I'd love to see how they do out by the airport. At least half of their "fans" are just fans of Wrigley Field. Fans of an event/destination, not of a team.
Ownership knows this. No way they ever move, no matter what they threaten.
The advent of WGN as a Superstation, with Harry Carey singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" ushered in the era of 3 million plus attendance at Wrigley. I'm not sure "half" the fans are there to see the historic park, certainly many visitors to Chicago have a Cubs game high on their list of must sees, so there's something to what you say. I'm old enough to remember when the upper deck was rarely opened. Only on holidays and maybe when the Cardinals came to town.
Mr. Wrigley used to give season long passes to baseball letter winners at Chicagoland high schools. I didn't play baseball, but I did know the team manager. And there was always an unclaimed pass or two floating around. And for 25 bucks, I got to go to as many games as I wanted all season long, free. When they gave the attendance figures on TV they'd say 15,000 paid and 2,000 "guests of the management" for a total of 17,000 in the park. I was one of those "guests" more often than I recall. My favorite vendors got to know me and let me make change while they prepared my Smokey Links.
I think you're right, the Ricketts don't want to move and would only consider it if those parasites across the street queer their plans to use jumbotron revenue to help defray the costs of the renovation. In what universe is there legitimate opposition to a sports owner preparing to dump half a billion dollars of his own money into the ball park (which he owns) and neighborhood infrastructure? The days when those folks on the rooftops actually lived in those buildings and invited friends to come over and watch the games are long gone. They are now businesses, that only recently have been kicking back some money to the Cubs. Short of some sort of buyout for their current contracts, I can't imagine them having the power to make or break this deal.
In a perfect world, Wrigely would exist in a time warp. With Pat Pieper doing the PA. No lights and all the rest. But those days are gone. And what the Ricketts are proposing strikes me as striking a balance between the tradition and modernity. You know what got the biggest applause when the video of the proposed renovations was screened at the Cubs convention? Increased rest room facilities! Under the stands batting cages. More point of sale options for concessions. Move the team offices to the new building to make more room in the ball park. More luxury seating. And signage both inside and outside the park make sense. Let's not let cheap sh*t Chicago politicians screw this up.
Some of my fondest memories as a kid were the old man taking me to a game and showing me how to keep score. And never, ever at Comiskey Park.
