In a search of individual donors since 1994 (when the Illinois State Board of Elections began digitizing records), BP South Side found $731,413 in political contributions to state and local candidates from Jerry Reinsdorf, his businesses, and his family.*

These donations aren’t limited to either political party or any political philosophy. Reinsdorf has contributed significant amounts to both Democrats and Republicans who have influence over the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority (ISFA).

The ISFA is the government agency that built and maintains U.S. Cellular Field. The Illinois General Assembly created it to act in the interest of taxpayers in negotiations with the White Sox, over things like ticket fees and ballpark improvements. But since the park opened in 1991, the Sox have enjoyed one of the most team-friendly agreements in baseball, and numerous state-funded ballpark renovations.

As the body that installed it, the General Assembly has legislative authority over the ISFA, along with a small measure of oversight. Reinsdorf has given handsomely to Illinois legislators in recent decades, including $27,650 to Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan, going back to 1994. Over the same period, the Sox chairman paid current Democratic Senate President John Cullerton a total of $7,572, and an additional $50,500 to various Democratic political committees in the state legislature. Emil Jones Jr., the senate president preceding Cullerton, received $21,740 from Reinsdorf while serving office.

Despite his heavy investment in state Democrats, Reinsdorf is not a man of party allegiance. From 1994-2000, he donated $12,498 to Lee Daniels, the longtime House Republican Leader, who served briefly as House Speaker. Reinsdorf also provided funds to Republican Senate President James “Pate” Philip totaling $12,309, and $9,600 to the House Republican Organization.

Leaders of the Illinois legislature have indirect control over the ISFA, but the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois are responsible for appointing the seven members of the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority Board, who have direct governing and administrative power in the state’s dealings with the White Sox. And so, the most concerning contributions from Reinsdorf have gone to these ISFA influencers.

From 2001 to 2015, Reinsdorf, his sons (who are also business partners), and his business entities (such as the Chicago White Sox, Encounters Ltd., CBLS Corp, and JMR Trust) made at least $355,230 in contributions to Richard M. Daley, Rahm Emanuel, Rod Blagojevich, Pat Quinn, and Bruce Rauner.

Chicago mayors directly appoint three ISFA board members, and approve the ISFA chairman, who is picked by the governor. Reinsdorf has bought heavily into both of Chicago’s mayors over the last two decades. Daley received $59,250 in donations from 2000 to 2006. And from 2011 to 2015, Reinsdorf awarded Emanuel $75,000. Three Emanuel appointees currently serve on the ISFA board.

Reinsdorf has kept his pen and checkbook handy over Illinois’ last four gubernatorial terms as well.

The governor has the authority to appoint four ISFA board members, including the chair. From 2002 to 2005, Reinsdorf contributed $36,000 to Blagojevich’s election fund, which included the use of a private plane. Quinn received $73,980 during his time as governor, from 2009 to 2014. In 2011, he appointed Emil Jones Jr. as ISFA chairman. As previously mentioned, Jones also received tens of thousands in political donations from Reinsdorf. Finally, in the short time since he was elected to office in 2014, Rauner has racked up $75,000 in Reindorf contributions. Rauner appointed four new ISFA board members in 2015.

Reinsdorf’s generosity toward elected officials has paid off over the years. Apart from the benefits of a stadium agreement that requires the state to maintain, improve, and pay off debt for U.S. Cellular Field at a hefty loss every year, the White Sox have enjoyed a number of expensive perks, courtesy of the ISFA.

To name a few:

• In 1998, the ISFA released the White Sox from any obligation to pay media fees from television revenue, before the sports television market took off.
• In 2000, the ISFA built a conference center that it maintains to this day for the team’s exclusive use during the season.
• As part of the ISFA’s deal for Soldier Field, about $30 million made its way over to Comiskey Park (as it was known then) for ballpark renovations in 2001-2.
• In 2003, the White Sox were offered, and agreed to, an extension of their team-friendly lease until 2025.
• In 2010, the ISFA financed construction of a new restaurant outside of U.S. Cellular Field, from which the team keeps the profits.
• This season, the state paid for construction and maintenance of new state-of-the-art video boards.

If, at one time, we were willing to accept that state and city officials exhibited bad judgement in their dealings with Jerry Reinsdorf and the White Sox, a little political research, and hundreds and hundreds of thousands in donations later, it looks more like corruption.

*Because political contributions can be masked in various ways, and because some of the data we’re using was entered manually in the IL State Board of Elections database and may be incomplete, the numbers reported here are limited to contributions that are available and verifiable electronically. Therefore, they should be viewed as minimum amounts Reinsdorf contributed to state and local politicians.

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The video boards will seem in that moment—in all of their high-definition, altitudinous glory—to be money well spent by the state of Illinois.

But, in that moment, we should also take time to ponder the gift of video boards in the larger context of the politics of state funding for things.

For example, we might ask what kind of world we live in, where we can pay for $7 million worth of state-of-the-art digital technology at the White Sox baseball stadium, but we can’t pay for computers in our classrooms?

The answer is that Jerry Reinsdorf has a much better deal with the state than our schools. Illinois ranks lowest among states in education spending, but is near the top in stadium money giveaways (to my knowledge, the Sox still enjoy the cheapest rent in the league).

Moreover, the US Cellular Field lease agreement requires the state pay to replace “any obsolete component of the Stadium with more modern replacements which may in the future become in use in at least seventy-five (75%) percent of Major League Baseball stadiums.”

This language is common in stadium agreements, effectively obligating local taxpayers to continue kicking in for stadium upgrades as others, elsewhere, do the same.

I contacted Neil deMause, who writes about stadium boondoggles at FieldofSchemes.Com, about these “obsolete component” clauses. He says that no one really knows how many taxpayer-funded renovations have been justified as a result of them, and that no one is checking.

Records obtained by BP South Side show that the White Sox twice made video board upgrade requests to the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority (ISFA), the state’s stadium governing body, in both 2014 and 2015.

In each request the Sox noted that over 75% of Major League Baseball had more modern video systems, referring to terms of the lease agreement.

The team pointed out that the video portion of the centerfield scoreboard dated back to 2003. Incidentally, that was the year when the White Sox paid for a series of ballpark improvements, but only after the team received $68 million from U.S. Cellular Corporation for naming rights to the public facility.

This time around, White Sox ownership was not about to pay for upgrades that the state was contractually obligated to provide, or for which the team wouldn’t be reimbursed by a third party.

So in a resolution dated September 30, 2015, appointed officials at the ISFA determined it was “in the best interest of the Authority to undertake the Video Improvements Project.” The “Authority” being the ISFA, representing the state. Usually, there is no room for irony in legal documents, but maybe they were making a joke here.

The contractor for the video system work and maintenance is Mitsubishi Electric Power Products, Inc. The company operates out of Warrendale, PA.

Sports stadiums do not stimulate local economies. But contracting a company that is headquartered, employs management, and pays taxes in another state, no doubt lessens whatever local economic benefit the ballpark investment might provide.

Mitsubishi Electric Power is no stranger to state subsidies itself. According to Good Jobs First, the company has received what amounts to millions in tax credits, abatements, grants, and other payments from Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

Now it’ll be adding Illinois taxpayer money to the coffers.

Given these circumstances, the U.S. Cellular Field video system expenditure looks like a totally legal, yet gross misappropriation of state funds.

Adding further insult, in 2015, the same year the state approved the new $7 million video system in the White Sox ballpark, it announced a $28 million budget cut for the city’s public parks.

In this context, the White Sox new video boards—like previous renovations, the public debt financing of the ballpark, and the lease agreement itself—are a discreet political act, with a small group of beneficiaries.

And so, I’ll likely enjoy the multimillion-dollar, high-def experience in my baseball stadium this season, but I really would’ve liked for the owners of my billion-dollar baseball team to have paid for it.

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This mentality extends from everyday fans to the most powerful judicial body in the land. Baseball is exempt from federal antitrust laws because the Supreme Court didn’t want to think of it as a business.

But business people know that baseball is big business. The Yankees franchise alone is worth $3.2 billion, according to the latest annual Forbes report titled, “The Business of Baseball.”

Every once in a while, a news story appears that reorients baseball fans’ thinking a bit. Helping them imagine baseball players as employees, in situations relatable to their own workplaces.

The Adam LaRoche saga is a prime example. In wake of news that club president Kenny Williams confronted the Sox DH about his son’s presence at the team’s facilities, the Chicago Tribune reported, “[V]ocal Sox fans seem to agree with [Williams’] decision to curb Drake LaRoche’s clubhouse time. Many believe it’s a workplace issue.”

For whatever reason, stories like this strike a collective nerve. And fans are often quick to judge athletes who are seemingly overpaid, entitled, and oblivious to real work in the real world—especially those who significantly underperform, like LaRoche.

But rarely does this contempt extend to coddled sports team owners. It should.

The White Sox ownership group, led by Jerry Reinsdorf, are not necessarily given special favors in the workplace (although accommodations were made by the club for Reinsdorf’s grandson), but in real, material terms—i.e. money!—by the state and city, in ways that businesses employing most Sox fans couldn’t dream.

For example, how many Sox fans’ half-billion dollar business facilities were built, maintained, and renovated upon request by the state?

Because U.S. Cellular Field, the White Sox place of business, is paid for by taxpayers. Every year, the city and state contribute $5 million apiece to maintain the ballpark. An additional $40 million or more comes in annually from hotel taxes. And when the Sox request stadium upgrades, like new video boards, a legal agreement obligates the state to pony up.

And how many Sox fans’ businesses don’t pay property taxes? Or are exempt from tax increases?

Although built almost exclusively for private use, U.S. Cellular Field is publicly owned. Therefore, taxing bodies receive no revenue from the property. And the White Sox agreement with the state protects the team against any future tax increases or new taxes imposed by the city, county, or state.

Most of this information can be found in the White Sox management agreement and annual reports from the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, some of which can be found here.

Also, the White Sox, like all MLB teams, benefit from an industry structure that functions like a cartel (as a result of the aforementioned antitrust exemption). Through collusion, MLB owners have been able to leverage things like, additional television revenues, and reduced player (i.e. employee) salaries via team control and arbitration.

Because they are propped up by taxpayer subsidies and legalized price fixing, White Sox operators have remained highly profitable, and have seen the estimated value of their franchise triple over ten years, all while being pretty bad at their business: assembling a successful baseball team.

Likewise, Adam LaRoche was pretty bad at his business—hitting—last season. And fans turned on him when he then scoffed at his locker room privileges being revoked.

I don’t want to conflate the special treatment of LaRoche and the White Sox—one has an effect on team chemistry in sport and the other on the local economy and distribution of taxpayer resources—other than to say this:

If business performance is the standard by which fans justify special privileges in the work world, the White Sox should be catching hell right now.

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