Cubs sale: mid-May or bust

If you’re a betting man you should take bust. The Tribune and the Ricketts family are not moving along in their negotiations as well as everyone hoped back in January when the deal was going to be done by Opening Day. Oooops. Like everything else with this sale the process is slow moving. Here is the latest from Crane Kenney in Crane’s Chicago Business:

“There’s a negotiation that’s occurring, and like every negotiation, there’s an issue or two that probably wasn’t spotted early that needed to be resolved,” he said. “None of them are in any way fatal to the transaction. It’s standard stuff, I would say. And the credit markets are challenging, and this is a transaction that will have some amount of debt on it.”

“And the credit markets are challenging” well that might be the fucking understatement of the decade. The credit markets might kill this fucking deal is more like it and might kill any deal Zell can make for this team right now. As far as any of these issues being fatal, well credit would be fatal. Zell wants there to be part of this deal financed so he can dodge taxes, dodging taxes happens to be one Zell’s favorite hobbies. But I digress, more from the Cubs fearless leader Crane Kenney:

Speaking to reporters Wednesday at the team’s spring-training facility in Mesa, Ariz., Kenney discussed the talks between Tribune Co., which has owned the team since 1981, and the Ricketts family, which won exclusive negotiating rights on Jan. 22 in a deal worth about $900 million.

“The Ricketts family and the Tribune are very close to the terms of their deal, which is the first domino that needs to fall,” Kenney said. “From there, because of the Tribune bankruptcy, we need to have a court involved to approve the terms of the transaction supporting the creditors, who, obviously have a great interest in seeing how this transaction unfolds.”

Well I guess the bankruptcy filing by the Tribune involved the Cubs after all. LOL. Somebody get Crane the memo that corporate doublespeak is so September 2008.

Not to worry, Bud Selig has been supportive:

Kenney said baseball commissioner Bud Selig has been supportive.

“(He) has assured me he’ll do whatever it takes to jump through hoops, if that’s what’s necessary at various committee levels within baseball, to get this finished,” Kenney said. “I think it will be a challenge to make opening day. If I were to tell you we were going to make opening day, everything would have to fall into place just perfectly, and the world’s an imperfect place, so I would say that’s probably unlikely.”

Well hallefuckinlujah, nothing to worry about Bud Selig is on the case. If there is one man that is competent in this whole process…it’s not the bumbling used car and cassette tape salesman from Milwaukee.

This deal is in trouble folks. I’m not saying it won’t happen, but something is not going well, chances are it’s the credit structure but that’s just a guess. I hope this deal happens and want to see the Cubs get an actual owner, but I think anytime in 2009 might be a bit optimistic at this point…

UPDATE: The Cubs leaders had much more to say in his time with reporters including: a possible Spring Training move to FLA, a new restaurant at the corner of Addison and Sheffield, and everyones favorite idea a jumbotron. Read more about these things at the Trib’s hardball blog.