caulfield12

700 pm Gil/Gavin Williams…then Rodon/Bibee for Game 5 Sat night.

You mean 3-2 Dodgers going back to LA....? Flaherty got killed in this one. Cost himself a decent chunk of money in FA unless he pitches better in the WS. Have a feeling this game isn't quite over yet...though.

Better yet, the Obama's and Jordan working together...it's not exactly like the Cubs' ownership group is non-partisan. Cubs' fans are probably what 25-30% Dem? Sox fandom probably the same split in the opposite direction...if not moreso. Dr. Dre could probably afford the team pooling his money with Jay Z...who already has that sports agency business. Or any of them could partner with Hobson, in theory.

Not feeling a huge sense of optimism when Stewart’s supposed financial backer is his g/f, who’s a sports agent not named Jerry Maguire. “So how did Lonnie break that ceiling and find her way into the Sports Agent business? Born in Camden New Jersey and raised in Washington state, Lonnie had no initial desire to be a part of the baseball industry. At the age of 17 she married her high school sweetheart, and due to the request of the U.S. Navy, she and her new husband were relocated to San Diego. The marriage was short-lived, but they both realized they were too young to make a major life decision like marriage. “He went to work one day, and I packed my jeep up and drove to the Bay Area where my girlfriend lived because I was just done. We were both young, and we realized it just wasn't forever." Lonnie obtained a position working for a nonprofit and spent 15 years in this arena, "I loved working for nonprofits, I think it bleeds over to what I am doing now because I'm still helping families and kids. It is important to me that I am honest about what I'm doing, and that everything I do, is for the right reason." With convictions such as these, it is easy to see why Lonnie would be a success in whatever industry she tackled. While working in the nonprofit industry, she would come to meet her current husband, former Major League player and past General Manager of the Arizona Diamond Backs, Dave Stewart. "I was working for a nonprofit ‘Team Up for Youth,' and Dave was a member of the board of directors. I had been introduced when he came into the office for a board meeting, but it was just that, a business introduction." It would be some time before they had their next encounter and this one almost lost Lonnie her job. "I was given the task of emailing all of the board members to get a consensus on a project we were putting together. All of the members responded swiftly, except for Dave, he had been out of the country and didn't get back to me for several weeks." When he did call, he told Lonnie that he could not open the files she had sent, so she resent the email, and he still had a problem. "I have to admit that this irritated me and I responded in a way I probably shouldn't have." Since Dave was an admired baseball Icon, particularly in the Oakland area, after a stellar career with the Oakland A's, I rethought my response shortly after I hit send. I asked a co-worker what he thought of my email to Dave, and from his response, Lonnie knew she was in trouble. "There was a good chance I was going to lose my job, so I went into my bosses office and started the conversation by telling him how much I loved my job. I was just about to explain what happened when this same co-worker interrupted our conversation and told me in private that Dave had responded.” To Lonnie's relief, he did so with a sense of humor, and shortly after that, the two managed to find themselves in a relationship.” https://www.sdwomanmagazine.com/lonnie-murray Otoh, the email debacle described seems quite on-brand for the tech-challenged White Sox…

https://www.forbes.com/sites/philrogers/2024/10/16/dave-stewart-enters-picture-as-possible-new-owner-of-white-sox/ Stewart won 20-plus games four years in a row with Oakland in the Mark McGwire/Jose Canseco Bash Brothers era. He put together an investment group that unsuccessfully tried to purchase the Oakland Coliseum and is currently pursuing an MLB expansion team in Nashville. He and (Lonnie) Murray are also leading a group pushing for an NWSL team in Nashville.

Once again...even Tampa Bay owners are looking to ante up $700 milion in a smaller market for baseball...and that number is likely $200-300 million too low after the last two hurricanes and all the associated insurance nightmares....roof torn off, etc. And Cleveland Browns self-financed suburban dome coming in at $2.4 billion for the Haslams. Realistically looking at $1.0-$1.25 billion if they really want a modern baseball showcase and not the short-cut version....by the time this actually gets done, barring new ownership/outside investors.

Plus they have the leverage of the most successful NFL franchise/QB/Taylor Swift on their side...vs. maybe 30-35% of Bears fans being Sox fans, whatever the actual split is right now. Might even be down to 25% after 2023-2024-25. One would think we're getting a pretty good clue when the combined weight of the Bulls Blackhawks and Sox is failing to move the needle with Comcast. Basically the Dodgers got $2+ billion to lock out half their fans...whereas the Sox can't even successfully give their product away for free and make it financially viable on the advertising and marketing side. And this is now a down cycle for the Cubs as well. Can't even imagine if it was more like 2014-2020.

Embarrassing that Danks Dunn Grandal Benintendi deals will be cited as main reasons we can't ever have nice things...

"Not that the Bulls have earned much more attention from fans than the Hawks. Both teams have lost enough games to make fans question whether it’s worth dropping hundreds of dollars to go to the United Center. So now, not only is it expensive to go to a game, it’s difficult for many to watch one on TV. Combine limited access with limited winning, and you have two business operations in trouble. Perhaps the NBA’s popularity will spark an agreement before the Bulls’ season opener Wednesday. But don’t count on it. In the most remarkable turn of events, Comcast, for once, is under no pressure to appease a sports network. If it was losing enough subscribers for not carrying CHSN, it would carry CHSN. Carriage isn’t a priority until it is. After not carrying the Big Ten Network when it launched in 2007, Comcast subscriptions plummeted. The next year, BTN appeared on Xfinity systems. That might be what it takes for CHSN to appear on Comcast, unless the network bends to the company’s wishes. CHSN is in a tough spot, but it’s one they should’ve seen coming." from the previously-linked article, CS-T

Takes puffery to a new level. Merkin should have simply outsourced this to Related/78th's PR office.

https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/news/white-sox-top-prospects-that-improved-their-stock-in-2024 Focus on Burke Pallette Nishida... Wolkow Grant Taylor No Baldwin.

"Ellch explained the vision for the ‘78’ as a 13-million square foot extension of downtown Chicago with a half mile of frontage along the river they would look to create and exponentially expand back to connect with the downtown Riverwalk. The first phase of development in creating Chicago’s next neighborhood would include two apartment buildings, food, beverage, and retail spaces, as well as parking." https://www.mlb.com/whitesox/news/white-sox-proposed-ballpark-update Merkin puffery

Boston/NYY fell off the face of the earth...recently. And the Yankees have lost five consecutive ALCS.

A real series now with CLE thankfully. Carlos Rodon is looking at another key/deciding start. Things not looking as promising for the Mets...

This is why Elias believes you need hitting more than pitching...but you definitely need enough quality depth in the rotation to get your team to the post season in the first place. Ofc he would have looked a lot smarter had Flaherty pitcher to his potential. And even then you could turn out like the Mariners...or Padres last season.

Unless someone similar to Ricketts Musk Zuckerberg Bezos is the owner...

https://news.yahoo.com/sports/cleveland-mayor-says-browns-owners-194509830.html Browns' owners spending $2.4 billion to move to a suburban domed stadium and away from the downtown/lakefront. Haslam family. Might equal White Sox for pro sports team with bleakest future due to Watson trade...cap hits, all the personal lawsuits involved there and already having to dump key vets like Amari Cooper with the 2024 season essentially toast. And then they would have to develop yet another QB while simultaneously having to deal even more draft picks to dump Watson...similar to Broncos' fate with Brock Osweiler.

Mike Gellinger? Ncorgbl?

Matthew Boyd to start an absolute must-win game?

Diluted... And his capital gains taxes are not going to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars at 20%. One would have to think Hobson and Lucas are still the most obvious play here to buy out the other 60%.. or maybe they also told JR they want to cash out, having considered buying the whole thing but decided the profitability of financing a new stadium was prohibitive unless they just wanted to make a civic gift to the city in trade for something else. And won't the rest of MLB owners flip out when three more playoff teams come out of the AL Central next year...and 50/50 in 2026 again unless Schultz Smith Montgomery Quero and whoever they get for Crochet can at least get to 95-105 losses???

What is the current Forbes valuation? It seems like at one point it was around $2.2 billion, but right now $1.8-1.9 billion wouldn't be too shocking despite the Chicago media market, as the current broadcasting situation is a bit of a mess, to say the least. Not to mention the worst record in baseball history, a so-so first round draft pick (as opposed to 1-1) and a minor league system bereft of much high-impact talent outside the Top 3-4 names. Luis Robert because of his current contract is not a premium value, it's really Garrett Crochet who is the only (potentially) truly valuable piece of the current major league roster. Plus the AL Central is on an upswing (at least currently) and you've got a....let's be generous and say a number twenty-something stadium of thirty, but one that likely would be replaced in the next 5-10 years by new ownership and/or public/government entities willing to partner with nearly anyone but JR.

https://www.mlb.com/news/shohei-ohtani-homers-in-nlcs-game-3 Ohtani with a 2024 playoff OPS in the 660's before that homer...

https://soxmachine.com/2024/10/report-jerry-reinsdorf-open-to-selling-white-sox-in-discussions-with-dave-stewart/#comment-9181720 "In 2021, the White Sox averaged about 68K viewers per game, to get the same total number of viewers would require 3% of the total Nashville metro population to tune into a game every night. It’s hard to imagine any MLB team being able to get that large of a percentage of viewership consistently. There are about 9M people in the total Chicago metro area, 68K viewers is about 0.7% of the total metro population, if a team in Nashville got the same percentage of viewers as the Sox got in 2021, they would be getting about 14K viewers. I get that there’s a huge shift in the business model for TV and sports TV broadcasting, but Chicago just has more people than anywhere else." From article comments...

Didn't they just break records for public funding of the Titans' new stadium/facilities? Seems hard to go do that well twice when football has 5X more the pull in that region of the country (compared to baseball) through tradition and geographical location in SEC territory. Nashville and Memphis were "just" AA baseball markets for long periods as well...

Wasn't TLR also labelled a "consultant" on that situation in Nashville, or was he also considered part of the investment group?