The cloud is lifting..

To those people who want the Cubs to be sold to private ownership because they think Tribune Co. didn't want to spend money on the franchise, the Tribune Co. showed them this offseason, to the tune of $300 milly. To the ignorant, they see that as the team "responding" to their wants/needs, finally. I saw that as carbing-up before the marathon.

A business' health is usually linked to its assets (and debts in some cases, like 99% of the mergers over the past 10 years). If you know you are going to try and sell a baseball franchise, why wouldn't you load up your roster with high-priced talent that you won't be responsible for? If the Yankees payroll was a meager $50 mil, do you think the franchise would be worth $1 billy today? The answer is No. In my mind, you have to spend money to be worth money. Its why the bottom-feeders remain bottom-feeders. It can only drive the Cubs asking price up to have a roster chalk-full of guys you know, guys you pay alot, guys that you expect to win with.

The other story to me is, the most blatent conflict-of-interest in my lifetime will soon be coming to a close.. a media outlet owning a media generator. Its the whole circle-of-life thing going on.. baseball team plays, owner televises it, owner writes about it, owner sells advertisements, baseball team plays. The best thing for the Tribune Co. was for the Cubs to have a roller-coaster ride throughout the years.. and it worked. Notice how the Cubs only fielded a decent team every 5 years or so, at least in my lifetime. At the same time, they built the teams assets up, marketed the hell out of themselves, and did their job. Kudos. But the problem here is at the top, the execs don't care if the Cubs win the World Series or not. Too bad for them, because it would be the biggest sports story in the history of history, and they would have been the media outlet for it all. The Chicago Tribune would be sold all over Japan and Southeast Asia, and we wouldn't be talking about selling anything.