Cubs ticket-brokerage trial ends
Judge says she will make ruling in next 3 months

By Mickey Ciokajlo
Tribune staff reporter

August 21, 2003, 10:08 AM CDT

A seven-day trial in a class-action lawsuit in which the Chicago Cubs are accused of illegally running a ticket brokerage service concluded Wednesday, and the judge hearing the case set a deadline of Nov. 24 to rule.

Cook County Circuit Judge Sophia Hall gave lawyers on both sides until Sept. 22 to file post-trial briefs summarizing their legal arguments and the evidence presented at the trial.

In closing arguments, an attorney for ticket buyers who filed the suit last year charged the Cubs are breaking state law by operating Wrigley Field Premium Ticket Services. A lawyer representing the brokerage and the team, both of which are owned by Tribune Co., countered that Premium is a legal business that operates independently of the Cubs.

The Cubs are owned by Tribune Co., which also owns the Chicago Tribune.

Paul M. Bauch, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, argued that the Cubs are violating state scalping laws that prohibit the owner of an amusement, such as a baseball team, from selling tickets for more than the listed price, or face value.

Bauch argued that Premium was nothing more than a "shell corporation" designed by the Cubs and Tribune Co. to get around the state law.

"The whole purpose of setting up Premium tickets was a way to evade the limitation of the Cubs' ability to sell tickets in excess of the face amount," Bauch told Hall.

James A. Klenk, the lawyer for the Cubs and the broker, said that while Cubs personnel may have helped set up Premium, the ticket service has operated independently since it opened for business in June 2002.

Klenk said Premium is licensed with the state, which in 1991 exempted ticket brokers from the scalping law.

"That is the beginning and that is the end of this case," Klenk said.

Premium buys its tickets from the Cubs and pays for them through intercompany transfer at Tribune Co., Klenk said. The sales are legitimate, he argued, and the corporation's books are audited.

"We are not in the business of cooking the books and making sham transactions," Klenk said.

Bauch argued that the Cubs transferred the tickets to Premium, making the broker's sale the first time the seats were offered to the public.

Brokers, under state law, offer tickets for resale.

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