Just what is the Cubs selling?
The team is at a marketing crossroads. For the past several months, executives continually state that they won't tell their fans how to spend their money, but they should continue to come to Cubs games to experience the progress in the grand rebuilding plan for the future. The executives claim that fans who ride out these bad years will get a better sense of happiness or sense of accomplishment when the team eventually turns around.
It is a soft sell approach. But the hard truth is that the 2014 team will not feature any new pieces to the rebuilding puzzle. The first two "core" players, Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo, regressed in 2013. It will be years away when the touted prospects in the low minors will have a chance to make the major league roster.
Long time Chicagoan and sports fan, Hub Arkush, the past publisher of Pro Football Weekly, recently said that he was a Cubs season ticket holder for more than 20 years. But when it came time to renew his Cub season tickets, he made the decision to give them up. He explained that he could not give away his unused tickets last season. He said that the way he views the rebuilding plan, the Cubs will not be competitive for two, three or four more years. Based on that viewpoint, he said it was not worth spending $25,000 for a 2014 season ticket package, let alone $75,000 for the next three years of the same bad team.
You can see his point. A business decision finally outweighed a fan decision. In an economy that still in-flux, $25,000 to $75,000 is a lot of money to spend on a luxury item such as entertainment. That type of savings could pay for a most of a state college education, a down payment on a house or a major cushion for retirement.
So the Cubs are selling The Future. Hope.
But it will be 69 years since the Cubs last played in a World Series. That is really two full generations of fans that have lived under the Hope banner. At a certain point in time, Hope turns into Harsh Reality.
What does a fan expect when he or she buys a ticket? They expect their team to win. In baseball, a small market team with limited resources that fields a replacement level quality squad would be expected to only win 30 percent of their games. An average but competitive team would be expected to win 50 percent of their games. A championship caliber team would be expected to win 60 percent of their games. There is a much closer gap between a championship caliber team and a .500 club than a .500 club and AAAA team. It is the closer gap between 50 and 60 percent expectation that should drive attendance because people will know that it is more than likely their team will win the game.
So what is a baseball team's owner's role? It depends on how the owner views his ownership of the team. In a corporate setting, where executives have to answer to shareholders, the concern is profits. If the owner is a wealthy individual or family, profit may be a concern but at times it is will to win that is controlling baseball decisions. So there are is a spectrum gulf in ownership strategy, from pure profits to having a fan's expectations.
The idea that you want fans to come to your team's games with the "hope" that the team will win is not the same as fielding a team that has the opportunity to win the game. The former has a 20 percent or more chance it will not win the game, which is a significant variation from the average.
So what keeps the Wrigley Field turn styles spinning?
There is a part of the fan base that is so absorbed in the Cub culture that they will come to support their team without any expectations; like patients who love to go to the dentist to get their teeth drilled.
There is a part of the fan base that likes baseball that they will come to see the stars of other teams play at Wrigley Field; like historians mentally documenting their era of their favorite sport.
There is part of the fan base that is there to experience and pass down to the next generation the aura and history of baseball. Tom Ricketts has been adamant that he is not running a museum, but the perception of many fans is that 100 year old Wrigley Field, with its ivy covered brick walls, manual scoreboard, antiquated restroom troughs and city neighborhood setting is a rare moment of the national past time frozen in time. A grandparent cannot take their grandson to Petco Field and point to the field and tell a story that the great Babe Ruth stood their during championship game; but he could at Wrigley Field.
The easiest thing to sell Americans is nostalgia. It is an easy sell because it tugs at the fond memories from someone's past. A weekend game at Wrigley Field used to be a family outing. A tradition. An experience. A father with a young family may want to rekindle what he experienced as boy with his children. He could go to Wrigley Field and find it exactly the same as he remembered it.
There is a societal comfort level in such touchstones. A culture built upon strong institutions will survive longer than those who do not have strong bonds with the people. In a small way, the Cubs and Wrigley Field are a city institution. But there are cracks developing in that foundation.
The Cubs cannot sell nostalgia if ownership dramatically changes Wrigley Field. There are many fans who came to Wrigley and found the RF party deck and LED scoreboard totally out of place. It was not in character with the traditional cathedral of baseball. It ruined the symmetry and sight lines of the outfield walls. The plan to add a jumbrotron and large beer sign in RF bleachers will further erode the iconic vision of Wrigley Field as a time capsule to the past. To most, the new elements will detract from the beauty of old Wrigley Field; it would begin to look like any other cookie cutter stadium design. It is clear that the Ricketts have no plans to preserve Wrigley Field for the purists, traditionalists or the past generations.
Change is a natural cycle in life. But dramatic change creates dramatic results, some of which have unintended consequences. Many fans may become disillusioned or turned off by the commercialism if they are looking for the Ernie Banks statue but find it lost amongst a congested mini-Times Square of electronic advertising signs and beer carts. Many fans may become disillusioned or turned off by the changes inside the ball park: the additional party decks, advertising signage, aggressive non-stop concession stands. The consequence could be that portion of the fan base which likes Wrigley Field for its nostalgia factor will no longer come to the games because the their memories have no further connection to the new Wrigley.
It would seem that new ownership has dismissed the powerful draw of nostalgia as it relates to Wrigley Field when it created its new business plan. A business plan which does not focus solely on the Cubs team, but tries to create a multi-purpose entertainment complex.
