to turn it into an experience instead of just a ball game. I wouldn't be surprised to see something like a casino, or other large anchor tenents end up there long term.

2 minutes ago, nrockway said:

Of course PE impacts all of our lives. I don't care if he buys a boat. I'm also not going to wash his balls and anoint a billionaire nepo baby a savior.

Because there isn't a massive ocean of existance between Jerry and washing his balls? The last 45 years have been a pretty clear failure when you compare the state of this franchise to the rest of it's peers. A new owner doesn't have to be the second coming to be a really large improvement over what we have seen for the last half century.

4 minutes ago, nrockway said:

Of course PE impacts all of our lives. I don't care if he buys a boat. I'm also not going to wash his balls and anoint a billionaire nepo baby a savior.

Yes, criticism of PE and its role in our economy and overall social fabric is real and growing - it's not the idiosyncratic hobbyhorse of one Soxtalk poster, as some seem to imply. But that's the last I'll say about it, as my reason for participating in this board is my love of the White Sox, which I hope will be positively impacted by an ownership change.

2 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

Yes, criticism of PE and its role in our economy and overall social fabric is real and growing - it's not the idiosyncratic hobbyhorse of one Soxtalk poster, as some seem to imply. But that's the last I'll say about it, as my reason for participating in this board is my love of the White Sox, which I hope will be positively impacted by an ownership change.

That's just it. PE is quite literally how Jerry bought the White Sox in 1980. Something over 80% of what bouight the team was OPM. This isn't new. The name of the activity might have changed over the years, but it is the exact same activity.

When Dollar Bill Wurtz passed away the Blackhawks were reborn. I see the same thing happening when Ishbia takes over. You know he has the vision because he bailed out on the Twins to become the future owner of the Sox.

15 minutes ago, nrockway said:

Yeah, but are tourists hanging around Bridgeport? If you're visiting San Diego, chances are good you're going to be in or around the Gaslamp Quarter. Even if you're not, I'd think you're more likely take a cab to downtown SD than you are to Bridgeport. A cab to the 78? I dunno, maybe, but one might think they would've already done something there if developers thought so.

Let's see what the future brings, the good news is the massive tourist numbers already exist.

29 minutes ago, nrockway said:

Of course PE impacts all of our lives. I don't care if he buys a boat. I'm also not going to wash his balls and anoint a billionaire nepo baby a savior.

Because you care more about the next White Sox owner being a hero for you than simply wanting the richest, smartest, and least risk adverse person possible. If the dude is willing to spend at the highest of levels and not be a dinosaur who forces his old school ways into impact our core processes, then yes I will anoint said owner the savior of my favorite sports team. Going from Jerry to that would be an absolute miracle. But please enjoy waiting out for that billionaire with a heart of gold to buy the team!

16 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Because you care more about the next White Sox owner being a hero for you than simply wanting the richest, smartest, and least risk adverse person possible. If the dude is willing to spend at the highest of levels and not be a dinosaur who forces his old school ways into impact our core processes, then yes I will anoint said owner the savior of my favorite sports team. Going from Jerry to that would be an absolute miracle. But please enjoy waiting out for that billionaire with a heart of gold to buy the team!

It's a business at its core. Some companies are poorly run and need new ownership. It happens.

33 minutes ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

Yes, criticism of PE and its role in our economy and overall social fabric is real and growing - it's not the idiosyncratic hobbyhorse of one Soxtalk poster, as some seem to imply. But that's the last I'll say about it, as my reason for participating in this board is my love of the White Sox, which I hope will be positively impacted by an ownership change.

To be clear, Private Equity sucks but is also a fall out from capitalism. If Justin Ishbia wasn’t in Private Equity, someone else would take his place. That is a macro issue much bigger than one man and we as White Sox fans should not feel bad about him being our owner as long as we reap the rewards from it.

14 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

To be clear, Private Equity sucks but is also a fall out from capitalism. If Justin Ishbia wasn’t in Private Equity, someone else would take his place. That is a macro issue much bigger than one man and we as White Sox fans should not feel bad about him being our owner as long as we reap the rewards from it.

The Yankees just had a PE firm buy into it. It is happening everywhere.

2 hours ago, nrockway said:

It's a good point. I think with the Padres though, there's some outside factors affecting it that probably wouldn't relate to the Sox. Coastal California location is a big one, with a new ballpark part of a more comprehensive redevelopment of San Diego's downtown. SD's real estate market is going bonkers relative to Chicago, the Padres have a potentially wealthier clientele and more tourism to tap into than the Sox do on Chicago's South Side. A relative dearth of sports makes the Padres pretty much the only show in town too. I'm not sure a South Loop ballpark changes a ton in that regard, though it probably does attract more non-baseball fans to attend than a Bridgeport park. Intuitively, I'd bet the Sox best path toward valuation increase is by attracting foreign, specifically Japanese and Korean, stars and developing a new fanbase that isn't geographically-connected to the team. Of course, then it doesn't really matter if you're in Chicago or Nashville. I generally like this idea because it helps the team and it likely lines the owner's pockets.

Boring prediction that seems likely to me is that Ishbia-led Sox operate like the Rubenstein Orioles. I think their fans were expecting a large influx of cash into the team, but so far the Orioles are bottom of the league in payroll and just traded a guy they'd likely have to pay big money to (right trade to make for baseball reasons still IMO). Rubenstein (read it like a portmanteau of rube and frankenstein) talked the talk when he bought the team but so far he just seems like...any other owner.

Also was the chair/head of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts board before being ousted.

Not a great couple of years.

3 hours ago, nrockway said:

We've discussed this, professional sports is literally the safest and best performing investment a moneyed entity could make. Long gone are the days of it being a vanity purchase. There's no reason to believe Ishbia is any different from these entities, these dudes want to make money above anything else. If it's more profitable to move the team and never sign huge free agent contracts, that's almost certainly what he's gonna do.

I still think vanity is still a factor in their decision to buy a pro sports team. I think one other thing that has changed is that it's no longer simply about owning the franchise itself, it's just as much about the real estate around the ballpark in a way that didn't really exist a couple of decades ago. Teams are now scrambling to replicate the Battery in Atlanta. Ricketts spent a ton of money not just renovating Wrigley, but buying up property around the stadium.

SD advantages

No NFL football competition

no other pro sports franchise yo compete with for sponsorship dollars/strong promotional calendar only bettered by LAD

Cinco de Mayo/popularity of team in northern Mexico

Weather

Consistent Top 3 MLB attendance

Beautiful stadium

Gaslamp District/Ballpark Village

General lack of availability of CA franchises...see Lakers' recent prices, LAD and SFG not for sale, A's moving to Vegas

Star studded/entertaining young team even still with Tatis M.Miller Merrill surfing...4/6 post season appearances, four post season series victories...Manny Machado to HoF as a Padre, etc.

LAD rivalry...albeit mostly one sided, one of the last teams to knock them out of post season and also had them down 2-1 in the LCS before Cease imploded

Aggressiveness/competitive spirits of Peter Seidler/AJ Preller

Ethan Salas

Caulfield just listed the spirit of a dead man as an advantage for the Padres.

4 minutes ago, Quin said:

Caulfield just listed the spirit of a dead man as an advantage for the Padres.

Seidler was PE too!!!

Ask Padres' fans the last couple of years...nobody ever actually dared to challenge LA's market dominate until he came around and they miss him as much as any owner in recent memory and still hope they can carry on the mission to win a title in his memory.

(Or ask Angels' fans what it's like to have Arte Moreno since one year after the 2002 Disney/ABC championship and waste the prime years of Trout/Ohtani for over a decade now?)

That said, I havent watched a full game in ages because the Sox finally got interesting again AND added Mune.

One thing you do quickly learn as a baseball watcher, entertaining offense is always more fun. Even though elite pitching speed and defense usually wins out in the postseason.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by caulfield12

19 minutes ago, Quin said:

Caulfield just listed the spirit of a dead man as an advantage for the Padres.

They say his ghost still haunts the visitor locker room to this day.

Advantage Padres.

On 8/8/2026 at 1:36 PM, caulfield12 said:

Bretton Woods speech incoming?

Nixon and the gold standard? Fiat currencies?

Trilateral Commission? Freemasons?

I love that you threw in the Free Masons. I worked with that guy for 10-12 years once. Once I figured out he was

a paranoid loon I quit trying to talk him down from the ledge. I have to admit he was pretty hilarious whan he wanted to be.

1 minute ago, WhiteSox2023 said:

They say his ghost still haunts the visitor locker room to this day.

Advantage Padres.

Just like the PCA MVP statue campaign (probably goes next to the Millenium Bean)/"W"intrust flag flies high this year lol...

(Also the Padres for some reason really upset WestEddy for all their wild/or responsible spending...that doubled their franchise value despite the elevated debt load.)

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by caulfield12

1 minute ago, zisk said:

I love that you threw in the Free Masons. I worked with that guy for 10-12 years once. Once I figured out he was

a paranoid loon I quit trying to talk him down from the ledge. I have to admit he was pretty hilarious whan he wanted to be.

National Treasure movies are vastly underrated lol.

(Also, Odyssey in IMAX 70 mm and Anne Hathaway/Obi Wan fighting off dinosaurs in a dystopian 80's neighborhood, Attack the Block for this generation...👍)

2 hours ago, 35thstreetswarm said:

Yes, criticism of PE and its role in our economy and overall social fabric is real and growing - it's not the idiosyncratic hobbyhorse of one Soxtalk poster, as some seem to imply. But that's the last I'll say about it, as my reason for participating in this board is my love of the White Sox, which I hope will be positively impacted by an ownership change.

I suspect that many people here on Soxtalk would agree with the criticisms and concerns of what private equity firms have done. We are all aware of companies that PE groups have ruined.

The problem is the bizarre, incessant insistence by one poster that Justin Ishbia is uniquely diabolical compared to other MLB owners and that his ulterior motive is to buy the team from the benevolent Jerry Reinsdorf and somehow bleed the White Sox franchise dry before flipping it for a profit - casting it aside as yet another PE conquest for him. There's no room for rational debate, just constant lashing out and personal insults at everyone while claiming that he doesn't care about the issue.

My guess is that the irrational anger at Ishbia centers around the fact that he is uniquely qualified, due to his personal wealth, to make new stadium happen - most likely in the South Loop. Ishbia suddenly dropping his Twins bid and emerging as the likely next Sox owner last year has changed the South Loop proposal from an unlikely Jerry pipe dream to a decent chance of actually happening.

This might be why we keep hearing about PE malfeasance, Winnetka mansions, unsolvable ingress/egress issues, unstable infill land, polluted waterways that magically go from a river to a highly toxic canal once you go south of Roosevelt and then back to a river with water taxi service when you get to Ping Tom Park.

Is Ishbia's mansion in Winnetka worthy of criticism? Arguably yes from other Winnetka residents, but I don't see how it affects someone's rooting for the White Sox. Are there broader concerns about the actions of private equity firms in general. Yes, but again, this really shouldn't be much of a hot topic relating to the future ownership of the Sox.

On 8/8/2026 at 1:36 PM, caulfield12 said:

Bretton Woods speech incoming?

Nixon and the gold standard? Fiat currencies?

Trilateral Commission? Freemasons?

17 minutes ago, zisk said:

I love that you threw in the Free Masons. I worked with that guy for 10-12 years once. Once I figured out he was

a paranoid loon I quit trying to talk him down from the ledge. I have to admit he was pretty hilarious whan he wanted to be.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/markets/stocks/articles/ceo-fired-900-people-zoom-151745864.html

More interest rate/mortgage/refinance "victims" are piling up...

Edited 39 minutes ago39 min by caulfield12

59 minutes ago, 77 Hitmen said:

I suspect that many people here on Soxtalk would agree with the criticisms and concerns of what private equity firms have done. We are all aware of companies that PE groups have ruined.

The problem is the bizarre, incessant insistence by one poster that Justin Ishbia is uniquely diabolical compared to other MLB owners and that his ulterior motive is to buy the team from the benevolent Jerry Reinsdorf and somehow bleed the White Sox franchise dry before flipping it for a profit - casting it aside as yet another PE conquest for him. There's no room for rational debate, just constant lashing out and personal insults at everyone while claiming that he doesn't care about the issue.

My guess is that the irrational anger at Ishbia centers around the fact that he is uniquely qualified, due to his personal wealth, to make new stadium happen - most likely in the South Loop. Ishbia suddenly dropping his Twins bid and emerging as the likely next Sox owner last year has changed the South Loop proposal from an unlikely Jerry pipe dream to a decent chance of actually happening.

This might be why we keep hearing about PE malfeasance, Winnetka mansions, unsolvable ingress/egress issues, unstable infill land, polluted waterways that magically go from a river to a highly toxic canal once you go south of Roosevelt and then back to a river with water taxi service when you get to Ping Tom Park.

Is Ishbia's mansion in Winnetka worthy of criticism? Arguably yes from other Winnetka residents, but I don't see how it affects someone's rooting for the White Sox. Are there broader concerns about the actions of private equity firms in general. Yes, but again, this really shouldn't be much of a hot topic relating to the future ownership of the Sox.

Great post.