Oct. 03--The Chicago Cubs are in the playoffs for the first time in seven years.
Ballpark attendance is up, ranking sixth in Major League Baseball after ending the season outside the Top 10 in 2014, when the team finished 73-89, 17 games out of first.
Ratings are up too, after five straight losing seasons led many fans to tune out.
Seemingly everything connected to the Cubs has followed the team back to the top.
That includes Max Waisvisz. The owner of ticket broker Gold Coast Tickets enjoyed the resurgence in demand for Cubs seats, especially the last two months of the season.
But it was a bittersweet season for him.
Waisvisz was a minority owner in three rooftop businesses outside Wrigley Field. He sold his interest in the properties earlier this year after he and his partners were sued for allegedly falling behind on their mortgage payments. The Ricketts family, which owns the team, swooped in as the buyers.
"I'm sad that I had to get rid of the rooftops," Waisvisz said. "We did a lot of good in the neighborhood."
That's about all he had to say about the situation. Even as it helped his ticket business, the Cubs' winning on the field hasn't healed all wounds. The team's winning off the field might not help either.
On Wednesday, a federal judge tossed a lawsuit brought by two rooftops businesses on Sheffield Avenue in January. Among the allegations, the rooftops businesses accused the team of violating a contract in which they agreed to pay the team 17 percent of their revenues in exchange for the team's promise not to block their views into Wrigley Field.
At issue was a section of the 20-year contract that states that "any expansion of Wrigley Field approved by governmental authorities shall not be a violation of this agreement, including this section."
The two rooftop businesses, controlled by commodities trader Edward McCarthy, argued that the right-field video board, which sits in front of his clubs, isn't an expansion of the ballpark.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall, however, didn't take such a narrow interpretation of the word "expansion" in the context of the ballpark. She concluded that the video board constituted an "expansion" of the stadium and because the Cubs received governmental approval for its installation the team didn't violate the contract.
The federal suit was a last-ditch effort to upset the team's plans to remake the 101-year-old stadium. The $375 million renovation includes the addition of two video scoreboards and other advertising signs behind the bleachers, with approval for more signs if the Cubs choose to add them.
Rooftop operators objected to the proposed signs because they could potentially destroy their businesses. Despite pleas to save their businesses, Mayor Rahm Emanuel threw his support behind the Cubs, and the signs, as well as the rest of the renovation project, easily gained city regulatory approval.
With city clearance, Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts seized the upper hand in the team's battle with the rooftop owners. Since he and family acquired the team and related assets for $845 million in 2009, Ricketts has wanted to buy the rooftop club properties, according to the suit and interviews with rooftop owners.
The pursuit was part of his plan to control more of the local economy that feeds off the baseball team. The signs finally gave him the leverage to begin to reach that goal.
A lawyer for some rooftop owners even accused the team of using the signs to intimidate them into selling their businesses below market value.
The Ricketts family has successfully negotiated the purchase of six of the 16 rooftop clubs since the beginning of the year. It is in court with a seventh claiming it has the right to purchase the building after the deaths of the property owners.
The dismissal of the breach-of-contract suit may clear the way for the Cubs owner to acquire more rooftop clubs.
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