"The economics of baseball have completely changed” - White Sox's owner Jerry Reinsdorf expounds why team needs a new ballpark 

The Chicago White Sox's owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, is seeking $1 billion from Illinois to build a new stadium. The club is looking to shift from Guaranteed Rate Field to a brand new stadium at the proposed The 78 site in South Loop.

According to Reinsdorf, the new stadium will inject life and money into the area. He also clarified that if they don't get the sum they are looking for, the club will consider relocating and heading for a more opportunistic location.

“At the end of the day, the benefit to the city and state are going to outweigh the cost,” Reinsdorf said. “This is not [just] a ballpark. This a development of which the ballpark is the anchor.”

To put his point across, Reinsdorf took the example of Shohei Ohtani's 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“The economics of baseball have completely changed with top ballplayers signing contracts worth as much as $700 million", Reinsdorf said. “At the location we’re at now, we cannot generate the revenue needed to pay those salaries."

The biggest contract awarded by the White Sox to this day was a five-year, $75 million extension handed to outfielder Andrew Benintendi.

Renderings released of the potential new stadium of White Sox in the South Loop

Exclusively coming from WGN's Tahman Bradley, the renderings of the future riverside stadium of the White Sox have been released. Related Midwest offered the first look at the potential new stadium of the White Sox at The 78.

The proposed site is a property in South Loop, bounded by Roosevelt Road to the north, the Chicago River to the west, Clark Street to the east, and train tracks near Ping Tom Park to the south.

The $9 billion "Project Impact" is expected to have five million annual visitors and an impact of around $4 billion on the stabilized economy per year. Spanning over 10 acres, the project will create 32,000 jobs, 1,000 affordable flats, and 1,300 residential units. The stakeholders are, however, still evaluating their financial options to bring this project into reality.