Cubs Owner Tom Ricketts Uses Highly Questionable Metaphor to Describe MLB's Financial Losses

Sports leagues across America are struggling with the economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. After all, everyone is in some form or fashion. But Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts seems to think that MLB owners are suffering like they were hit with all 10 plagues of Egypt.

Ricketts, whose family runs the TD Ameritrade financial empire, characterized the scale of the impending financial shortfalls across baseball this season as "biblical" in response to widespread accusations that the owners are making massive amounts of money off of their teams while proposing that players take absurd pay cuts. It's important to note that Ricketts said the Cubs will lose significant revenue from not having fans in the stands at Wrigley Field because they typically have high attendance, which is not the case for every club.

It seems like the extremely wealthy Ricketts is being a little dramatic.

Owners have tons of revenue streams that have nothing to do with gate receipts, from television contracts to merchandise sales to advertising partners. They'll still have those in some form whether fans can watch games from ballparks or not, not to mention that Ricketts is worth close to $1 billion by himself, with his family worth as much as $5 billion.

Ricketts is an experienced businessman, and his family wouldn't have invested so heavily in buying the Cubs if the team wasn't making him a profit year after year. Maybe he should focus more on developing a fair agreement with the MLBPA rather than fretting over playing games at an empty Wrigley.