It was an extremely lucrative year for the Ricketts family, the owners of the Chicago Cubs, and there’s a promise of more to come. The team hiked season-ticket prices, but still saw average attendance rise by over 1,200 fans per game. They got a windfall from the league in the form of reimbursement for two lost gates at Wrigley Field due to the team playing the Dodgers in Tokyo, which they didn’t have to share the way they would ordinarily have to do. At midseason, they were announced as the hosts of the 2027 MLB All-Star Game, which will bring a new deluge of revenue and ensure that the market for season tickets remains fevered.

They also, of course, made the postseason. That’s hugely valuable, too. Though Tom Ricketts downplayed the financial benefits of even deep playoff runs after the team won the World Series in 2016, the facts are that teams make tens of millions from substantial playoff appearances—and get a meaningful boost even from a relatively brief run, like the one they made this October.

Playing games at home in the playoffs is important. It’s not as important as it might seem at a glance, because teams don’t get to keep anywhere near the full amount they pull in for those games. The lion’s share of gate revenues for the guaranteed games in a playoff series go to the players, and to central funds for the league and its alumni. For the non-guaranteed games (Game 3 of a Wild Card Series; Games 4 and 5 of a Division Series; Games 5-7 of a Championship Series or World Series), a small chunk of the revenue goes to the league, and then the two participating teams split the rest 50/50.

So, for instance, if the Cubs made $4 million per game in ticket revenue for games played at Wrigley Field—a good enough estimate, at least for the early rounds—they saw very little of that for Games 1 and 2 of the Wild Card Series and Game 3 of the Division Series. Even for Game 3 of the Wild Card Series and Game 4 of the Division Series, they only got perhaps $1.5 million per game. 

However, there’s also Game 5 of the NLDS (in the Brewers’ more capacious, if less expensive, Uecker Field) for which to account, plus the smallish sums the team was able to rake in for each of the guaranteed games of each series. In total, from ticket revenue alone, the Cubs probably made about $7 million in extra revenue by getting to the playoffs this year. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Postseason games are merchandise movers for teams, as fans who might he eschewed a purchase of a playoff entry t-shirt or a jersey even a week or two before give in to the buzz and splurge. They also make considerable sums on concessions and parking, the latter of which they can comfortably charge more for because of the imbalance of supply and demand when the ballpark is stuffed to its gills. The Rickettses also benefit from owning several businesses and properties near Wrigley Field, which fill up and start ringing like cash registers when the stadium is full and the atmosphere is festive. Some of that money, alas, the owners will refuse to count as earnings they feel compelled to reinvest in the team, but the parking, concessions, merchandise and other direct revenue (for instance, when the team opened Gallagher Way for limited numbers of fans to pay a cover charge and watch the team’s away games during the Division Series) all show up on Crane Kenney’s balance sheet.

That’s to say nothing of the huge ancillary benefits of making the playoffs. The Cubs will make more money from advertising and marketing partnerships for at least two years in the wake of this appearance. The combination of a playoff appearance and the confirmation of the 2027 All-Star Game made it easier to secure season-ticket renewals, and attendance is likely to rise yet again in 2026; that would be a fourth straight season of improvement. That they’re doing that while adding premium seating spaces like the one above the batter’s eye and opening the infamous sportsbook down the first-base line means the team’s gameday revenues have likely not only risen each year since the end of the pandemic, but risen by eight-figure sums each year. 

In total, the value of this playoff run to the team is likely to be roughly $25 million, frontloaded but spread over the next two to three years. That’s not small potatoes, even for a business with annual revenues north of $500 million. Ricketts would surely deny that number; he’s likely to try to put it closer to $10 million. Ricketts lies often about his team’s financial status, and what he says on the subject should be largely ignored. The Cubs made a ton of money this fall—a difference-making amount of money.

The pressure is on; the money dries up if a team falls back to the middle of the pack after a season like this one. This extra infusion of cash should prompt the Cubs to exceed the luxury-tax threshold in 2026, especially having reset their status by not exceeding that number in 2025. The Ricketts family’s investments have paid enormous dividends, for themselves. They now have to prove their commitment to making it do the same for fans of the team.