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C u b s Contin d from Page 14 ue Tom Werner have served as an important bluepr int for Ricketts and the Cubs."They have some tremendous opportunities in front of them, and the extra advantage of following our game plan to some degree." From bleachers t o boardroom Tom Ricketts, 44, looks the part of a typical MLBowner,often attired in a conservative suit and tie,and his background is also fairl y typical of that elite grou p. Raised in Omaha, Neb., his fath er Joe founded and ran the highly successfu l national stock brokerage TD Amer itrade. Tom, the second oldest of four childr en, left Oma ha in 1984 to atte nd the University of Chicago. After graduation, he stayed in town and worked as a market ma ker for the Chicago Board Options Exchange, later earned his MBA, and ultimately built his own sizable wealth through his co-founding and r urming investment banking firm Incap ital . His background in the financ ial services industry belied a deep passion for baseball, and much more importan tly to Cubs fan s, gen uine stripes as a diehard Cubs fan. As a youth, Rickett s played Littl e League and frequently attended games of the local Triple-AOmaha Royals. After college he lived in an apartment in Wrigleyville, the lively, bar-heavy neigh borhood aro und Wri gley Field. As a frequ ent Bleacher Bum , he met h is future wife, Cecelia, at Wrigley. And it was once aga in at Wr igley where Street & Ricketts convinced his family, particularl y patr iar ch Joe , to ra lly around his idea to bid for the team. "Tom's got street cred," Kenney said."We got very lucky. He's got some scar tiss ue. Had the [sales] process gone another way, who knows?" His passion for the Cubs would be fir mly tested during a marathon sales process tha t lasted more than two years. After real estate mogul Sam Zell purchased the Tr ibune Co. in early 2007 in a massive $8.2 billi on deal, Zell quic kly rehung the for-sale sign on the Cubs, Wrigley Field,and an interest in Comcast Sport sNet Chicago. But that's wher e the simplicity ended. Efforts to separate th e franch ise, stadi urn and media assets and sell them in distinct tr an sactions predictably fizzled, but still took man y months to play themselves out . Various ro unds of bidding for t he Cubs assets occurred, and during ma ny of those phases, the Ricketts family was not pu blicly seen as a bona fide favorite, in part du e to a deep ly conce r ted effor t by the family and its advisers to stay out of th e press. Tribune Co. then filed for bankruptcy in December 2008, fur ther complica ti ng the sales effor t and helping extend the entire process to 30 months once it was all done. Team officials, too, suffered under the strain of the pro cess, even as the club contin ue d to stay compet iti ve on th e field. "There were defin itely cha llenges. It' s har d to add staff, for example, when your parent company is in bankruptcy," Ken ney said. Tom Ricketts estimates that due in part to the complex legal structure of the deal,one in which Tribu ne Co. rem ains a min ority owner, he signed his name more than 6,000 times at closing . "There was a year or so in there where all See Cubs Page 16 Offseason work improved Wrigley's notoriously spartan concourses. Crews also removed manyconcrete panels on the exteriorfacade to improve brightness and airflow . Smith's S portsBu s iness.JCURNAL I www.s port s bus ines s journal.com MA RCH 29 ·AP RIL 4 . 201 0 I II