Cubs’ unwillingness to spend on team is a major problem
Tom Ricketts seems to be more interested in spending on Wrigley than on players
Last month, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts told Sports Business Journal that the franchise had “probably’’ missed its budget on Wrigley Field renovations by 100 percent. Given that the initial budget was $575 million, it was like overrunning second base by about 50 yards.
One can’t know what was in Ricketts’ mind when he revealed the wild spending, but one can guess. If he was talking to a business publication, he surely wasn’t bemoaning the cost overrun; he likely was celebrating it. That blown budget was a way of saying that all the Cubs care about is giving fans the best experience possible at the ballpark.
But there’s something out of whack, something disproportionate in the way the Cubs approach the whole of their operation. Of course the baseball side matters. But it’s hard to shake the feeling that it doesn’t matter as much as everything else — the suites, the clubs, the restaurants, even the luxury hotel across the street from Wrigley.
If you dare mention these things, Ricketts’ defenders will tell you that the Cubs had the second-highest payroll on Opening Day last season, that they went over the luxury tax and that no one forced team president Theo Epstein to sign Jason Heyward and all the other cement boots weighing down the roster. They’ll also tell you that the Cubs can’t go over the luxury tax in 2020 because of the punitive nature of doing so in consecutive years.
Teams that exceed the luxury tax for a second consecutive season have to pay a 30 percent tax on the amount they go over that year’s
threshold. A third year over the limit affects draft position. In 2019, the Cubs paid $7.6 million in taxes when the threshold was $206 million. In 2020, the threshold will be $208 million. So if the Cubs overspent by the amount they did last season, the tax would be about $11 million.
That might sound like a lot to us regular people, but to baseball people, it sounds a lot like a middle reliever.
Let’s go back to Ricketts’ quote that “we probably missed our budget by 100 percent” on Wrigley renovations. It means the Cubs spent a whopping $575 million more than they thought they would.
But they can’t spend $11 million, relative chump change, in luxury taxes in 2020?
Go ahead and tell me I’m comparing apples and oranges. I’ll tell you the fruit bowl holding both is made of gold. The Cubs are rich.
Three things are fueling my frustration. The first is the Cubs’ lack of activity so far this offseason. When the biggest move they’ve made is bringing in David Ross to replace Joe Maddon as manager, that’s not movement. It’s inertia.
They’re apparently interested in trading third baseman Kris Bryant. That’s the second source of my frustration: The Cubs want to move a three-time All-Star, the 2016 National League most valuable player and a fan favorite because he’s going to cost too much money in a long-term contract?
You mean in the way that Wrigley Field renovations cost too much money? I don’t recall that stopping the Cubs.
The difference, of course, is that the renovations have added lots of new revenue streams to the franchise’s coffers. A newly signed Bryant, as good as he is, won’t. If the Cubs trade him, the ballpark is still going to be filled game after game. But at what point does the sinking product on the field start to matter?
Cheers to the franchise for winning the 2016 World Series, but what about now? The age-old question — what have you done for me lately? — doesn’t seem to apply to the Cubs.
Meanwhile, the Ricketts family gets wealthier. According to Forbes magazine, the club’s worth has gone from $2.68 billion in 2017 to $2.9 billion in 2018 to $3.1 billion in 2019. The family bought the team for $845 million in 2009. In 2015, the Cubs’ revenue was $340 million. In 2018, it was $452 million.
The Rickettses aren’t losing money, folks, no matter how much they’ve spent on Wrigley and the neighborhood.
Ah, yes, Frustration No. 3: Wrigleyville. It doesn’t feel like Wrigleyville anymore. It doesn’t feel like the funky, down-to-earth area it used to be. It doesn’t even feel like the neighborhood around Fenway Park, and aren’t the Red Sox the Cubs’ guide in all things? It feels like a suburb doing a weak imitation of a city neighborhood. In the new Wrigleyville, you’ll find a fancy restaurant next to a bar that’s trying too hard and charging too much.
No one but the naïve was ever under the impression that the Rickettses were in this for anything other than money. But there’s something lopsided about the whole production. A Bryant trade in the same year the Cubs launch their new Marquee Sports Network (and ask for more of your cash) would be the perfect illustration of that. Perception is everything.
Blame the luxury tax for the Cubs’ inactivity in the player market. Blame Epstein for some bad signings. Blame Scott Boras, Bryant’s agent, for always driving a toohard bargain. But at some point, you have to ask why a big-market team has eased back from acting like one when it comes to baseball.