Ricketts outline game plan for owning Cubs

New Cubs owner places winning above all, says he's willing to reinvest profits in the club and won't let renovations upset hallowed traditions at Wrigley

Thomas Ricketts spent $845 million for, among other assets, a baseball team that in a good year will record a profit of around $30 million.

The new owner of the Chicago Cubs will have to repay loans of $425 million he obtained for the purchase. That's an expense the Cubs' seller, Tribune Co., never had.

He'll have to look at costs of Wrigley Field renovation to facilities that sorely need improvement -- and to create revenue. Ricketts said he's looking at work spread over five to seven years and costing "significantly less" than $200 million.

Ricketts vowed that anything he does will preserve the essential non-commercial atmosphere of a game at Wrigley.

"We have to be looking in our plans to make sure that we are looping in this next generation we're saving this stadium for so it's not the place my dad took his business associates. It's the place my dad took me. That's important to us."

All that and, above all, winning the World Series, are Ricketts' goals. Cub fans wonder if he'll accomplish everything. They should know how Ricketts thinks.

He is a Cub fan, a business man, a Bud man (in the sense that he's downed a few brews at the ballpark), and he likes flexibility. For Ricketts, family ownership opens a new era of options for the Cubs.

He listed three tenets about his family's approach. "No. 1 is there is only one agenda. We just want to win. No. 2 is we can re-invest the profits, which I'm not sure was an option for our previous owners. And No. 3 is we can take a long-term approach and build a culture that looks to building lasting success. "

Ricketts directed his family's quest for the Cubs. Tribune owner Sam Zell staged a bidding process that was manic at times, and Ricketts pushed the purchase price down from around $900 million once the recession made credit hard to come by.

The Cubs, Ricketts said, should be profitable in the first year of his ownership. "But the goal is not necessarily to make a profit every year. The goal is to invest in the franchise," he said.

He is now the team's chairman and his siblings Pete, Laura and Todd will join him on the board. Tribune, which keeps a 5 percent stake for tax reasons, will have one seat on the board.

The Ricketts family fortune stems from Thomas' father, Joseph, who founded the Ameritrade discount brokerage. Thomas Ricketts, however, has made his own mark with his bond brokerage, Incapital LLC, a Chicago firm that wrested business from bigger competitors.

He said his background has taught him to hire good people, trust them and hold them accountable. With the Cubs, he's keeping top executives in place because, despite failures in the postseason, he believes the team is on a winning track.

Similarly, fans can expect Ricketts will take a slow and respectful tack in changing Wrigley Field. Big changes to "the bowl," the lower deck vista out to the bleachers and landmark scoreboard, are basically off-limits, he said. The concourse and upper deck, on the other hand, are ripe for modernizing.

Ricketts also said he will pursue plans for the so-called "triangle building" on the east side of Clark Street. Tribune reached a pact with the neighborhood for a five-story building with stores and restaurants, maybe a rooftop garden, and workout facilities for the players.

Ricketts the businessman knows that the pressure for revenue growth comes from other teams, such as the Red Sox and the Yankees, that have used stadium work to draw in money that can increase player payrolls. Much of what's been done elsewhere wouldn't work with Wrigley's hallowed atmosphere, Ricketts said.

But he confessed to jealousy during a visit to the new Yankee Stadium, which has a high-end steakhouse, banquet rooms and corporate meeting space.

"I think I walked by an art gallery they have there," Ricketts said, "and I'm thinking, 'These dudes are making 7,500 bucks on an old Joe DiMaggio painting, and we're doing it a buck at a time on cotton candy.' It's just different."