Wrigley Field needs a little bit of a face lift, but what’s the price?
Well, $300 million technically, but in terms of the historic feel, it may be much bigger.
Cubs Chairman Tom Rickets feels like the Cubs need a video screen, according to the Associated Press. Rickets claims that if he cannot build a video board, he would have to consider moving the team.
Oh come on, man! The Cubs have never had a video board, and that is one thing that makes Wrigley Field unique. The traditional scoreboard adds to the neighborhood field that the north side stadium captures, reminding the audience of the history and tradition of not just the Cubs, but baseball in general. And how dare you threaten to take away a historic location from fans who still go to Cubs games – they are 12th in attendance in the majors – despite the team’s terrible track-record of late.
Rickets believes that $20 million in advertisement revenue is lost every year without rotating ads and commercials on the video board. That may be true, Mr. Rickets, but many owners before were able to work around that, so why can’t you?
Yes, it is admirable to try and pay for the renovations without dipping into public funds, but there are still several ways that Wrigley Field can create advertising revenue than put a giant monstrosity of a jumbo-tron – the proposed screen would be 6000 square feet.
This is not a plight of the Wrigley Rooftops people, who apparently only give 17% of their profits to the Cubs. They can go whine about losing something they are not entitled to anyways all they want.
Wrigley Field is not like any other ballpark with the neighborhood feel and the authentic mystique. Do not take that away.
(Photos Courtesy of bizofbaseball.com)
