Cubs Bankruptcy: Chicago Cubs File Chapter 11 To Ease Sale

NEW YORK — The Chicago Cubs filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday, a step that will allow their owner to sell the baseball team in an $845 million deal. The filing in Wilmington, Del., was anticipated and is expected to lead to a brief stay in Chapter 11 for the Cubs. A hearing was scheduled for Tuesday in front of the judge who has been handling the bankruptcy of the Cubs' owner, Tribune Co.

The Cubs' filing is part of the Tribune Co.'s plans to sell the team, Wrigley Field and related properties to the family of billionaire Joe Ricketts, the founder of Omaha, Neb.-based TD Ameritrade.

Tribune, which also owns the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy protection in December, but the Cubs were not covered in the filing. The team's run through Chapter 11 could last mere days, enough to protect its new owners from potential claims by Tribune creditors, said Ira Herman, a bankruptcy attorney with Thompson & Knight.

Tribune bought the Cubs in 1981 for $20.5 million from candy maker Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. Tribune announced plans to sell the franchise in 2007, but got tripped up by the recession and the collapse of the credit markets.

It has agreed to sell the Ricketts family a 95 percent stake in a deal that tops the record $660 million paid for the Boston Red Sox and its related properties in 2002. Tribune Co. is keeping the remaining 5 percent.

Major League Baseball's other owners have approved the sale.

The Cubs' bankruptcy filing is not the first in baseball. The Baltimore Orioles were sold in a bankruptcy auction in 1993 after owner Eli Jacobs filed for Chapter 11. The same happened to the Seattle Pilots after the 1969 season. The new owners moved the team to Milwaukee and changed the name to the Brewers.

The National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes, a franchise that has yet to make a profit since moving from Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1996, filed for Chapter 11 protection in May.

Comments

[jmsent]

Try to get into a Cubs day game during the summer. They pack the house time after time. They also lose time after time. So where did all the money go?

[KarateKid]

My great great great great grandchildren will be saying, "300 years and counting."

[John Patrick Galllagher]

After breaking the hearts of us poor Cub fans practically forever, they now break the hearts of their creditors? May the curse of the Billy Goat stay with the team and owners if they don't pay up in full.

[gavrielle]

Actually, I knew the man who cursed the Cubs. Here's what happened:

Great Uncle El Melek was a Bedouin prince who emigrated to America where he fell in love with baseball. After the 1908 World Series win, as custom dictated, he brought a gift of his flocks (a fine goat) to present to the team in thanks for the gift of pleasure they had given him. The gift was refused by the owner, not so much because it was a goat, but because he was black. So he cursed them to lose for the insult they'd given him and his family. Their family/tribe, btw, can trace its lineage back nearly eight thousand years. Very prestigious and powerful, since they are one of the few remaining matriarchies left. The only way to lift the curse is to appeal to the Matriarch of the tribe and make a formal apology.

Years ago I asked my friend, who is the Matriarch, if she'd be willing to lift the curse. She gave this really wolfish grin, more a baring of teeth really, and said they'd have to be very, very apologetic. She loved her Great Uncle and they'd spoiled the game for him.

Why do I believe the story? Because I heard the story from Uncle's lips not long before he died and I felt his hurt and anger when he spoke. He wasn't bragging, merely explaining. He felt badly for the other fans, but he couldn't let the insult pass.

[pithyboutthat]

I, too, think that bankruptcy laws were flaunted when the "poor" Cubs were granted Chapter 11 status.
If the Cubs -- who sell out all their home (and many away) games and who are "America's team" via WGN -- are broke then so is every other team in baseball. I just don't buy it, and I don't know why there isn't more stink about it. Makes you wonder about the people who complain that the home foreclosure epidemic is partly the fault of those dishonorable mortgage holders who chose foreclosure over self-sacrifice. What's good for the goose must not be good for the gander in big business.