Baseball: Cubs sold for nearly 900 mn dollars: report

CHICAGO: The Chicago Cubs, whose century of Major League Baseball championship futility is the longest title drought in American sports history, have been sold for nearly 900 million dollars, the Chicago Tribune reported on Monday.

The unnamed source which told the newspaper about the deal with financial tycoon Tom Ricketts figure to be trustworthy since Tribune Company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last December, owns both the newspaper and the Cubs.

The report said a sale agreement was completed over the weekend and the contract has been forwarded to Major League Baseball, whose other club owners must approve the move. Bankruptcy court approval will also be required.

Terms of the deal include the Cubs, who at 40-39 are third in the National League Central division, and legendary Wrigley Field, the 50,000-seat ballpark built in 1914 that is typically sold out even when the Cubs are woeful.

Also in the deal was a 25 percent stake in Comcast SportsNet Chicago, a regional sports television cable network.

The price tag was said to be "close" to the 900 million-dollar bid made by the Ricketts family earlier this year to win an auction for the team.

The Tribune has been trying to sell the prized assets even as its newsroom has been trimmed to about 430 people by staff cuts in a money-saving measure.

A 13 billion-dollar debt load drove the newspaper into bankruptcy reorganization six months ago. Tribune Company also owns several other newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times.