Just Where Have You Been?

So I take a few days away from the office to get some medical checkups out of the way (note: as you age, the checkups can become more invasive). Turns out that I only needed a day to recover. The Wife and I take Murton's Kids down to Millenium Park and for lunch on Michigan Avenue. As the Six Year Old admires the moon rock and the Cubs jersey in the window of Tribune Tower, I snap this picture:

At the VERY SAME MOMENT, about 300 feet above me, Denis FitzSimons's lunch was assending his trachea. Why? Bloomberg has the best report:

The publisher of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune should sell units or put the whole company up for sale, some of the company's largest shareholders said. They cited a 10 percent drop in the stock in the past year and management's failure to maximize profits of TV stations and the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise.

"Something will be done," said John Miller, a money manager at Ariel Capital Management, which owns 10.3 million shares, or 3.4 percent, of Tribune. "You have to take a more aggressive strategy. The true value of the company isn't being reflected in the share price."

As 1060 West noted, this is the first time we see in print that the Cubs are considered an insufficiently performing investment for the Tribune. The reason why is obvious. Profits are not being maximized at the Cubs.

Now, that's insane some people will say. How can profits be too small? They have revenue coming in from TV, radio, Comcast, new seats, a new skybox, the rooftops, a rotating advertising sign. And lemmings buying seats regardless of quality! How can profits be low?

Well, that list is the revenue side. No one's commented on the expense side. The expense side includes $94 million for payroll, $4 million for Dusty Baker, and probably another $5 million for Andy MacPhail and Jim Hendry. What the investors are saying is: Why spend so much if people are watching, listening, cableing, partying across the street, advertising, and just plain going regardless of performance?

In other words, the Chandler's and Ariel Capital just said the Cubs would be better served as an investment with lower overhead (read: payroll) so long as no one seems to care about winning.

They just called the lemmings out.

If you don't think the Cubs need to be sold now, you are in a Mariana's Trench denial level.

And in case you think this all ends up with nicely nice for the Trib, read the next line from Bloomberg:

Institutional investors are siding with the Chandler family

FitzSimons is in for the battle of his life. I recommend light lunches.

Oh, and Cloudgate (aka The Bean) is very, very cool now that it's all buffed out.