![]() The Sox have won only one World Series since Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and his partners took control in 1981 and are coming off a season that general manager Rick Hahn said “has been described to me at times as depressing, disgust, frustration (and) shock.”īut Reinsdorf can’t be too depressed or disgusted if the Sox’s value continues to grow at that rate. 15 on Forbes’ list at $2.05 billion, a 16% increase over the previous year. ![]() They also have announced the creation of a trophy room at the ballpark, which will display the one trophy they’ve won in the last 114 years. The Cubs have built a sportsbook at the Friendly Confines that’s scheduled to open this season and create another revenue stream for the team, making it even more valuable. purchased the Cubs and Wrigley Field in 1981 for $20 million, back when being lovable losers was a way of life and you could buy a bleacher seat and a couple of beers without taking out a loan. The Ricketts family bought the team in 2009 for $900 million after Tribune Co. The Cubs are worth $4.1 billion, fourth-highest in baseball, Forbes stated, only three years after Chairman Tom Ricketts pointed to the “biblical losses” being incurred by teams during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s always a good time to be a billionaire, no matter what team or what era. According to Forbes, the average value of a team is up 12% this year to $2.32 billion, while MLB revenue increased 7.8% to an all-time high of $10.3 billion. While the popularity of the sport might have waned over the years in comparison with the NFL, owning a baseball team remains a most profitable endeavor. But no doubt the MLB Players Association would file a grievance over harsh working conditions, perhaps leading to another work stoppage. The obvious solution to a non-problem MLB felt the need to address is to have the player on deck retrieve the bat at the plate and toss it toward the dugout. The innocent days of grade-school kids winning a day in the dugout are over. MLB announced tweaks to the new rules last week and included a veiled threat against batboys and batgirls, who now will be evaluated and perhaps replaced if they’re tardy enough in retrieving said bats. Spring training not only was a chance for players to get accustomed to the changes but for baseball announcers and writers to spend an inordinate amount of time explaining them, which we did ad nauseum. The new narrative is a return to the 1980s, with more speed and athleticism but without the cocaine scandals. The biggest change was the introduction of a pitch timer, officially killing the dreamy narrative of baseball as “the game without a clock.” The bases are bigger, pickoff moves were limited to create more action on the bases. Move along, boomers, and take your old-school paper ticket stubs with you. The balance between catering to kids raised on video games and older fans who understand the complex pitcher-hitter dynamic was difficult to reach, but the line was drawn and the millennials and Gen Zers won. The 2023 season figures to be an important one for MLB, which instituted several rule changes in an effort to build a better relationship with younger fans allegedly turned off by long games with limited action between pitches. Unfortunately baseball will have to count on getting a World Series matchup as delicious as the championship game between the United States and Japan. If MLB could bottle the feeling the WBC created and repackage it in October, when competition from the NFL typically hurts its postseason ratings, it would do it in a heartbeat. It’s a little like having dessert before a full-course dinner, knowing you’ll be full by the end but not caring a bit because it tasted so good. After the success of the World Baseball Classic, Major League Baseball begins its regular season Thursday at a ballpark near you.
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