Tribune Co. Close To Selling Cubs, Sort Of
Company close to ending auction, but sale far from finalized
By EAMONN BRENNAN
Updated 1:50 PM CST, Tue, Jan 6, 2009
Who knew buying a baseball team could be so difficult?
Just after Mark Cuban painstakingly (if only Cuban was so painstaking in his punctuation and sentence structure) detailed the ins and outs of his bid to buy the Chicago Cubs, it appears the Tribune Company's auction for the team is set to end soon. Hooray! Finally, a new Cubs owner, right? Maybe.
As the Tribune details today, things aren't quite that simple. Once TribCo picks its winner, the winner and the company must then sit down and hammer out details of a sale. Given that credit markets are as tight as they've ever been, financing a $1 billion sale of a baseball team might not be the easiest thing in the world to pull off; the price could come down, and the negotiations could break down.
Assuming they go well, and the two sides agree on a price, they can then transfer ownership of the team, yes? No. Then, MLB's owners have to approve the bidder, which requires a a 75 percent rate of approval. And even if that goes well, a bankruptcy court might have to get involved, as the Tribune recently applied for bankruptcy.
In other words, we almost know who the Cubs' favorite, most deep-pocketed bidder is. As for who will be the next Cubs owner? Not so much, no.
Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: Jan 6, 2009 12:16 PM CST
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