MESA, Arizona – Before the 2015 baseball season, when the Cubs World Series and subsequent spikes in revenue were mere goals and aspirations, the team’s business president, Crane Kenney, told a business publication:
“Basically, my job is to fill a wheelbarrow with money, take it to Theo’s office and dump it.”
Consider Crane’s wheelbarrow capped. Or at least very sticky.
Because five years later, with record team revenues rising and a new TV network about to launch, there’s a lot more money going into the wheelbarrow than landing on baseball president Theo Epstein’s office floor.
Maybe it’s not fair to include the Marquee Network as a revenue source until at least the other half of cable subscribers in Chicago have access to it on their services (there’s no indication a carriage deal with Comcast/Xfinity is close to happening).