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City of Mesa artist's rendering
For more than a year talks about a potential partnership between the Chicago Cubs and Arizona State baseball have been on the table, but it now appears any chance of an agreement being reached has come and gone.

Negotiations between the two parties about the possibility of sharing the new stadium being built in Mesa started on a positive note, but took a frustrating turn recently before essentially being declared dead Thursday.

In a statement released by the school's athletics program, the reasoning behind the change is due to Cubs altering of the original agreement and the addition of new restrictions imposed on the Sun Devils' usage of the stadium.

"After many months of negotiation, ASU regrets that the effort to have the ASU baseball team play in the new Cubs stadium in Mesa has failed. The university approached the talks enthusiastically and readily accepted the deal as originally outlined. But as the new Cubs management changed the original deal points and added new issues to the negotiation, the new terms became far too costly to the university, imposed too many restrictions on ASU's use of the facility and exposed the university to too great a level of financial liability for the entire complex. We wish to thank the City of Mesa, in particular, Mayor Scott Smith and his staff for the enormous effort the city made to bring the two sides together. We also want to assure ASU baseball fans that the university will immediately start pursing other stadium options."

According to Sun Devil Athletics, they entered negotiations with every intent of reaching an agreement. Any issue between the two parties was due to the demands made by the Cubs, which the school felt was not in their best interest, thus making a deal impossible.

The school will now look to move on and "preserve ASU's baseball legacy" while honoring its fan base and student athletes in a stadium of its own.

The Sun Devils are looking to leave Packard Stadium, which was opened in 1974 and has a seating capacity of 7,875.

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  • Abuse
    py wrote...
    Must be Theo's fault
    better off without the Cubs anyway
  • Abuse
    AZSportsFan15 wrote...
    What's wrong with Packard Stadium?
    I am still trying to figure out why ASU is so adamant about moving the baseball stadium. Packard Stadium is in a great location and I think it is a pretty cool stadium. Anyone have any insight, do they want to use that area for other purposes (football practice facility)?
  • Abuse
    BrewCrewAZ wrote...
    Packard
    I might be wrong, but I thought they (Crowe) wanted to tear down Packard to use the land for reveue purposes that would help finance the refurbished Sun Devil Stadium.
  • Abuse
    sotired wrote...
    The real loser in this deal
    is the city of Mesa. ASU has other options. The Cubs don't care...they got what they wanted. Mesa misses out on some revenue for the use of this tax payer funded facility that would have covered 5 to 6 months instead of just 5 to six weeks!
  • Abuse
    Steve S. wrote...
    Good News!
    This was the dumbest thing ASU had wanted to do since firing Frank. First, attendance at ASU baseball is dismal; when I was in high school, during the 80s, both sides of the bleachers would be filled. Today, you can't even get one side. With the DBacks and other sports, college baseball has a small, loyal following, that's it. Building a new stadium is a waste of money. Keep it on campus so kids can actually attend on occasion. In Mesa, it would be a death trap for the Devils.
  • Abuse
    Taterizer wrote...
    Steve S.
    When is the last time you were at a Sun Devil Baseball game? The weekend conference games are almost always near capacity and ASU has one of the highest attendance records in I believe all of College Baseball or at the very least the west coast. I agree that Packard is a great place to play but it appears there is no hope to saving it. It needs renovations to stay current and the price tag on remodeling Sun Devil Stadium is just too high to afford both I suppose.
  • Abuse
    Teddy P wrote...
    They will be better off anyways.......
    The best deal for ASU is to move to Phoenix Municipal Stadium when the A's move to HoHokam Park in 2014. ASU would have the facility all to themselves! The Muni is more centrally located, and actually is about a mile closer to the ASU campus then the Mesa Riverview location would be. Just a couple miles North on Mill Ave. from campus and you run right into it. U of A moved off campus to Hi-Corbett field this year and experienced record attendance (probably because they could now sell beer at the games) and won a national title.
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