Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

The Wrigley Mystique

When Sam Zell floated a plan for the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority to buy Wrigley Field in a transaction separate from the Cubs, the talk was that the grandstand would basically be stripped down to the girders, with new seating and luxury boxes installed. That ambitious plan carried a price tag of $650 million and would force the Cubs to play at least one season at U.S. Cellular Field . . .

. . . But what the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority is proposing threatens to wipe out the Wrigley Field mystique with a much more commercialized venue. First, the authority would sell naming rights. Second, the authority would install more advertising in the ballpark. Really, there are few places where you could put more advertising (though we would not be surprised if they had planned to remove some of the iconic ivy), and it's not as though Wrigley is a sponsor-free zone as it is. The suites would be expanded, probably way out of proportion to the rest of the aggressively egalitarian ballpark. Finally, the authority would sell seat licenses to the 1,200 most desirable locations in the ballpark under a plan that's already been rejected by Major League Baseball.

Luckily, it doesn't sound like the Ricketts have any interest in such an aggressive overhaul of Wrigley Field. Or, if they do, they've not shared those plans with anyone else, including local elected officials.

Comments