That's the question posed by Newsday's excellent baseball writer Ken Davidoff in this Sunday column. It's probably not a focus this morning in Wrigleyville, waking up after a champagne-soaked celebration, but it's an interesting hypothetical while you're waiting for October. Davidoff seeks out one expert opinion:
"If one is thinking of the sale of the Cubs, there are one of two ways in which this could be seen," said Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College. "One would involve evaluating the portfolios of the major bidders at this point. Certainly the Ricketts family, which seems to be the front-runner by a good margin at this point, their fortune is in private equity investments. One would think that they have been hit significantly by this, and that might influence their wherewithal.
"But also the baseball model, and the model of all sports since about 1990, has been to cater to the more rapidly growing income groups. The corporate executives, the top people in the financial sector, to make money off corporate suites and club suites. These are the population sectors that are getting hit hard right now. It seems to me logical that the sports model is going to be taking a little bit of a hit. I do think that team revenue growth, 11 percent a year, that's not going to continue. It's even more likely you'll see diminution of revenue in the next year or two."
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