4 potential drawbacks to report that Jerry Reinsdorf will sell the Chicago White Sox
Jerry Reinsdorf might finally sell the Sox, but he could sell it to someone who wants to move the team.
Sell the team signs have been displayed, and chants have been ringing throughout Guaranteed Rate Field this season.
It was especially loud during the Chicago White Sox final homestand as the team almost set the record for most defeats in a 162-game season on home soil.
Sell the team has become the Southside's faithful new form of booing as fans have grown tired of owner Jerry Reinsdorf stewardship.
Dysfunction and reluctance to embrace modern baseball under Reinsdorf have led to the worst season recorded in the modern era. Only the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics and 1899 Cleveland Spiders had worse seasons. However, there is context around those teams being historically awful.
They did not have the technology nor the revenue streams today's baseball teams have to at least put together a team that should not come close to 121 losses. Yet, the Sox achieved that terrible distinction based on dysfunction and backward thinking. Hence, in the context sense, the 2024 White Sox will go down as the worst team of all time.
That will forever stain Reinsdorf's legacy.
Ever since he hijacked last decade's rebuild turning into a championship success by bringing back Tony La Russa to manage the team in 2021, it has been nothing doom and gloom. Sure, the Sox won the 2021 AL Central, but that team was so stacked with talent, Jerry managing the team himself would have won the division.
Okay, slight exaggeration, but the team was talented and firing on all cylinders. Once injuries, performance stagnation, or decline settled in 2022 along with clubhouse and front office dysfunction, this franchise has rotted where the end result is a record-setting season for defeats.
Instead of the boos, it has been "sell the team" chants. Fans might finally get what they are demanding.
The Athletic's Britt Ghiroli is reporting that Reinsdorf is in active discussions with former Oakland Athletics ace and Arizona Diamondbacks general manager, Dave Stewart.
As detailed here, Reinsdorf is in active discussions with a group led by former big leaguer Dave Stewart. https://t.co/coAxQ756mP
— Britt Ghiroli (@Britt_Ghiroli) October 16, 2024
This happy news comes with four drawbacks...
Stewart has been trying to bring a franchise to Nashville.
It could mean he is pivoting away from bringing an expansion team to the Music City and instead relocating a current franchise to Nashville.
My dual role of White Sox blogger/Nashville voter continues to be far too useful. https://t.co/JY2ZWZtuvj
— Jim Margalus (@SoxMachine) October 16, 2024
While it would not make the best business sense to move a team out of the third biggest media market, the Sox do share the Chicago market with the Cubs. The Cubs are routing the Sox in fan attention and drawing power.
In Nashville, the Sox would not have to share potentially over a million households, nor would they have the threat of an old-time ballpark like Wrigley Field to draw away from a potential fan base.
Plus, Nashville is a growing city with great tourism.
However, this could be a ploy to put pressure on lawmakers to fund Jerry's ambitions for a new stadium.
This would be a new play Reinsdorf would be running out of his "getting the public to build him a new stadium" playbook. He nearly moved the team to Tampa in the late 1980s before Springfield finally agreed to foot the bill for New Comiskey Park, now Guaranteed Rate Field.
It is not like the threat of moving out of the city is new to this franchise either.
My first thought is that this is a ploy. Float the idea of selling the team to a guy connected to Nashville in order to ramp up the sense of urgency around getting public funding for a new stadium.
— Rob Hart (@RobHartWBBM) October 16, 2024
Jerry did meet with the mayor of Nashville during last year's winter meetings. Stewart reportedly has the backing of some deep-pocketed folks that he could leverage to buy the team. If he can come up with $3.5 billion to buy a club, he could find a way to privately finance a new park in Nashville.
He also has been speculated to want to bring baseball back to Oakland as he tried to buy half of the Oakland Coliseum. Oakland did have viable new stadium projects for the A's to pursue if the Athletics' owner was authentic in wanting to stay.
Jerry could float that he could sell to a guy who easily could up and move to markets wanting baseball unless Reinsdorf is secured public financing to build a new park on the 78.
Dave Stewart buys the team, and keeps it in Chicago, but is still the same bad baseball executive he was in Arizona.
It would be historic for Stewart to buy the White Sox.
Owners like the Mets Steve Cohen, who he tried to keep out of his MLB owners’ group (like he did with Mark Cuban), probably don’t help either
— Herb Lawrence (@Ecnerwal23) October 16, 2024
I would welcome Dave Stewart as the White Sox new owner if it comes to fruition. Becoming the 1st Black MLB owner would be great for all
He also was not very good when he was splitting power with La Russa in Arizona. This could be switching out one bad owner for another.
This turns out to be nothing.
Jerry could indeed decide to sell after getting blocked in his efforts to get the city and the state to finance most of his dream of a new ballpark at the 78. He might also be tired of how his joint television venture with the Chicago Blackhawks, the Chicago Sport Network, is flailing in its debut.
The programming is fine. The issue is getting Comcast to run it on all of the Xfinity packages along with landing a deal with Hulu and Fubo.
This is the guy who said last year he is not interested in selling despite nearing 90 because he would have nothing else to do. Local sports talk station 670 the Score reached to sources to confirm the Athletic's reporting and have been told there is nothing there.
.@LaurenceWHolmes shares what several sources told him after a report emerged that Jerry Reinsdorf is open to selling the White Sox.
— 670 The Score (@670TheScore) October 16, 2024
"There's a lot of possible angles here," Spiegs points out.
Watch full segment: https://t.co/6t3uGqxiak pic.twitter.com/6ToSgnLiAJ
If Jerry decides to keep the team and wait for his heirs to sell, it means fans might have to be more careful with asking for a sale.
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