By Nick Gale, WLS-AM 890 News
(CHICAGO) — As the Chicago Cubs push the city to allow for more night games, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) says everyone needs to relax.
Cubs President of Business Operations Crane Kenney is urging City Hall to allow the league average of 54 night games. He says the team can currently have up to 43 total night games but Tunney, whose ward includes Wrigley Field, says that’s not so.
“The flexibility, we gave them I think it was 37 games and then for, if national television requires it, goes up to 43 and they got 10 concerts,” Tunney told Bob Sirott and Marianne Murciano Tuesday on WLS. “You know they’re playing around with the total number but they have potentially 50 dates. From zero to 50, I think we’ve come a long way.”
The relationship between the ball club and the city has shown an expansion of night games since they began at Wrigley in 1998.
“The first was a 15 year agreement for 18 night games. Renegotiated [in] 2003 with the Cubs. Trust me, the Cubs have been involved with all these negotiations and it’s a give and a take,” Tunney said. “So we went from 18 to 30 and now its up to 43 plus the playoffs, remember the playoffs are not part of this and we added concerts which were challenging to begin with and I think they’ve been absorbed pretty well and now we got the plaza and all this activity over here. Just relax, keep winning games, we’re doing fine. You know the agreement was negotiated with the Cubs, the community, the mayors office. I’m cool and I think they should be cool. I think they are. But they’re always trying to push the envelope.”
A statement form the mayor’s office to the Sun-Times says the last time the city increased the number of nighttime events the Cubs could hold, the team instead chose to have more concerts instead of night games and “that was their call.”
Copyright 2017 WLS-AM News
