Editorial: Will the Bulls and White Sox drop their penny-pinching ways with billionaires now in play?

It's one thing to own a professional sports franchise. It's another to make it a championship contender. And don’t Chicagoans know it.

But, lo and behold, the cavalry may be coming, Bulls and White Sox fans - in the form of two of the Chicago area's couple dozen or so billionaires.

The billionaire set may be unpopular with the political left in the U.S., but they're welcomed with open arms by beleaguered sports fans.

Chicago sports fans long have lamented the shallow pockets of owners of their beloved local teams. George S. Halas was the legendary founder of both the Bears and the National Football League, but in the 1960s Bears tight end Mike Ditka famously complained that Halas "throws around nickels like manhole covers." The third generation to run the franchise is struggling mightily to land a deal in Illinois or Indiana for a new stadium. Of the $2 billion the team has pledged to invest in a new arena, Bears Chairman George McCaskey, Halas' grandson, on April 1 said all of it would need to be borrowed. "We don't have it," he said, reinforcing the belief that the vast majority of the billionaire McCaskey family's wealth is on paper.

The Ricketts family lifted the Cubs' 108-year-old curse with the team's 2016 World Series championship, but since then, Cubs fans have grumbled that the clan won't compete with the likes of the free-spending Dodgers for free agents.

And then there's Jerry Reinsdorf, whose family are majority owners of both the White Sox and the Bulls and are among the lower spenders in Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association, to the frustration of both teams' fanbases.

The latest hoped-for franchise savior is Illinois' richest resident, Lukas Walton, a member of the Walton clan responsible for Walmart. Walton, with an estimated net worth of nearly $50 billion, recently acquired a minority stake in the Bulls, buying out some of Reinsdorf's limited partners. Per the transaction, he also now owns a piece of the United Center, co-owned by the Reinsdorfs and the Wirtz family, owner of the Blackhawks.

Walton follows Justin Ishbia, the billionaire head of Chicago private-equity firm Shore Capital Partners, whose family's wealth is derived substantially from wholesale home-lending giant United Wholesale Mortgage. Under a deal struck with Reinsdorf a little over a year ago, Ishbia bought a minority stake in the White Sox and is in line to assume majority ownership as soon as 2029 and no later than 2034.

These are young men. Walton is just 39, and Ishbia 48.

Reinsdorf is 90.

Any Chicago sports fan knows optimism is usually a prelude to disappointment. But not always. Reinsdorf's Bulls landed Michael Jordan thanks to a drafting blunder by the Portland Trail Blazers and won six 1990s championships. The Sox put together a magical 2005 and swept the Houston Astros in the World Series.

Since Jordan left the Bulls after the 1998 title, the team has a regular season record of 1,006-1,215 by our count. Since the Sox won it all, they're 1,489-1,734 as of Wednesday's 6-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.

Still, with billionaires in the boardroom, you now can forgive Bulls and White Sox fans for having visions of future Victor Wembanyamas or Shohei Ohtanis dancing in their heads.

Competing year after year in professional sports requires money. Lots and lots of it.

It's just reality: A billionaire in the ownership fold and willing to invest in the team ups the odds success won't just be a roll of the dice.

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This story was originally published July 3, 2026 at 5:27 AM.