News Flash: The Cubs Have A Good Business Plan and a Terrible Baseball Record

A recent article from the Cincinnati Enquirer: Wrigley has Reds green with ivy

This is not going to stand. I will not go quietly into that blogged night.

Wrigley has Reds green with ivy

On a 50-degree Tuesday night with the wind blowing 20 miles an hour, the Chicago Cubs played baseball in front of a full house at Wrigley Field. On a 60-degree Thursday afternoon in the full sunshine two weeks ago, the Cincinnati Reds worked before a crowd of 12,000.

Well, that sucks. It's too bad that Daughtery will not mention that 2.8 million people live in the incorporated areas of Chicago, while 332,000 live in Cincinnati. Even if you divide the Chicago fans evenly between the two teams [and that's a generous split for the Sox], that's 1.4 million per; approximately four times the number of sheer people available to go to the game.

Thursday afternoon, the finale for the Reds in Chicago, the bleachers at Wrigley will fill like a suitcase on a trip overseas. Half the people packing the seats won’t know who wins. Or care.

Paul- get a clue. This is a bad thing. This is the reason that the Cubs have lost for a century: their fan base does not hold them accountable for winning.

The following night in Cincinnati, the Reds will host the Milwaukee Brewers. If 25,000 show up, we’ll throw a parade.

This is not true. Paul is exaggerating.

Cubs ownership might have lucked into mastering the biggest factor in drawing big baseball crowds now.

There is no "might". It happens that the "relatively undeveloped area" around the ballpark when it was built in 1914 is now a relatively developed neighborhood with a fair amount of affluent people around it.

Or they might have drawn up a detailed plan and executed it like an around-the-horn double play.

They didn't. Cub ownership is, to put it frankly, stupid. Ernie Broglio.

Beats me. It doesn’t matter.

Yes, it does. You're about to argue that the Reds need to mimic the Cubs' model. It does matter.

The Reds are at an interesting crossroads. They have an engaged ownership that wants to win. Ownership has hired bright, enthusiastic people to push the product. But winning takes money and money means ticket sales and these days, ticket sales means attracting people who wouldn't know Johnny Cueto from Johnny Appleseed. It's what they do at Wrigley Field.

If this was true, the Cubs and Yankees would win a lot more World Series. But, as we know, winning doesn't take money. Ask those asshole Marlins who flaunt their rings around to the seventeen fans who came to their games.

Where does baseball rank on a trip to Wrigley? In front of a pilgrimage to Murphy's Bleachers, or behind? Ahead of a Ferris Bueller afternoon, or a distant second? The Cubs could finish out of the money every year for a century and still fill The Friendly Confines. In fact, they've done exactly that.

THIS IS A BAD THING. THIS SUGGESTS THAT CUB FANS DON'T CARE ABOUT BASEBALL.

Going to Wrigley is about seeing your Cubbies win, but only tangentially. It's more about the neighborhood, the Old Style, the ivy, the bleachers, Waveland, Sheffield, celebs singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," day games, sunshine, the lake, Harry Caray's ghost, memories of Sammy and The Hawk and Ernie Banks. Let's drink two. At least.

Ugh. This is making me ill. I'm proud to say the Cubs have gotten their shit kicked in every time I've gone to Wrigley and I've enjoyed the schadenfreude thoroughly. Going to Wrigley, for me, is about seeing the myth of Cubs-fans'-fun die a miserable death at the hands of real baseball teams. And I'm not the only one:


This is exactly the atmosphere the Reds have to cultivate to succeed.

Not true. Not true at all. It's simply not true that you have to cultivate a culture of ignorant-but-disposably0-wealthy fans to win games.

Because here is a hard truth in Baseball Town: The game's not enough anymore.

I like the name Baseball town. I'd rather have my city called Baseball Town than Crumbling Stadium With Generally Losing Team That's Fun To Go Watch Town.

It must kill the Reds' marketers to see the Bengals sell out entire seasons when the football team generally stinks and its marketing plan consists of printing schedule cards and opening the gates. In the midst of yet another unsuccessful season, the Bengals last season drew the two largest crowds in the history of Paul Brown Stadium.

The NFL has eight games and a salary-cap. Not a useful comparison at all in this situation. I am getting pissed off. This is a terrible article.

But unless the Reds succeed at making GABP a destination for entertainment first and baseball second, they will lag. This is why vetoing the Broadway Commons site always will be the biggest sports mistake the team and town have ever made. With its proximity to a then-thriving Main Street bar district, Broadway offered a vision of a Wrigleyville South: Come for the party, stay for the game. Return to the party.

Now, Daughtery goes back to the 1996 vote where Hamilton County taxpayers selected a Riverfront site over a slightly-uptown site. He has a point about developing a sustainable neighborhood around a ballpark. That is a good thing. This could have been a reasonable article about creating sustainable development around GABP.
____________________________________________________________________

But no, it was an ode to ignorance. The Cubs have built a culture of losing, Paul. The Reds need to avoid that. At all costs. I'd like to see another World Series title in Cincinnati. I don't want to wait eighty-two more years.