Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
December 08, 2008
Tribune Goes Bankrupt

The owner of the Cubs is bankrupt:

Tribune Co has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after struggling under a heavy debt load, according to a court document filed with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware on Monday.

The privately held publisher of the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, which took on about $13 billion of debt when it went private last year under a deal led by real estate mogul Sam Zell, said in the filing that it had $7.6 billion in assets and $12.97 billion in debt as of December 8.

I wonder if this makes the Cubs cheaper to buy? Will the court control the sale process instead of the Tribune? Any bankruptcy lawyers care to chime in?


Posted by David Pinto at 06:11 PM | News Media | TrackBack (0)
Comments

While I'm not a bankruptcy attorney, I have some experience in this realm. Any sale of the Cubs has to be in the context of a greater plan to restructure the company... which must be approved by not only the court but also by the creditors. I'm not sure how MLB will interject in this process though. Any sale to an entity/individual must be finally approved by MLB also...

Posted by: Jeff at December 8, 2008 06:33 PM

The Cubs were excluded from the restructuring because they are up for sale. So it won't affect things at all.

Posted by: Bob at December 8, 2008 07:10 PM

Yep, the Cubs were already on the block. I'm not a bankruptcy lawyer and I don't play one on the Internet, but I would think the court has a lot more important things to worry about than a fringe asset that's already gone.

Posted by: casey Abell at December 9, 2008 09:10 AM

Well if the Tribune has liabilities that need to be satisfied, it is possible that the bankruptcy judge will demand that this asset be sold for the most money. (not a banko-lawyer, though I did study the old banko code in law school, 15 or so years ago).

The new code is a bit harsher in terms of making sure creditors get what they are owed, though MLB does have a partial anti-trust exemption which might allow them to control who buys the team. Alternatively that might be satisfied by having MLB itself make up the difference between the highest bidder (say Mark Cuban) and number two. Could be some very interesting legal maneuvering.

Posted by: rbj at December 9, 2008 03:36 PM
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