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Sweetheart Deal On Ballpark Naming Rights Nothing New For White Sox

By Ted Cox | August 25, 2016 1:01pm | Updated on August 25, 2016 5:14pm
 A mockup of what we think the future of the South Side park might look like.
A mockup of what we think the future of the South Side park might look like.
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Flickr/Ken Lund; Guaranteed Rate

BRIDGEPORT — The White Sox might be fielding a losing team this season, but they've had a winning record in dealings with the state — and, thus, Illinois taxpayers — going back to when their original lease deal for the current Sox Park was signed in the '80s.

The Sox reaped the most recent windfall from that lease agreement Wednesday, when they sold the naming rights to the park to the Chicago-based online mortgage firm Guaranteed Rate. Terms were not disclosed, but it's safe to say the Sox will continue to haul in something on the order of the reported $3.4 million a year U.S. Cellular was paying before it abandoned the Chicago market.

Guaranteed Rate is picking up the last 10 years of the U.S. Cellular deal, as well as two and perhaps three more years in a 13-year pact. The Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, created to build and maintain the new stadium back in the '80s, is laying claim to $6.4 million at the tail end of the deal once the original U.S. Cellular pact expires, consistent with the other annual payments.

 Jerry Reinsdorf (second from right) was joined by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a ceremony breaking ground for the Bulls' new practice facility.
Jerry Reinsdorf (second from right) was joined by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a ceremony breaking ground for the Bulls' new practice facility.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

"The White Sox are essentially getting made whole from the 2003 naming-rights deal, and the additional revenue from the new agreement with Guaranteed Rate will go to ISFA," said Sox spokeswoman Sheena Quinn on Thursday.

RELATED: U.S. Cellular Field Changed Its Name, And People Are Freaking Out

"As part of ISFA’s approval process, the White Sox agreed that they will not require certain major renovations during the last three years of the current management agreement," said facility Chairman Manny Sanchez in a statement released Wednesday. "This is just the latest example of ISFA deploying innovative strategies to protect Illinois taxpayers.”

In other words, the Sox are dropping a clause that calls for the facility to maintain the park in a way that matches other major-league stadiums, a clause in the original lease that got the Sox their new, big-screen outdoor TVs this year, with the state, through Sox rent and a local hotel tax, paying a reported $7.3 million.

Ultimately, giving up that perk will be a rare concession on the part of the White Sox, but critics might call it throwing a bone to taxpayers who've been footing the bill for the Sox since Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf threatened to move the team to Florida in the '80s and got the state to give the Sox all they wanted in ransom, starting with the new $167 million stadium opened in 1991.

In fact, a former head of the sports facility once called the lease agreement the Sox signed running through 2029 "the most lucrative and one-sided deal ... ever granted by a state to a privately owned professional baseball team."

RELATED: Forever Comiskey? Sox Fans Offer Alternatives To 'Guaranteed Rate Field'

That's the language from the original complaint filed by former ISFA Chief Executive Officer Perri Irmer in 2013, when she sued Reinsdorf and former Gov. Jim Thompson in federal court for what she claimed was her illegal removal from the post in 2011.

U.S. Judge John Darrah, who recently sided with Friends of the Parks in its bid to prevent the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art from being built on the lakefront, ultimately ruled against Irmer on legal grounds, but even he granted that "under the agreement, the White Sox have enjoyed a very favorable taxpayer-financed stadium deal."

Irmer, who led the facility from 2004-2011, charged that the Sox paid no rent on the new stadium for 18 years, until she got them to start making a token annual payment of $1.2 million in 2008. Her suit estimated that, over the course of the deal running through 2029, that would amount to a $400 million taxpayer "subsidy" in lost rental revenue.

When the Sox made the original U.S. Cellular naming-rights deal in 2003, it went to bonds paying for the multi-year renovation of Sox Park, including lopping off the all-but-uninhabitable top eight rows of the stadium, at the loss of 6,600 seats, but the gain of great aesthetic improvement in 2004.

RELATED: Wackiest Sox Player Ever in Million Dollar Photo Auction

Irmer's suit said her relationship with the Sox soured when she pressed them to start paying rent and to open up what she called the "people's ballpark" for concerts and more civic events, something the Sox resisted. Relations went south when she opposed what her suit called "The Bacardi at the Park Fiasco" in 2010.

Under that deal, opposed by Irmer but approved by the ISFA board, the facility built the restaurant across 35th Street from the stadium at a cost of $3.2 million, as well as $3.7 million in associated infrastructure improvements. The Sox, however, were to pocket all revenue. According to one version of events, Thompson, who retained a role with the agency, asked Reinsdorf, "Jerry, can we have a part of the profits?" And Reinsdorf politely said no.

Thompson's published take on that: "We said, OK. I've known Jerry for 52 years. He's tough. He's tough."

Thompson didn't know the half of it, but he would play an equal part in Irmer's ultimate removal.

RELATED: U.S. Cellular Field Changing Name To Guaranteed Rate Field

According to Irmer, Reinsdorf was so intent on removing her from the facility, he lobbied then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fire her, and Blagojevich Chief of Staff John Harris was making calls to the board to remove her — until both he and the governor were indicted on corruption charges in December 2008.

The suit subsequently charged that, after the Bacardi restaurant "fiasco," Reinsdorf and Thompson teamed up to fire her — only days before she was to meet with the freshly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011 and lay out her case for reforms.

Sox spokesman Scott Reifert pointed out that the suit "was dismissed with prejudice by the court," adding, "How do those types of unsubstantiated claims — or even stronger, claims rejected by a court of law — get reprinted as facts?"

Emanuel was also quick to defend Reinsdorf and the Sox when asked about the naming deal Thursday.

"It's a decision for them to make," he said, adding that the Reinsdorf family, where both the Sox and the Bulls are concerned, has been "incredibly generous in giving back to the community."

Even so, the long-term lease has allowed the Sox to pretty much have their way all along on what will soon be known as Guaranteed Rate Field.

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