Zell turned a healthy profit on the Cubs and still owns .05 of them. To think oterwise is looney. I typed too fast for my brain there, I don't recall what Zell paid for the Cubs, (it wasn't the 1B # that B2B believes wasn't true or something) he may have made a profit Zell took a bath on his entire Tribune ownership stake, which included the Cubs. He bought the company when the Cubs were valued by most at $1B, and sold them for less. You'd have to do some really funny accounting to say he made money on that investment. But he didn't buy the Cubs seperately for $1 billion and then sold them for less. Also, I would question the value of the Cubs being $1 billion in the marketplace at that specific time. Every article that I read said that the value of the Cubs could be as much as $1 billion. No, he didn't, but he bought a company that owned the Cubs and that investment plummeted in value, as did his own net worth. You can talk about write-offs all you want, but there is a tremendous financial risk at stake here and some people are without question losing money.