White Sox VP Denies Team Close To Decision: Billions To Build New Ballpark ‘Doesn’t Fall Out Of The Sky’

In the latest Chicago sports edition of will-they-won’t-they, the White Sox remain opaque about the organization’s plans for the team’s home when its lease expires after the 2029 season. 

With six years left on the team's lease at Guaranteed Rate Field, White Sox Vice President of Sales and Service Jim Willits said at Bisnow’s Chicago Retail, Entertainment & Sports Trends event Tuesday that it's natural to look at what is available to the organization. Every option is on the table, he said, but rumors the team has already put together a shortlist of potential sites is just idle talk.

“That might mean we’re still at Guaranteed Rate Field,” Willits told Bisnow in an interview. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to go. We’re talking about billions of dollars to build a ballpark. That money doesn’t fall out of the sky.”

At the event, held at the future site of a mixed-use development in the Westfield Old Orchard shopping center in Skokie, Willits said the organization has had “brief conversations” internally about the move, but nothing in depth and nothing externally.

In response to a report by USA Today reporter Bob Nightengale speculating that the team is considering moving to three sites — Soldier Field, Arlington Heights or the United Center — Willits dispelled the notion the team had moved that far along in its plans.

“It’s just conversations that different people are having,” Willits said. “Whether it's Bob Nightengale having a conversation with a ‘Joe Fan’ or somebody, it was all kind of put out there and it gets out there in the ether and grows momentum. We really have no idea. Those are just conversations and meetings that are going to happen, probably in the future.”

The Chicago Bears are also considering relocating to one of the city’s surrounding suburbs, leaving major question marks about the future of two of the city's major franchises. But Willits said the Bears’ ultimate decision won’t have any bearing on what the Sox choose to do.

An MLB team considering a move from its home stadium would normally dominate the local news cycle for several days, but the Sox have had a few major newsworthy events to share the spotlight in the past week alone. 

At a Sox home game last Friday against the Oakland Athletics, a woman snuck a gun into the stadium “in the folds of her belly fat” and accidentally discharged it during the game, Peggy Kusinski of ESPN 1000 reported. An attorney for the woman denied the report, per CBS News.

As I reported on @ESPN1000 just now… the shooting at Guaranteed Rate Field during a #WhiteSox game was indeed an accidental discharge by one of the women “grazed” by the bullet. She reportedly snuck the gun in past metal detectors hiding it in the folds of her belly fat.

— Peggy Kusinski (@peggykusinski) August 29, 2023

The woman and one other woman hit by bullets suffered injuries that weren't life-threatening, per a statement from the team.

Previous reports were unclear on whether the shooting happened inside or outside the park, but by Monday, the theory that the shots came from outside the stadium was almost completely dispelled, USA Today reported. 

Additionally, last week the team fired Executive Vice President Ken Williams and Senior Vice President and General Manager Rick Hahn after long tenures with the club. 

Williams was in his 11th season as executive vice president with the Sox. He previously served as the team's general manager from 2001 to 2012. Hahn acted as the team's general manager for the past 11 seasons and first joined as assistant general manager in 2000.

“There's a lot of things happening around the Sox right now,” Willits said. “You can say that, putting it mildly.”

In the middle of a disappointing season on the diamond, White Sox attendance numbers per game are down about 3,500 year-over-year, per Baseball Reference. But they may get an assist from outside the club if rising talents in third-year quarterback Justin Fields and 2023 No. 1 overall NHL draft pick Connor Bedard can guide their teams to victories. 

Willits, who worked extensively in the Philadelphia Flyers and Florida Panthers organizations before joining the Sox, said he found that when other teams in the city were successful, it helped lift his teams too. If Bedard were to take the Chicago Blackhawks to the Stanley Cup, Willits said, people who had a good time at the games might want to keep the fun going in the summertime at Sox games.

Other panelists said that organizations playing as a team to buoy fan interest is advantageous to Chicago’s sports scene as a whole, despite intracity competition for fans and dollars. Organizations build upon one another’s ideas as well, emulating popular fan programming from other teams. 

“We did one or two bar crawls this past year, piggybacking off some really smart people on the South Side,” said Chris Weddige, vice president of ticketing and membership for the Chicago Blackhawks, referring to a White Sox program. “Because when you think about the experience and the game day, [fans] don't necessarily see it as puck drop. They could see it as three hours before.”

Chicago residents were introduced to an entirely new type of sporting experience on July 2 when NASCAR came into town to host a street race — the first in its history — in the heart of the city. Despite a steady downpour of rain throughout the weekend, NASCAR was able to run the race on Sunday night. 

NASCAR Chicago Street Course President Julie Giese said the other teams in the city were extremely welcoming to NASCAR as it planned for its street race. 

“Some of the very first calls that we got when we announced the event and then moved to the city, it was from the sports teams,” Giese said. “It was like, ‘How can we help you? We're here, use us as resources. Ask any questions that you need.’ And it's truly been incredibly special.”

NASCAR even teamed up with the Sox to put on a NASCAR-themed night on June 23 ahead of the street race, per NBC Sports Chicago. 

The future of those kinds of collaborations could be up in the air with the Sox's long-term home uncertain. 

“Everyone speculated that we were going everywhere from Nashville to Arlington to just at the Guaranteed Rate where it is currently,” Willits said. “One thing is for sure: We'll be somewhere.”