Tag Archives: Cubs

Will fans’ wallets benefit from new MLB TV deal? Selig: We’ve held line on ticket prices

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It is a good day for the owners, but is it a good day for the fans?

Major League Baseball officially signed off on a new TV deal with Fox and Turner Sports Tuesday. Combined with its previous announced pact with ESPN, MLB teams will pull in $12.4 billion over 8 years, beginning in 2014.

The $1.5 annual haul more than doubles the current national TV package. All told each team will have in the neighborhood of an additional $27 million to play with.

So what does mean for Joe Fan? I worry that the Yankees payroll will be $12.4 billion in 2021.

During a conference call Tuesday, I asked MLB Commissioner Bud Selig to assess the impact the extra funds would have on ticket prices, player salaries, and competitive balance.

Selig: That question could be asked every year. These are big increases. The revenue has grown. So have our expenses, and payrolls.

I’ve often said, having run a club myself, that everybody knows their own market. They will know in 2014.

Obviously, they are getting a huge increase, but everybody will then determine exactly not only what they will do with the money, but how it will impact their payroll as well as their ticket prices and everything else. We have 30 franchises with indigenous characteristics. It will vary. But they will make their own decisions, based on all of these facts.

(And a pat on the back for MLB)

This is a great day for baseball. In the past, people said, ‘Baseball isn’t this, or baseball isn’t that.’ We’ve proven in last 10 or 15 years that baseball is everything. The great manifestation is to have your outside partners tell you how valuable it is. I’m sure the clubs are happy today.

*******

Then I followed up by asking specifically about ticket prices. Will the additional TV money help teams hold the line on prices?

Evidently, I hit a hot button with Selig.

Selig: I want to say this to you about that. The last eight years have been the best eight years for baseball. We’re going to draw close to 75 million people this year. My father used to say, ‘nothing is ever good or bad, except by comparison.’ We’ve held the line on ticket prices. Baseball doesn’t get enough credit for that.

We wouldn’t be drawing these stunning numbers of fans if the ballpark experience and the price of tickets wasn’t within reason for families. We’ll continue to do that. That’s not my goal, it’s everybody’s goal. Baseball is family entertainment. Prices have to be sensitive to families. We have been remarkably so in comparison to everyone else.

*****

It wasn’t the proper forum to engage a debate about ticket prices. And Selig is right as it relates to recent years. According to Team Marketing Report, MLB ticket prices were relatively flat in 2012, going up only 1 percent.

However, TMR says the average ticket price has increased 47 percent since 2002, jumping from $18.31 to $26.98. Only the NFL, where they print money, had a higher increase.

I live in Chicago, where the Cubs rank third among teams with a $46.30 average ticket price. That doesn’t include $7 for a beer and $25 for parking, assuming you can find a spot around Wrigley Field. TMR estimates it costs a family of four $300 to attend a Cubs game.

Yes, that is much less than the NFL, NBA and NHL, but baseball also plays far more games.

Bottom line, Mr. Commissioner: It’s still pretty expensive to go to take the family to the ballpark. Here’s hoping teams will use the new TV bounty to help keep prices in line.

 

A Sportswriters Life: Beat writer for Cubs during long road trip to nowhere

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This is the first of an occasional series on the life and times of sportswriters.

My first installment is going to be on my old friend, Paul Sullivan, the Cubs beat writer for the Chicago Tribune.

I talked to Sullivan the other day from the lobby of his hotel in Washington. He was in the middle of what only can be described as the road trip from hell: A 10-game trek to Washington, Pittsburgh and Houston in September.

“I’ve been dreading this trip all season,” Sullivan said.

I know exactly how Sullivan feels. I covered a series of bad White Sox teams in the late 80s for the Tribune. There’s nothing worse than being on a long road trip in September to cover meaningless games for a team going nowhere.

Unfortunately for Sullivan, he has experienced this drill before. He’s been on the baseball beat for 19 years, most of them with the Cubs. The last time they were somewhat relevant was in 2009, following back-to-back division titles in 2007-08.

However, despite three straight beyond-bleak years, and the prospect for several more with a rebuilding team, Sullivan said his enthusiasm for the beat hasn’t dimmed. “I love writing, and I love baseball,” he said.

And he wants to remain on the Cubs beat, if for no other reason than out of fear of leaving.

“I know the minute I come off they are going to start winning like crazy,” he said.

Here’s my Q/A with Sullivan on what it is like to cover a bad team in September:

So what is like at this point in the season? It has to feel like a death march.

I can’t lie. I’m looking forward to October. I’m seeing some bad baseball. It’s not pleasant to write negative things about people you like and respect. There are no players on the team I don’t like.

You look around for players to talk to after the game. After going to the rookie pitcher, who else are you going to talk to? When the team is winning, it’s easy to go from one guy to the next.

It makes you appreciate the veterans like Carlos Pena and Mark Grace, who were the go-to guys. This team is so young, they don’t have any real go-to guys.

Your stories now are often features with a smattering of game detail. When was the last time you wrote a true game story?

Probably the end of April. You have to find different stories, but I never have a hard time doing it.

The hardest part is that (manager Dale Sveum) isn’t the most quote-worthy managers. I spent eight years with Dusty Baker and Lou Piniella. That was like the golden age. I like Sveum, but he isn’t the most quote-worthy guy.

What is it like to cover the new front office regime of Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer?

It’s different. I had good relationships with Jim Hendry and Kenny Williams and Ron Schueler (from when he covered the Sox).

These guys are insulated. You don’t know if you’re going to hear back every time you reach out to them. A lot of time, they do it by Email.

They’re never around. They’re never in the clubhouse or hanging around the batting cage. They don’t want to chat with the writers.

I don’t know (Epstein) enough to like him. I don’t dislike him, and I agree with his game plan. But I have no relationship with him.

19 years is a long time on the beat. Do the long seasons, especially losing seasons, ever get you thinking about doing something else?

The travel is tough. I’m going to be gone for 12 days on this trip, and I’m already running out of clothes.

But it’s still baseball and it’s still writing. I love baseball and I love writing. I still enjoy what I do.

 

 

 

 

 

White Sox lead Cubs in TV ratings in Chicago; Cubs’ rating was 163 % higher in 2008

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Interestings news in Chicago.

Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times notes the White Sox, still struggling to draw at home, have topped the Cubs in one key category: Local TV ratings.

Telander writes:

And there has been this thought, floated about among reasonable people, that Sox fans don’t go to the ballpark  because they’re economically strapped and prefer to watch the games on TV.

And you know what? That could be true.

‘‘The Sox have had a 2.0 rating recently on CSN,’’ said Jeff Nuich, senior director of communications for Comcast SportsNet Chicago.

‘‘That’s up over 10 percent from last year.’’

That 2.0 equals about 70,000 households, with, obviously, more than one viewer per household.  Unless every household is like the one from ‘‘Psycho.’’ Two-point-oh is a decent, if not great, number.  But here’s the kicker — it’s higher than the Cubs.

‘‘The Cubs are at a 1.9 rating,’’ Nuich said. ‘‘That’s down about 11 percent from last year.’’

WGN, which also broadcasts Cubs and Sox games, has similar stats. Its recent Sox ratings were 3.6, up 33 percent from earlier August ratings. Cubs broadcast ratings also have been up from earlier this summer (Who knows why? Sadism?), but they are no better than Comcast’s. They are an identical 1.9.

That’s a huge development in Chicago, where the Cubs always have ruled on the TV side too. But then again, who can watch the Cubs these days? It got me to wondering how far have their ratings fell since 2008?

The Cubs were at their peak, winning 97 games en route to a second straight NL Central title. Everyone, and I mean everyone, was on the bandwagon.

The local TV ratings show how many people have dropped off. Back in 2008, the Cubs pulled a 5.0 rating on Comcast Sports Net. For those keeping score at home, the 2012 rating of 1.9 represents a mammoth 62 % decline.

I don’t have the WGN overall numbers, but it has to be similar. In 2008 and 2009, the Cubs were pulling double-digit ratings for some of their games on WGN. 10s, 11s, 12s. Now they can’t average a 2.

Ah yes, Cubs fans had such high hopes as they entered the opening of the 2008 playoffs against the Dodgers. Then they got swept, and it’s all been downhill from there at Wrigley Field.

 

 

Forget about records: Horrible Cubs-disappointing Red Sox game still gets Buck-McCarver treatment from Fox

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I asked Tim McCarver a simple question:

When was the last time he and Joe Buck worked a game in mid-June featuring two last-place teams and with one of those teams having the worst record in baseball?

McCarver replied: “I don’t know. I can’t think of one.”

Fox Sports’ No. 1 crew will be on hand for tonight’s game, which will go out to 39 percent of the country. The telecast will be about the uniqueness of the two historic franchises playing a game and the ivy of Wrigley Field.

Forget about the records. Please, especially in Chicago where the Cubs are epic bad.

“There’s something about these two teams playing in Wrigley Field,” McCarver said.

Clearly, it isn’t the best match-up Saturday. The top game is the Yankees at Washington. So why not primetime for that game?

According to Fox, there are limitations on appearances for the Yankees, and the schedule for the primetime games had to be locked up prior to the season. Thus, Cubs-Red Sox.

Get ready to hear plenty of stories of Boston pitcher Babe Ruth beating the Cubs in the 1918 World Series.