It is March, which means as a baseball fan, it is time for spring training and getting ready for the upcoming season. As a Chicago Cubs fan, it also means optimism and thoughts of a World Series because one game has yet to be played, which means we’re still in the hunt!
This year the Cubs are under new ownership. They are no longer owned by the Tribune Company and are now owned by the Ricketts family. And to commemorate that, they have started a marketing campaign across the City called “Year 1”.
The idea of the campaign is to let us fans know that the new ownership is focused on winning and bringing the World Series (and championship) to Wrigley Field. That, from this point forward, it is a new era.
Well, as a Cubs fan, and a marketing person, I think that it is all well and good. It is a catchy campaign. But this is the CUBS we are talking about. The lovable losers. It has been over 100 years since they have won a championship. New marketing campaigns aren’t going to win us any games.
The Cubs don’t really need to woo fans. We have Wrigley Field. The games sell out every day in the summer, regardless of how the team is doing. People go for the atmosphere. Our season ticket waiting list is like 40,000 people deep. I know. I’m like number 28,837 on the list, and I signed up over three years ago. They have continually raised ticket prices every year and yet, it doesn’t matter. They are never hurting for revenue. We are a sports town with a drinking problem!
My question is, though, what happens next year? Or what happens in Year 17? Are we going to keep this up until we win a championship? How silly are you going to look when you don’t win the World Series this year? And what about the last 100-plus years the team has been in existence? Those years, which included some great teams and Hall of Famers, mean nothing? Isn’t that a knock to the storied history of this franchise? Aren’t you basically saying that everything that happened before this year is crap?
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Let me know when you get those season tickets, as I will accompany you to as many games as possible.
I’m with you – it’s a cute campaign – but a risky one to launch considering NOBODY KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT.
what a gay slogan. i wonder if they will start the count over every year from here on out. i guess i can’t blame them too much though. if i sucked that hard for that long, i’d probably want to forget as well.
Cheer up Chicago! Year 1 could be our year!