Tag Archives: Cubs

Does winning matter in Major League Baseball?

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Recently Forbes updated its ranking of the most valuable Major League Baseball teams from a financial standpoint.  The top 5 teams — the New York Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Chicago Cubs — had zero World Series appearances in 2008.  But we should not be surprised.  Relying on a successful product on the field to obtain financial success is a risky strategy.  Superstar players win batting championships by getting on base only a third of their at-bats.  The The New York Yankees, arguably the most successful team in baseball history, haven’t won a World Series since 2000.  The Atlanta Braves defined the standard for excellence in the National League in the 1990s yet struggled with fan indifference.

No, success in Major League Baseball is all about locking in lucrative media deals and providing an experience (not necessarily a great product) for fans and corporate sponsors at the stadium.  Going to a ball game really isn’t much different than going to a rock concert anymore with exploding scoreboards, slick merchandise, and an element of theater keeping fans entertained.

As we all know, the baseball world has been rocked by allegations of abuse of performance enhancing substances by its marquee players, which calls into question the validity of their successes and their teams’ successes.  In other words, fans are probably not getting an authentic product on the field, anyway.  But really, do the fans care?  Banning beer sales from Wrigley Field or removing the swimming pool from Chase Field would be far more damaging to the future of the Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks than substance abuse scandals.

Baseball, as it turns out, is just one more option in a world awash with video games, personal devices, a proliferation of TV channels, and many other forms of consumer experience.  Competing to win is one thing; competing to survive financially is a different beast altogether.

This is why we read digital media

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In a recent blog post, I shared the story of a bright and talented 20-something job candidate who confessed to me that she’d never purchased a print edition of any newspaper in her life because she’s so comfortable consuming all her media digitally. Invariably this story evokes frowns and head shaking from anyone north of 40 years old when I tell it. But after reading my July 24 Chicago Tribune sports section, I see her point. I wanted to find out the results of a crucial Chicago Cubs-Arizona Diamondbacks game played in Arizona the evening of July 23. The Cubs, clinging to a shrinking first-place lead in the National League Central, had been faltering of late and needed to do well. So the team’s performance against the Diamondbacks was no small matter. But you’d never know it from reading the print edition of the Tribune (Near West edition) which carried no results of the game because the print edition went to press before the game ended. (The Near West print Tribune also failed to report the final score of the 2008 Major League All-Star game.) Of course I found what I needed from the digital world. But the problem is that when I access the internet, the Chicago Tribune is competing with MLB.com, ESPN.com, and a host of other destinations. The Tribune loses that one-to-one relationship it has with me when I dive into the print edition on the commuter train. Yes, I got what I wanted from digital this morning. But did the Tribune?

This is why we read digital media

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In a recent blog post, I shared the story of a bright and talented 20-something job candidate who confessed to me that she’d never purchased a print edition of any newspaper in her life because she’s so comfortable consuming all her media digitally. Invariably this story evokes frowns and head shaking from anyone north of 40 years old when I tell it. But after reading my July 24 Chicago Tribune sports section, I see her point. I wanted to find out the results of a crucial Chicago Cubs-Arizona Diamondbacks game played in Arizona the evening of July 23. The Cubs, clinging to a shrinking first-place lead in the National League Central, had been faltering of late and needed to do well. So the team’s performance against the Diamondbacks was no small matter. But you’d never know it from reading the print edition of the Tribune (Near West edition) which carried no results of the game because the print edition went to press before the game ended. (The Near West print Tribune also failed to report the final score of the 2008 Major League All-Star game.) Of course I found what I needed from the digital world. But the problem is that when I access the internet, the Chicago Tribune is competing with MLB.com, ESPN.com, and a host of other destinations. The Tribune loses that one-to-one relationship it has with me when I dive into the print edition on the commuter train. Yes, I got what I wanted from digital this morning. But did the Tribune?