Cubs sale: $850 million, PSL’s and Wrigley 2014

The sale of the Chicago Cubs will leave fans with many questions. There are bound to be alot of changes. Let’s face it we have become accustomed to how the TribCo runs the Chicago Cubs. For better or worse that will soon change and Tom Ricketts and his family will put forth their vision on how the Chicago Cubs will be run on a day in and day out basis. With that in mind, below is a sneak peak into some of the early rumors concerning the future of the ballpark. Bruce Levine also reports what the final sell price looks to be.

ESPN 1000′s Bruce Levine reports on a few more aspects of the Cubs sale:

Major League Baseball sources confirm that the sale would actually be only $850 million in cash, since Tribune owner Sam Zell will keep 5-7 percent ownership in the team in order to avoid a huge tax bite because of capital gains taxes. Zell will put most of the money that he realizes in the sale toward his debt of $8.1 billion that he paid for the Tribune Company, now in Chapter 11 receivership.

So by keeping a larger chunk of the team, Zell is able to get the price down into the $850 million range as was suggested by Chuck here yesterday.

The “gap” is the $47 million missing between $853 million in financing and the $900 million purchase price. With the price lowered by some unknown amount, the gap is somewhere between $46 million and $-0-.

Sounds like the gap is $-0- Chuck if Levine’s sources are right.

Back to Levine with more on the financing aspect and the plans that Ricketts has to pay the financing.

The Ricketts family borrowed $450 million from three major banks: JP Morgan, Bank of America and Citicorp. The rate of the financing will be between 5 and 6 percent annually; that means that the Cubs’ new owners must come up with $25-30 million per year just to pay financing on the loan. An impeccable major league source told me that the Cubs netted $45 million in 2008. New revenue sources, including personal seat licensing (PSLs) will be a part of the aggressive way the new owners will look for more cash.

That’s right PSL’s baby and that’s before we even consider the major renovation that the ballpark is in need of. This will be one of the first painful realities of this sale that will hit fans this offseason.

Speaking of ballpark renovations, what about the planned Wrigley 2014 makeover of the ballpark for it’s 100th season? The Bright One’s Fran Spielman reports the Ricketts family has not signed off on this plan:

Sources said Tom Ricketts, the family’s point man on the Cubs sale, has seen all of the renderings, but has not yet signed off on a specific renovation plan.

“We’ll let the new owners speak to the future of Wrigley Field,” Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney said Monday.

But after paying nearly $900 million for the Cubs and struggling to secure debt in a worldwide credit crunch, how extensive of a renovation would the Ricketts family be able to afford or be willing to bankroll?

“Presuming Tom and the family get this deal done and Major League Baseball approves them, then they’ll sit down and look at all of the Wrigley plans and see what they want to do going forward,” said Ricketts family spokesman Dennis Culloton.

According to Spielman there is a good chance the ballpark could stand as is for sometime under new ownership:

Despite the 2004 embarrassment tied to falling concrete, sources said the Ricketts family could decide to stand pat for a while. “The ballpark is safe and structurally sound. Substantial resources have been put into maintaining it,” said a source familiar with the issue.