Thursday, May 21, 2009

Chicago Cubs might be the most valuable team in baseball

by Kenneth Zenger

The Chicago Cubs deal still isn’t done while the season continues ticking along. The Cubs are obviously a valuable baseball franchise but that value seems to be difficult to calculate. While experts try to calculate the actual value of the team, the Cubs sale is locked in a state of limbo. The key points still in question regard the fair-market broadcast value of the team. The pending sale, which includes the Chicago Cubs Major League Baseball franchise, storied Wrigley Field, and a percentage of regional cable network Comcast Sports, is currently estimated to be around $850 million.

However, the two sides, the Ricketts Family and the Tribune Company, can’t find common ground on the multi-year agreement to broadcast Cubs games on the Tribune Company’s WGN television network. This disagreement is understandable as the Tribune Company has held the team as an asset since they purchased the team from the Wrigley family in 1981 and they do not have experience with the valuation of these rights. The Tribune Company’s agreement between the Chicago Cubs and WGN basically allowed for the Tribune Company to set the price at whatever level best suited their books. After the sale, WGN will need to be paying fair-market value which undoubtedly is much higher than what they are used to.

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