Billionaire Family and Lifelong Fans Win Bid to Buy the Chicago Cubs

To say that Tom Ricketts is a Chicago Cubs fan is a major understatement. He grew up watching the Cubs play on WGN. He once lived in an apartment over a bar that was across the street for Wrigley Field (where the Cubs play). He even met his wife at a Cubs game while sitting in the bleachers. Now the lifelong billionaire Cubs fan and his family are set to purchase one of Major League Baseball's most popular teams (source: news.yahoo.com).

The Ricketts family, who made most of their money when J. Joe Rickets (Tom's father) founded Ameritrade (now TD Ameritrade), had their bid selected among three finalists and is reportedly going to be worth about $900 million. In the deal, the Ricketts family will get the Chicago Cubs, the Ivy Covered Walls (and the rest of the stadium) at Wrigley Field and 25 percent interest in a regional sports network. The Ricketts family is buying the team from its current owner Tribune Co. who bought the team in 1981 from Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. for $20.5 million (source: news.yahoo.com).

Tribune Co. owns daily newspapers the L.A. times, the Baltimore Sin, the Chicago Tribune, the Hartford Courant and others. They also own 23 television stations. Last month Tribune Co. filed for bankruptcy protection and while the Cubs and the stadium were not a part of the filing, the sale will more than likely have to be approved by the bankruptcy court as well as the baseball owners (source: news.yahoo.com).

If the sale goes through the Ricketts family gets a team that hasn't won a World Series since 1908 and hasn't even made it to the World Series since 1945. Winning a World Series is precisely the plan of the Ricketts family. "My family and I are Cubs fans," Tom Ricketts said. "We share the goal of Cubs fans everywhere to win a World Series and build the consistent championship tradition that the fans deserve (source: news.yahoo.com)." Such a statement will come to the delight of Cubs fans as many of them feel "cursed" and are waiting for a World Series title that at times seems so far out of reach.

While there is no definite date on when the deal will get done, the Ricketts family is anxious to get the sale completed by opening day if possible (source: news.yahoo.com). If that occurs, the fans of the Chicago Cubs will be going into the 2009 season with an owner that is just as Cub-crazy as they are. Maybe this is what it will take for one of Major League Baseball's most popular teams to finally get back to and win the World Series.