How it started:
If we end up spending 2022 on [discussing a new stadium for] the Chicago White Sox, don’t say I didn’t warn you. —me, 11/27/20
How it’s going:
Knowledgeable sources say Jerry Reinsdorf, the team’s majority owner and chairman, is considering moving the organization from Guaranteed Rate Field in Bridgeport when the team’s lease expires just six years from now. —Crain’s Chicago Business, 8/21/23
I really need to start establishing betting lines.
Anyway: For starters, this is some execrable journalism on the part of Crain’s, allowing White Sox execs — one of the many unnamed sources is explicitly IDed as “a source close to Reinsdorf” — to drop hints about a move threat while hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. It’s made all the worse by the fact that this is Jerry freaking Reindorf, the guy who literally invented the fake move threat, or at least was the first to openly admit to it, with his famed “a savvy negotiator creates leverage” quote after getting the current White Sox stadium built and paid for by the state of Illinois after falsely threatening to move the team to St. Petersburg.
St. Petersburg has a team now, of course, but there are always other cities to saber-rattle about, and the flavor of the month appears to be Nashville:
Among the possibilities are moving to a new stadium in the city or suburbs, or even relocating to Nashville, a subject of recurring gossip on and off for years.
(No source at all on that, nice work, Crain’s.)
Some context for those who haven’t been keeping up with the White Sox, or who have possibly even forgotten they’re still an MLB team after Reinsdorf has consigned them to near-perpetual irrelevance in recent decades: Yes, their lease at I Can’t Believe It’s Not Comiskey Park expires after the 2029 season, though there’s nothing stopping them from extending it. (It originally expired in 2011, but was extended in 2008.) And yes, the stadium is kind of awful — the first row of seats in its upper deck is infamously farther from the field than the last row of upper deck seats at Comiskey, the stadium it replaced — but it also comes with a sweetheart deal where Reinsdorf gets to keep all income from tickets, parking, concessions, and merchandise, and pays only $1.5 million a year in rent. He also gets to play in Chicago, which has more than triple the number of TV households as Nashville.
With the Bears kicking tires all over town in pursuit of their own stadium deal, though, it seems like the 87-year-old Reinsdorf figures this is an opportune time to create some of his beloved leverage. He’s certainly won the first battle, which is to dominate the headlines:
All this, just by having a few of his friends call a local friendly reporter and say, “You didn’t hear this from me, but…” We’ll no doubt be hearing more soon — a Sox spokesperson told Crain’s that “it is naturally nearing a time where discussions should begin to take place” about “vision, opportunities and the future” — and it will likely start to include hints about who Reinsdorf would like to pay for building a potential replacement for his current near-rent-free home.
Meanwhile, I am obligated to point out that nearly all of the teams whose 1980s and ’90s stadium demands first drew my and Joanna Cagan’s attention to this topic — the White Sox, the Baltimore Orioles, the Cleveland Browns, the Milwaukee Brewers — have now launched campaigns for either new stadiums or massive taxpayer-funded upgrades to their old ones. Detroit Tigers, I think you’re next up to get back on line for seconds, grab a plate already!