You paid how much?

In a sports news item of the day, it has been reported that the Chicago Cubs baseball team and Wrigley Field stadium, will be sold to a man named, Tom Ricketts. Mr. Ricketts is a billionaire who made his fortune working at the Chicago Board of Trade, and his own investment bank called, Incapital, LLC. An avid Cubs fan (obviously) who supposedly met his wife in the bleachers of Wrigley Field, Mr. Ricketts will pay the sum of $900 million dollars for the team and stadium being sold by the Tribune Co. Now, the question is, is this a good deal or not a good deal? On the one hand, Mr. Ricketts is buying a team that has not won the World Series in over 100 years (since 1908 to be exact), and has not even been in the World Series since 1945! As a St. Louis Cardinals fan I would like to remind my readers that the Cardinals have won 10 World Series Championships, with the last being as recent as 2006. So, this man is buying a team with a rabid (although delusional) fan base with a losing tradition. On the other hand, in the unrealistic world of major league sports which apparently does not go through economic recessions like the rest of the world, the Cubs franchise which again is being purchased for $900 million dollars, was recently valued at $1 billion dollars. So, Mr. Ricketts is getting a discount of $100 million. Pretty good! Also, this team that is being sold for $900 million in 2009 was purchased by the present owner at a mere $20.5 million in 1981. So the Tribune Co. made a return of 156% per year for the last 28 years and is still needing to sell this team to make up for losses from it's other businesses, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, The (Baltimore) Sun, The Hartford Courant and other dailies as well as 23 television stations. Wow! Things must be really, really bad in the newspaper business. So, time will tell if Mr. Ricketts got a good deal on the Cubs or not. One thing is for sure, I would not bet on them to win the World Series this year!