A federal judge ruled Wednesday that a rooftop business across the street from Wrigley Field cannot sell tickets for people to watch Chicago Cubs games.
The Cubs had sued Wrigley View Rooftop in 2024, arguing it was illegally profiting off the Cubs' property without an agreement with the team.
"The undisputed facts show that Defendants profited from ticket sales to watch Cubs games, without contributing financially to the ballgames and without acquiring a right to sell Plaintiff's product," wrote Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. "Unfairly capitalizing on another's labor and expenses offends principles of justice, equity, and good conscience."
In a statement to ESPN, the Cubs said: "We are pleased with Judge Coleman's ruling and appreciate the Court's careful consideration of this matter. The decision protects our intellectual property rights and affirms our longstanding position that businesses cannot commercially profit from Cubs games or use Cubs intellectual property without authorization."
A lawyer for Aidan Dunican, the owner of Wrigley View Rooftop, declined to comment.
Wrigley Field is tucked into a residential neighborhood on Chicago's North Side, where for decades fans have watched games from the tops of buildings beyond its outfield walls.
Wrigley View Rooftop has operated for around 30 years and was the last rooftop to not have entered into an agreement with the Cubs -- or to have been bought by the Ricketts family, which owns the Cubs and Wrigley.
The Ricketts family bought the team in 2009 and has acquired and now operates 11 of the rooftop buildings beyond the left- and right-field bleachers, selling tickets to see home games.
The relationship between the team and rooftop owners has been acrimonious, marked by a series of lawsuits over businesses' right to sell tickets to watch the games and the Cubs' control over both signage inside the stadium and the profits generated by the team.
Wrigley View Rooftop, located beyond Wrigley's left-field foul pole, has argued in court that the Cubs had the right to block the rooftop's view into the stadium but not to dictate how the property was run.
From 2004 to 2024, Wrigley View Rooftop had a revenue-sharing agreement with the Cubs in which the business paid 17% of its revenues to the team. When that agreement expired, and no new agreement was reached, the Cubs filed suit. That same year, the Cubs placed a series of translucent screens behind the third-base grandstand that obstructed the view from the rooftop but did not obscure it completely.
Wrigley View Rooftop can appeal the federal court's decision, come to a new revenue-sharing agreement with the Cubs or cease selling tickets during Cubs games.