▲ Baseball fans watch a game from a special viewing area on the rooftop of a building outside Wrigley Field.
Major League Baseball's Chicago Cubs have won a legal dispute against a business owner who has operated a business allowing people to watch baseball games from outside the home stadium.
Sports media outlet ESPN reported, citing Korean time today (the 10th), that the Cubs won the lawsuit filed against 64-year-old Aiden Dunican, who has run a rooftop viewing business beyond the outfield wall of Wrigley Field for about 30 years.
A U.S. federal court ordered Dunican on September 30 to stop selling tickets for the rooftop seating area.
Dunican bought a building across the street from the Wrigley Field outfield wall for $400,000 in the 1990s, rebuilt it into a four-story building, and started the rooftop viewing business.
He installed sloped viewing seats on the rooftop so people could watch baseball games and charged $100 to $300 per person in exchange for providing alcohol and food.
The seating capacity is about 200 people, and annual sales reached about $1 million, which is approximately 1.34 billion Korean won.
Initially, Dunican's business was operated legally with the permission of the Cubs.
Dunican signed a contract with the Cubs in 2004 and paid about 17% of his sales to the club until 2023.
However, conflict arose after the contract expired.
Dunican claimed that he proposed extending the contract under the condition of paying 20% of sales, but the Cubs demanded 30% of regular-season sales and 40% of postseason sales.
The Cubs filed a lawsuit in 2024, arguing that permission is required to generate profit utilizing the club's games.
The team also partially blocked the view of the field from Dunican's rooftop by installing translucent screens and large advertisements in the outfield stands.
Dunican is considering an appeal while also leaving open the possibility of selling the building.
Asked if he was willing to sell the building to the Cubs, he said, "If it's a fair offer, I will consider it," adding, "We invested over $2 million alone in the building's renovation in 2010."
Wrigley Field is an old ballpark that was established in a residential neighborhood of downtown Chicago in 1914.
Because the interior of the stadium can be overlooked from the rooftops of buildings across the street from the outfield, many property owners have run businesses installing separate seats on rooftops and charging admission fees.
Accordingly, the Cubs signed a 20-year contract with property owners in 2004 to receive about 17% of sales, permitting the operation of "rooftop spectator seats."
Since then, the Cubs have acquired 11 buildings around Wrigley Field and the rooftop viewing businesses altogether, and newly signed revenue-sharing contracts with some owners.
Dunican is the last business operator holding out, claiming that the new contract terms proposed by the Cubs are unfair.
(Photo: Getty Images)
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