* Brittany Ghiroli at the Athletic…
Longtime majority owner Jerry Reinsdorf is open to selling the Chicago White Sox, sources briefed on the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly told The Athletic. The 88-year-old Reinsdorf is in active discussions with a group led by former big leaguer Dave Stewart. […]
The news represents a significant change of stance for Reinsdorf. The oldest majority owner in baseball, Reinsdorf has shown no previous public interest in selling the team — at least, not as long as he was around as majority owner. Reinsdorf has said several times that he has advised his heirs upon his death to sell the White Sox and keep the Chicago Bulls, where his son, Michael, is COO and team president. […]
Stewart’s group, Smoke34, previously tried to purchase Oakland’s stake in the Oakland Coliseum. He has been actively involved in trying to get an expansion baseball team to Nashville. Stewart and partner Lonnie Murray are leading a group pushing for an NWSL team in Nashville. The city is one of the league’s finalists, with a decision expected to be announced next month.
It’s unknown what Stewart’s potential involvement would mean for the White Sox staying in Chicago long-term.
* Tribune…
According to a report Wednesday in The Athletic, Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf has changed his stance about keeping the team he has owned since 1981 and is in “active discussions” with a group led by Dave Stewart, the former major-league pitcher who starred under manager Tony La Russa in Oakland. […]
A Sox spokesman told the Tribune’s LaMond Pope “we don’t comment on rumors and speculation.”
* Forbes…
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 Murray are also leading a group pushing for an NWSL team in Nashville.
* Sox Machine…
Stewart makes all the sense in the world at this particular time, although not for the most encouraging of reasons.
For one, he’s the closest of friends with Tony La Russa. If you didn’t recall it from the two running the Arizona Diamondbacks in a confusion fashion — La Russa as Chief Baseball Officer, Stewart as GM — then you’d recall it from La Russa traveling to Oakland for Stewart’s jersey retirement ceremony in September 2022, when he was on leave from White Sox managerial duties due to health issues.
Then there’s the part where Stewart has been involved in bringing a Major League Baseball team to Nashville. He could be seen holding court around the Gaylord Opryland during the winter meetings, and he’d been working with Music City Baseball, an investment group that has been championing the prospect of landing an expansion team it would call the Nashville Stars, until last November, when he left the group citing “philosophical differences.” […]
Stewart had previously tried to buy the Miami Marlins before turning his attention to an expansion team in Nashville. Whether his group would be fine owning any team in any place, his ties to Nashville would certainly help Reinsdorf’s goals of seeking leverage for public funds to build a new White Sox ballpark in the South Loop.
* All City Network…
Stewart is close friends with Tony La Russa, who managed Stewart with the A’s and currently works as a senior adviser with the White Sox. La Russa and Reinsdorf are close friends, as well.
Reinsdorf met with the mayor of Nashville during last year’s Winter Meetings, held in the city, sparking much worry throughout the fan base that the White Sox would be moved if Reinsdorf’s wishes for stadium funding were not granted. Reinsdorf’s ties to La Russa and therefore Stewart, who was attempting to bring a team to the city, seemed a more likely reason for the meeting. But Reinsdorf’s history of suggesting the White Sox would depart — and his stated intention to move the team from its current home at Guaranteed Rate Field by the time its lease ends in 2029 — have made for a new round of speculation, with The Athletic report saying it’s unknown what Stewart’s involvement in these discussions means for the team’s long-term future in Chicago.
- Dan Johnson - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 7:56 am:
New owners would be great. Hopefully they are also real estate developers so they build their own stadium and surrounding retail.
- Sox Fan - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 7:59 am:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2024/10/17/21942/somebody-hint-hint-says-jerry-reinsdorf-could-sell-white-sox-to-nashville-linked-ownership-group/
Neil makes a couple good points on his website. The idea of moving a team out of the #3 media market for #27 really points to this being a leverage play. I think pols (and fans) should call his bluff
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 8:04 am:
Stewart has had some cases of not having the money in the past. It might be Reinsdorf behind the leak to drum up interest from others in buying the team. I won’t be watching MLB if they move the Sox out of Chicago. It was awful watching what happened in Oakland. I’ll take my money elsewhere.
- Lunchbox - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 8:15 am:
MLB owners want expansion fees which they can pocket, they are not big fans of relocation– Oakland and the debacle involved there exhibit A. Jerry doesn’t have the power/ ability to read the room he once did, so if this is a leverage play, it’s a bad one.
- TJ - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 8:21 am:
I’m not sure if a dream come true involves a guy attached to a project to bring a team to a different city. Even as a Cubs fan, the risk of a Nashville White Sox is pretty contemptable.
Hopefully a ploy to get a local buyer to open their pocketbook and stay in the city.
And shocker, even in the last possible moment, he’s looking at selling the team to a buddy of a buddy. Dude just can’t let the old boy’s club go.
And full stop, if the Reinsdorf’s sell the Sox to somebody that relocates them, Chicago absolutely has to boycott the Bulls. Don’t give that family a dime if that happens.
- Say it ain't so - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 8:26 am:
If Stewart is looking to land a team for Nashville and he can come up with the loot for it, doesn’t bode well for the Sox staying.
One last screw job from Jerry. Really wishing Di Bartolo group hadn’t been smacked down when trying to buy the Sox.
Those 49ers trophies would have been ours.
- Captain Obvious - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 8:33 am:
It is however, a dream come true for taxpayers who would no longer have to be concerned about paying for a new stadium for what is essentially a bad triple A team. I am rooting for Mr Stewart here.
- Tax lawyer - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 8:36 am:
Compare the capital gain taxes Jerry would pay if he sold the team before he dies with the taxes his children would pay if they sold the team.
It’s a leverage ploy.
- Greg Kluczynski Federal Building - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 9:27 am:
Great points about the estate tax and relocation fee angles. If this is a leverage play the “read the room” factor is so far off it’s wild. So many factors have changed since the last time Reinsdorf pulled this and it worked. Off the top of my head and not including a lot the government stuff that other commenters here know more about than me:
1. Having 2 MLB teams is cool and all, but it’s not the marker of civic relevance it was back when Sportswriters on TV was groundbreaking and pay phones were critical communication infrastructure.
2. Interleague play has taken away the draw of going to Sox games for the “well my boy really wants to see the Mick play and this is the only way we can do it” crowd
3. Milwaukee has a great stadium and is right up the road
4. I can watch every game on my phone
5. There’s just more and better stuff to do everywhere all the time than feel grateful that the Sox gave Andrew Benintendi $75 mil
I’d feel bad for my sox fan friends but the cost of making a bad deal is so much higher than the “shame” of losing a team
- Big Jim isn't coming back - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 9:27 am:
He’s done this before, though I suppose Tampa Bay no longer works for him on account of them having a team and no roof anymore.
- Henry Francis - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 9:30 am:
Jerry is going to act in his own best interest, financially.
After having the worst season in MLB history, it is definitely not the time to “sell high”.
They can also reduce significantly the capital gains tax on the sale of the team after he dies.
So it does not make financial sense to sell the team now.
Why on earth would he consider selling now? To appease the fan base? When has he ever put their interests ahead of his own?
- ChicagoBars - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 9:57 am:
The Ricketts family IIRC largely put the Cubs in generation skipping trusts when they bought the team and stadium from Zell for $845M (probably a steal in hindsight) back in 2008-2009. Seems unlikely the Reinsdorf group did that when they shelled out $19M for the team in 1981 and the era of massive team value appreciation was still far in the future.
There’s a million ways for the 0.01% to work the tax code but seems like it would still be a huge tax hit they can just avoid by waiting for a probate transfer someday.
Same with those other stadium subsidy supplicants the McCaskeys.
- Amalia - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 10:03 am:
oh that Stewart adventure sounds like just a better version of what we have now. the popular alternative on social media is that Melody Hobson buys the team and keeps it on the SouthSide. There’s Chance and Common and Jennifer Hudson too. Just keep Kanye out of it and we’ve got ourselves a great ownership group that gets it. Remember Chance did that cool concert at the park. They love the Sox.
- OneMan - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 10:04 am:
I assume he isn’t the only “owner” of the Sox. It would seem that his partners would want the best return on their money, and that would involve looking for multiple bidders.
If they go to Nashville, it is what it is.
- Wisco Expat - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 10:06 am:
I feel like I’ve seen this movie before…
At this point, I just feel for the Sox fans.
- Cool Papa Bell - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 10:16 am:
Lots going on here. Jerry is 88. He’s seeing the entire business model of MLB as he knew it, start to come apart. The regional TV marketplace for sports teams is now vastly different, as are the expected revenue streams.
NBC Sports Chicago is gone, Sportsvision is long gone. The replacement in Chicago for the Sox, Bulls (Jerry owned) and the Hawks still isn’t on Comcast. The longer the new outlet isn’t on Comcast, the less money Jerry makes. And Jerry was at the forefront of local broadcast TV rights and the money that went along with it, that is rapidly changing. Just look at all the teams that were walked from Bally’s/Diamond Sports network.
Jerry is also perhaps selling to someone who has a very similar outlook on baseball as he does. Dave Stewart’s first hire in Arizona was to bring Tony LaRussa on board many years ago.
Jerry and the family also might be looking long term at the redevelopment plan underway at the United Center and surrounding neighborhood and want to be in a stronger capital position to fund that.
- BC - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 10:38 am:
This certainly feels like a leverage play, largely because the disturbingly omnipresent Reinsdorf BFF Tony LaRussa‘s fingerprints are on it. Dave Stewart, by the way, is not wealthy and his investment group has failed in attempts to buy the Oakland Colosseum and, so far, to get a professional women’s soccer expansion team. He’s hardly the second coming of Mark Cuban.
Look, if Jerry Reinsdorf is serious about selling the team, he doesn’t need Dave Stewart. There are plenty of billionaires and investment groups out there who are interested in owning a professional sports franchise. Some of them are lining up bids on the Minnesota Twins right now.
- SouthLoopGuy - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 10:49 am:
Likely a leverage ploy. I’m a Cubs fan, but moving the White Sox out of Chicago would be criminal. The history of baseball in Chicago(and baseball as a whole) is incomplete without the Chicago White Sox. I’d be truly disgusted by such a move. Can’t believe it would actually happen.
- Downstate - Thursday, Oct 17, 24 @ 11:09 am:
“The idea of moving a team out of the #3 media market for #27 really points to…”
Great point. Vegas is only a #24 city, but is attractive for pro teams. I assumed that was enhanced by the “tourist” potential of a Vegas team. Seems like Nashville would have some of that draw….but to a lesser extent.