Their payroll is pretty high in fairness, and they'll have luxury tax to deal with. It's really hard to know how much they have to spend without knowing true revenue/expense figures...especially considering the new tv deal should theoretically lead to more revenue for the Cubs, at least I would assume so or why bother doing it. That's another reason fans typically side with management in sports labor disputes. The fans have no idea how much the owners are making. They do, however, know how much each player makes. I get where your coming from. I really don't care what the amount of money made by owners of a MLB team is. The players are well compensated, and I don't feel sorry for them. In 2017 the average pay of a CEO of a S&P 500 company was 361 times the pay of an average worker. There should be more outrage in that than an entertainment business.