Scorecasting (39 page)

The stark differences between the Cubs and the White Sox in terms of fan attendance can be seen clearly even over the last decade. The tables on
this page
list the wins and losses, rank in
division, and total attendance of the two Chicago teams from 1998 to 2009, including total seating capacity per season to account for stadium modifications.

Over the last 11 years, the rate of attendance at Wrigley Field
wavered between 82 percent and 99 percent of capacity, whereas the White Sox had as little as 37 percent of their capacity filled in 1999 and as much as 90 percent of capacity filled in 2006—the year after they won the World Series, when attendance is always goosed. The same season, the Cubs would finish in last place, yet they posted a 94 percent attendance rate. The last-place Cubs entertained 165,801 more fans than the World Champion White Sox hosted that season! (And that doesn’t include the thousands of rooftop seats enterprising landlords across the street from Wrigley rent out.) In fact, the Cubs have posted higher than 94 percent attendance rates in every season since 2002 despite not having even been to a World Series.

To see the general relation between winning and attendance, the last two columns of the table report the year-to-year percentage change in wins and the change in attendance relative to capacity. If attendance rises with winning—in other words, if fans create the right incentives—these numbers should move together. In 1999, the Cubs lost 14 percent more games than the previous year, yet attendance went
up
7 percent. In 2001, the Cubs won 14 percent more games, yet attendance hardly budged. They lost 13 percent more games in 2002, yet attendance went
up
by 1 percent.

The precise opposite can be said of their South Side counterparts. White Sox attendance is, first of all, a lot lower than that of the Cubs in general. Only the year after winning the World Series did the White Sox hit the 90 percent attendance mark, and that faded to 69 percent within three years. Unlike the Cubs, year-to-year performance on the field directly translates into attendance for the Sox. In 2000, the White Sox won 12 percent more games and were rewarded with 17 percent more paying fans. In 2007, they lost 11 percent more games and were punished with 8 percent lower attendance. In almost every year, the change in attendance moves in the same direction as the team’s performance. The Cubs’ winning percentage can swing from year to year like Harry Caray’s inning-to-inning blood-alcohol level used to. Attendance rates at Wrigley, however, are as steady as a surgeon’s hands.

If you want an extreme stress test of the Cubs’ attendance
“stickiness,” you can examine what happened in 1994 and 1995 during and after the MLB strike. In 1994, the Cubs posted an 81 percent attendance rate, and the White Sox a respectable 72 percent rate. In 1995, the year after the strike, when baseball interest was at an all-time low, the Cubs still posted a 69 percent attendance rate, whereas the White Sox dropped to under 50 percent. That’s more than a 30 percent drop in attendance for the White Sox and only a 15 percent drop for the Cubs. In New York, the Yankees had an unheard-of 41 percent attendance rate that same year. Within three years, both the Cubs and the Yankees were back to their normal attendance levels: the Yankees because of their performance—they won the World Series in 1996, made the postseason in 1997, and won the World Series again in 1998—and the Cubs … well, because they are the Cubs.

Yes, you say, but aren’t there other factors? What about the fact that the Cubs play in a picturesque, idyllic old ballpark—all steel and brick and ivy-shrouded walls—whereas the White Sox’s home has all the charm of its name, U.S. Cellular Field? Or that the Cubs reside in the gentrified North Side of Chicago, whereas the White Sox play in a dodgy South Side neighborhood? This might be a partial explanation, but even so it would still distort incentives. Consider other teams that play in venerable downtown parks. Boston has much higher attendance sensitivity to performance than do the Cubs (0.9). So do teams such as the San Francisco Giants and the
Baltimore Orioles, which play in swank downtown venues (both have attendance-to-performance sensitivities of 1.15).

How else can we measure hidden incentives? Well, the Cubs, despite their futility, are still the fifth most valuable team in MLB according to
Forbes
, behind only the two New York teams, Boston, and the Los Angeles Dodgers. In 2007, before the global recession, the franchise was valued at $1 billion. In the summer of 2009, the Tribune Company sold 95 percent of the Cubs as well as Wrigley Field and a stake in a television network to the
Ricketts family for roughly $900 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a sports property. The deal was consummated days after the Cubs
finished another uninspiring season, 83–78. Though these are all big-market teams, the White Sox, who play in the same big market as the Cubs, rank only fourteenth in value and are estimated to be worth roughly $250 million less than the Cubs.

In fact, the Cubs are the only team among the top ten most valuable franchises that do not have a recent championship. The Angels, Braves, Giants, Cardinals, and Phillies round out the top ten. Thanks largely to the fidelity of their fans—which also generates a lucrative television contract with WGN—the Cubs enjoy one of the highest market valuations in MLB without having to earn it on the field.

So, at least financially, the Cubs seem to have far less incentive to perform than do other teams—less than the Yankees and Red Sox do and certainly less than the White Sox. This doesn’t mean the Cubs don’t
want
to win, but it does mean that the Cubs have less of a financial incentive to win.

Winning or losing is often the result of a few small things that require extra effort to gain a competitive edge: going the extra step to sign the highly sought-after free agent, investing in a strong farm team with diligent scouting, monitoring talent, poring over statistics, even making players more comfortable. All can make a difference at the margin, and all are costly. When the benefits of making these investments are marginal at best, why undertake them? Would you work 10 percent harder at work if you got a 10 percent raise? Maybe. Would you work 10 percent harder for a 5 percent raise? Less likely. Professional sports are not immune to the power of incentives, either.

Although the players aren’t armed with graphs, balance sheets, or statistics, they can sense this lack of urgency. It might mean taking an extra week of paid leave on the disabled list or arriving late to batting practice. It might mean missing a game, as Cubs outfielder
José Cardenal once did, with the alibi “my eyelid [was] stuck open.” It might mean antagonizing teammates in the clubhouse with earsplitting salsa music and then, made aware of their complaints, responding, “F— my teammates,” as Sammy Sosa once did.

Joe Girardi was born in Peoria, rooted for the Cubs as a kid, and played seven seasons at Wrigley Field. He was devastated to leave the team. But then he played for the Yankees and won three World Series rings. Today he is the Yankees’ manager. Girardi was once asked by
Harper’s
magazine why the Cubs were so futile. He was quick to note that the Yankees’ payroll was monstrous—and that didn’t include “all the money spent on the minor leagues and free agents, signing kids from the Dominican, from Puerto Rico.” That’s it? “But it’s more than that. In New York, you go into spring training expecting to get to the World Series. You feel it when you walk in the clubhouse—the pictures of all those Yankee greats, the monuments. There is something special about putting on the pinstripes. In Chicago, they hope for a good season, maybe the playoffs.”

How deeply ingrained is this in the Cubs’ culture? When
P. K. Wrigley inherited the team from his father, the chewing gum tycoon William Wrigley, in 1932, he decided not to waste resources on baseball. According to
Harper’s
, he decided that fans needed a reason, apart from the game, to venture to the ballpark. “The fun … the sunshine, the relaxation. Our idea is to get the public to go see a ball game, win or lose.” To that end, he ordered one of his young employees,
Bill Veeck, to plant ivy on the walls. Is it any wonder that more than 75 years later the team would still market the Wrigley experience, win or lose?

When they bought the team in 2009, the Ricketts family made capital improvements. One of the first moves of the new regime was to purge the clubhouse of ice cream, soda, and candy. They installed a stainless steel kitchen and hired a nutritional consultant. This was at the behest of Todd Ricketts, a fitness enthusiast who rightfully wondered whether a healthier, more energized team didn’t stand a better chance of winning. The Cubs upgraded their scouting infrastructure, especially in Latin America, and entered the 2010 season with the highest payroll in the National League. As Tom Ricketts put it to us: “You obviously do it wisely, but you can’t be afraid to spend when you think it will come back to benefit you on the field.” He’s right, of course. But the fact that
this philosophy is such a marked departure from that of earlier ownerships goes a long way toward explaining the previous century of futility.

Some go so far as to argue that the Cubs may have had a perverse incentive to maintain their image as a “lovable loser,” that the awfulness and the perpetual Charlie Brown status are part of the appeal of the franchise. Anger gave way to resignation years (decades?) ago. Fans sharing common failure become even bigger fans. Bonds fortify over “wait till next year.” There is equity in futility.

Holly Swyers, an anthropology professor now at Lake Forest College in suburban Chicago, studied an indigenous tribe of Cubs fans that calls itself “the Regulars” (never, pointedly, the more common Bleacher Bums). The Regulars form a bona fide community, demonstrating a lot of the essential traits of a close-knit neighborhood, a church congregation, or even a family. The Regulars—a few hundred adults of mixed age, gender, and ethnicity, ranging from millionaire CEOs to retirees on fixed incomes—commune, rejoice and mourn together, and even marry among themselves. (Even Tom Ricketts met his future wife in the Wrigley bleachers.) Swyers noticed something else. The Regulars, who otherwise had little in common, also bonded over the team’s misfortunes. They all are members of the same congregation, sharing pews in the Church of the Miserable. If the team were somehow to win a World Series, yes, the Regulars would be in nirvana. But the success would change the nature of the community.

Going back to financial incentives, it turns out that from 1990 to 2009 every team in MLB gained value the more it won—except one. The Cubs’ franchise value actually rose slightly the more it lost! Why? Because fans kept coming despite the Cubs’ ritual poor play. Gate revenue from ticket sales actually went up slightly when the Cubs lost a little more than usual, and TV revenue didn’t change at all despite significant differences in winning percentages from season to season.

So if winning isn’t what makes the Cubs valuable, what is it that keeps fans coming? If you’ve been to Wrigley Field in the last few decades, it’s likely that you know part of the answer. Having spent a not insignificant part of his spring semesters at Purdue University going to games with his fraternity, one author of this book recalls vividly the drunkenness, the cute coeds, and the fun of evading authorities of all kinds. But there is no memory of games won or lost, of cheering, or of scorekeeping. Inquiries of “What’s the score?” or “How many outs?” were abruptly met with showers of beer and slurred chants or drinking songs. As the popular T-shirt reads, “Cubs baseball: Shut up and drink your beer.” A game at Wrigley is a party, maybe the best party in baseball (and don’t forget that beer and concession sales generate revenue as well).