Family Buying Cubs for $900M

By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 22, 2009 7:55 PM CST
Family Buying Cubs for $900M
In this Oct. 1, 2008, file photo, the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers line up before the first inning at Wrigley Field.   (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

It looks like the Cubs are returning to family ownership, the Chicago Tribune reports. The billionaire Ricketts family is the winning bidder to buy the baseball team from Sam Zell's Tribune Co. The $900 million deal isn't sealed yet—other baseball owners must approve, for one thing—but it's expected to be complete before spring training in April. The Wrigley family owned the team for 65 years before selling to Tribune in 1981.

The family's bid was led by Chicago financier Tom Ricketts, and he's the son of J. Joe Ricketts, who founded TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. The family also gets Wrigley Field and a 25% stake in a regional cable company, the Tribune notes. The Cubs haven't won the World Series since 1908, but Forbes pegs the team's worth at about $640 million, the fifth-highest in baseball.

(More Chicago Cubs stories.)

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