The Chicago Cubs are playing a two game set in London, at the home of West Ham United, starting today. Early last year, the Cubs’ owners, the Ricketts family, tried to buy a different London club, Chelsea FC. So the Cubs connections to London football clubs run deep. But the one they have the most in common with is Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.
Let’s go on a flashback and explore that.
The date is July 25, 2014; Tottenham Hotspur FC are in Chicago to play the Fire in a friendly at Toyota Park the next night. On this evening, members of Tottenham’s side are doing a public appearance at Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs.
Budding face of the franchise and English football Harry Kane throws out the ceremonial first pitch before the Cubs take on the San Diego Padres.
Kane, Michael Dawson and Anthony Rizzo do a shirt swap in this Cubs-Spurs international exchange program, but there’s a much bigger reason to revisit this photo-opp nine years later. The two franchises, an ocean apart, are set to progress along very similar paths over the next half-decade.
In the latter half of the 2010s, both clubs will build a winning program and reach heights on the field of play that have not been seen by the club in ages.
At the same time, these two franchises play in a historic and colorful stadium (Wrigley Field and White Hart Lane) located smack dab in a residential neighborhood of a huge, thriving metropolis (Chicago and London).
They renovate/build sparkling new facilities, replacing the badly outdated, dilapidated facilities in which they resided.
They build a winning club, rebuild their stadium infrastructure and then stop spending on player personnel. Both the Cubs and Tottenham will develop themselves into a perennial top contender, but when they get there, they cease spending on roster upgrades.
When you’re standing still, you’re actually falling behind and the Cubs let their competitive window dissipate, just like Spurs did.
Both clubs will act/cry poor while at the same time still raking in the cash, and taking their franchises valuations higher and higher. In the process, they’ll insult the intelligence of, and thus alienate their fan bases.
But hey, at least you’ll always have the 2016 World Series title/2019 UEFA Champions League runner-up.
For Tottenham, Chairman Daniel Levy has always had a reputation as a hardball negotiator. If he doesn’t get the price he wants on a prospective deal he just won’t do it. Thus, when his club signed midfielder Tanguy Ndombele in 2019, it was the first time they had signed a new player in literally 517 days!
Tottenham got off to a very rough start that Premier League season as the squad lacked focus and ambition.
Why?
Because the roster contained a few players that thought they were leaving that summer and didn’t want to stay in north London. Why they didn’t they go? Because Levy didn’t get the sale price he wanted for them.
It was more the mistakes of Levy than it was the errors of manager Mauricio Pochettino, but it was of course the latter, not the former who paid the price for the club’s listlessness.
Since Pochettino was replaced by Jose Mourinho, the club went nowhere and thus, they paid the price for numerous transfer windows of nothing but tumbleweeds passing through. They blamed the cost of building the new stadium for the inactivity.
Sound familiar Cubs fans?
While Ricketts claimed the Cubs have no money to spend, the 2019 Forbes list of the world’s 50 most valuable sports franchises says otherwise. The Cubs placed in a tie for 14th place, registering a valuation of $3.1 billion and an operating income of $87 million.
Making the Ricketts narrative look even sillier, the Cubs value actually INCREASED from the past year, ramping up 7%, and that’s hard to do given the challenge of maintaining top line growth when you’re up at this level among the fiscally elite.
Ricketts/the Cubs can claim they have no money to spend, because they came in so far over-budget on stadium renovations, but they are spending money in other places.
They have funded a few political campaigns, all of which failed
They’ve also invested in a new legal sports wagering initiative and this will no doubt provide another major revenue stream.
As will Marquee Sports Network, almost every single Cubs game will be on pay tv, with none available for free, will they still be able to cry poor? Sounds a lot like Tottenham, who are the ninth most valuable soccer/football franchise in the world, with a valuation of $1.6 billion, according to Forbes.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He’s written for numerous publications, including the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. He regularly appears on NTD News and WGN News Now. Follow the website on Twitter and Instagram.