If Mark Cuban sidles up to fellow Cubs fans at future Wrigley Field games, apparently he'll have to do so as a ticket buyer.
His bid to buy the team from owner Sam Zell? According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Cuban won't even make the final cut if commissioner Bud Selig and Major League Baseball owners have their way.
"There's no way Bud and the owners are going to let that happen," a baseball source told the Chicago Sun-Times earlier this week. "Zero chance."
Zell has yet to shorten the field of five potential buyers who submitted bids of about $1 billion to the Tribune Co. for the Cubs and Wrigley Field. The process has begun to drag: The Cubs were on the market at the start of the 2007 baseball season and a source told the Sun-Times that a deal before Opening Day 2009 is unlikely.
"The Cubs have got smart, smart people here. I mean they're winning, they're doing great things, I'll just stay out of the way," Cuban said in August, just weeks after learning he had made the field of five bidders. "Believe it or not, I can stay out of the way."
Major League Baseball must approve the sale of any team. During the past summer, Comcast SportsNet reported that Cuban was the highest bidder for the Cubs at $1.3 billion.
Whether the deteriorating economy affects the final purchase price is unknown. Last summer, several bidders offering between $700 million and $900 million for all of the properties were excluded from the second round of consideration.
''We'll be standing here at next year's GM meetings,'' the source told the Sun-Times, ''and this will still be unresolved."
Among the five bidders -- in addition to Cuban, an Internet billionaire and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks -- are the Ricketts family, which founded the brokerage that is now TD Ameritrade Holding Corp., and a group led by Sports Acquisition Holding Corp. that includes former baseball home run king Henry Aaron and former Republican congressman Jack Kemp.
The Tribune Co. paid $20.5 million for the Cubs in 1981.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
"No Chance" Cuban Will Buy Cubs
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Ormazd
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Well, gaba, look on the bright side.gaba wrote:How could a passionate owner, that could finally breathe new life into one of the leagues greatest groups of fans, possibly be a BAD thing? I don't get it.
It's good news for us Cardinal fans.
I think they're afraid he'll spend a crapload of money, drive up player salaries, and run his mouth to the commissioner a lot.gaba wrote:How could a passionate owner, that could finally breathe new life into one of the leagues greatest groups of fans, possibly be a BAD thing? I don't get it.
Hell, that wouldn't be too bad from my perspective...
I'm a big fan of competition. It might be funny when the p*ckers suck, but who wants to watch a Bears/p*ckers game that's not even competitive. I don't just want to be the best in a crappy division. I want the Cards to be the survivors of a brutal division. Anyone remember the black and blue division?Ormazd wrote:
Well, gaba, look on the bright side.
It's good news for us Cardinal fans.
I want the Cardinals to beat the cubbies, but I want it to mean something. I would LOVE to see Cuban in charge of the cubs. Actually... our ownership kind of sucks. I'd like to see him in charge of the Cards.
CAPTAIN MEATBALL!