Chicago ticket resale companies are reporting “a historic decline in demand” for Cubs tickets that not even this weekend’s series against the Yankees or next week’s interleague games against the White Sox “are helping to rebuild,” according to Eric Peterson of the Illinois DAILY HERALD. Chicago-based Gold Coast Tickets Owner Max Waisvisz said, “People are just not interested like they were. It’s too-high ticket pricing and fans not getting value for their money. We thought it was invincible. We were wrong.” Waisvisz added that demand “has grown greater for the limited number of rooftop seats than within the friendly confines themselves.” However, he said that "baseball demand is down overall.” By comparison, StubHub Corporate Communications Manager Joellen Ferrer said that the Cubs “continue to be one of StubHub’s top-selling teams, and both the upcoming Yankees series and the early July series against the White Sox are the club’s top-selling home series of the year” (Illinois DAILY HERALD, 6/17).
OWNING THE BLAME: In Chicago, Steve Rosenbloom wrote following Cubs Owner Tom Ricketts' comments Wednesday about his team that is “competing to own the worst record in baseball and about the people who made all of that ignominy possible, we’re back to wondering whether the Cubs’ Fanboy Owner is lying or just stupid." Rosenbloom added, "Or playing fans for stupid. ... Maybe Ricketts was the type of fan who got suckered, so he figured he could sucker the rest of them that way, too. That’s one way to explain it when the Fanboy Owner says he has ‘100 percent confidence’ in the general manager who put together this mess” (CHICAGOTRIBUNE.com, 6/16). The Illinois DAILY HERALD’s Barry Rozner writes, “Cubs fans have been through generations of bad ownership, and the hope was that this would be different. Eventually, maybe it will be. But for the time being you’re reduced to watching a minor-league team” (Illinois DAILY HERALD, 6/17).
CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH? In Chicago, Jared Hopkins reports most of the privately owned Wrigley Field rooftop establishments “have escaped the eye of the city’s health department, which hasn’t performed the required annual inspections to ensure food is prepared, cooked and served safely.” Records show that 10 of the 16 rooftops "haven’t been inspected” since ’08. Five others “have failed at least one inspection in recent years and haven’t been inspected” on the required schedule. Hopkins notes “rarely were any inspections done during the baseball season, when the rooftops are operating.” City health officials “acknowledged they should be inspecting the rooftops at least once a year but say they have fallen behind” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 6/17).
