It’s business as usual for chairman Tom Ricketts this weekend at the team’s annual Cubs Convention. But in some fans’ eyes, the honeymoon is over.
Ricketts received scattered boos toward the beginning of the opening ceremony on Friday at the annual fan event. And those boos became more prevalent when he mentioned Marquee Sports Network, the exclusive home of Cubs games starting this season.
“I’m not sure I was booed,” Ricketts said during an interview with on 670 the Score.
Ricketts was adamant that the boos weren’t directed toward him, a fan-friendly owner who said he’s very accessible and signed autographs for more than 1 1⁄2 hours after his radio interview. Instead, he believes there’s some misunderstanding regarding Marquee.
“Pretty much everything we announce gets a negative reaction because people don’t like change,” Ricketts told the Sun-Times. “Once they see and particularly hear today what Marquee Network is going to be, everyone’s going to be really excited.”
But how can he expect fans to be enthusiastic when their team is coming off an 84-win season and haven’t done a single thing to address their problems?
The Cubs are one of just two teams who haven’t signed a major-league player since the season ended. That’s partially because, Ricketts said, the luxury tax has crippled the Cubs’ budget.
“First of all, competitive balance tax it’s a factor,” Ricketts said. “It’s not the only factor but it’s definitely something you have to manage toward because it does have very punitive effects if you go over and stay over for a long period of time.
“Secondly, we were the highest spending team in baseball last year, we had the second highest payroll but No. 1 baseball spending. So the resources in the park are going on the field, you just can’t get a free agent every single season, no one has that kind of resources.”
Team president Theo Epstein said again Saturday he hopes to make some moves before the season begins but that could mean splitting up the core.
“It would be awesome to keep everyone together,” Ricketts said. “That would be great. But the reality is the way players work their way toward free agency makes it difficult.”
Ricketts also defended the team’s inability to sign some of its key players, like Kris Bryant, to longterm extensions.
“We haven’t been able to do that for whatever reason because some guys’ agents won’t do extensions, for some guys haven’t thought it was the right time for them to do an extension,” he said. “There’s nothing I can do about how players’ salaries escalate as they get further along in their careers, we just have to manage it to the best we can.”
