Cuban won't own the Cubs

[Biernutz]

• Dave Heuschkel
• 07:29 PM ET 11.08.2008
• SI.COM

Sam Zell, the motorcycle-riding owner of the Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Cubs, talks with a potty mouth and has been known to drop F-bombs and MF-missiles in crowded rooms. So I wonder what he'll say if and when baseball commissioner Bud Selig tells him that he can't sell his team to the highest bidder.
That highest bidder could be Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. He reportedly submitted a bid of $1.3 billion that is said to be the highest. But it may as well be the lowest because Selig doesn't want the brash and outspoken Cuban as an owner, a baseball source told the Chicago Sun-Times. "Zero chance" is how the source put it.
Given that Selig has already rigged the sale of one baseball team and he's allergic to controversy, something Cuban has been known to create, I'd say the chance is less than zero.
Look, I'm not sure whether Cuban would be a good owner for the championship-starved Cubbies. All I know is he turned the woeful Mavs into a winning franchise after purchasing a controlling interest in the team in 2000. And he'd want to win the World Series as bad as any Cubs fan. Cuban would spare no expense to bring the long-awaited le to Wrigleyville, and that has Selig and other owners more scared than seeing Cuban screaming at umpires on SportsCenter.


http://www.fannation.com/si_blogs/fo...rd/posts/21622

[kwhitegocubs]

While I think it is total BS (as a Cubs fan) that Cuban would be denied the ability to purchase a team, I actually don't want him owning my team in a non-salary-cap sport. I'm afraid he'll make the Cubs a revolving door collective that picks up ringers every trading deadline.

Wait, scratch that, I'm a Cubs fan - I NEED a le the way Dracula needs blood (at this point).

Plus, I hate Bud more than anything in baseball, including Bonds, Steinbrenner, the Mets, and NIGHT GAMES.

[Reggie Miller]

These type of articles are pure bull .

The Cubs are owned by the Tribune Co. Here's the rub: the Tribune Co. is an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Program), or a trust established by the Tribune Co. through which the vast majority of the shares were allocated to the employees who were not laid off or made redundant.

The ESOP has an obligation under the regulations of the Securities Exchange Commission to realize the highest sale price possible for the team.

In other words, Cuban can't sue Selig for blackballing him, but any individual Tribune Co. stockholder could sue MLB and/or Selig under various causes of action if the highest bidder is not allowed to buy the team. I virtually guarantee that this would lead to more Congressional hearings and revocation of MLB's anti-trust exemption.

These articles are crap, because they aren't even dealing or examining the reality of the context of the sale.

Baseball is so different from basketball it isn't even funny. Let Cuban scream at the umpires. Who's gonna hear him? He won't be sitting five feet away from the action in any MLB facility. Same old tired crap...