As the Chicago Cubs made their historic march toward their first World Series title since 1908, the city’s mayor,
Rahm Emanuel, was never far away.
Emanuel was a regular fixture, appearing at a local park named for former Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood in support of MLB’s Play Ball youth engagement initiative, on the field at Wrigley Field for Game 4 on Oct. 29, and even traveling to Cleveland for the dramatic Game 7.
Emanuel’s public appearances with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred and Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, and the broader embrace of the club, marked another series of steps in the evolution of his once-rocky relationship with the Cubs.
Emanuel famously opposed the Cubs’ original bid for $200 million in public funding for Wrigley Field renovations. Tensions between the two camps further grew when Ricketts’ father, Joe, actively supported Mitt Romney’s 2012 bid to unseat President Barack Obama, for whom Emanuel served as chief of staff during 2009-10.
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Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel celebrates the Cubs’ Game 7 victory with a hug.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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The Cubs ultimately agreed to fund the ballpark and adjacent renovation work privately, and as the team has steadily improved in recent years, so has the club’s relationship with Emanuel.
More recently, the sides have disagreed on rules regarding beer and wine sales in an open-air plaza being developed adjacent to Wrigley Field. But in the glow of the Cubs’ championship run, such difficult memories have faded, at least temporarily.
“This has been a great experience for the city,” Emanuel said. “The team plays with a pure love and joy of the game, with a lot of youthful energy, and it’s been a really great thing for all of us. … We’ve worked together with the Cubs and continue to work together. They’re renovating Wrigley Field, and have invested in the city.”
Ricketts, who at one point raised the possibility of moving the club to the suburbs, agreed, and has acknowledged his own steep learning curve navigating the nuances of Chicago politics.
“We’ve had the pleasure of partnering with the mayor on a lot of projects,” Ricketts said. “He understands the importance of the Cubs and Wrigley to the city, and it’s been a great relationship.”
Of course, also helping smooth over any political issues were the outsized displays of Cubs fandom, as teams jerseys and hats were worn everywhere around the city, and tens of thousands of fans gathered each game night in the Wrigleyville neighborhood, even while Game 7 played out in Cleveland.
“It’s absolutely unique,” Ricketts said. “I don’t think there’s ever been a fan base and a city that has given as much love to one team as the Cubs are getting right now.”
■ ADDED RELIEF: This year marked “the postseason of the reliever,” Manfred said during the presentation of the league’s Reliever of the Year Awards, referencing how bullpen stars such as Cleveland’s Andrew Miller and the Cubs’ Aroldis Chapman played an outsized role in defining the sport’s October and early November. The awards’ presenting sponsor since last year, insurance carrier The Hartford, is enjoying the fruits of that enhanced reliever role.
“This last month has been a big statement on the importance of the bullpen, and it’s only added to our relationship,” said Doug Elliot, president of The Hartford. “We like where the game is headed, its everyday nature, its impressive digital agenda, and we’re leaning into this.”
The MLB deal, running through the 2017 season with a renewal option, represents the first major pro sponsorship for The Hartford after relationships at the college and Olympic levels. The company has supplemented its MLB deal with 10 team-level agreements, focused primarily on Midwest markets such as St. Louis, Kansas City and Minneapolis.
■ UNLIMITED BASEBALL: Wireless carrier T-Mobile extended its run as one of the league’s most active corporate sponsors, using Game 4 to announce a giveaway of tickets to every game of the 2017 World Series. The promotion served as a capstone to its “Unlimited Baseball” campaign that ties into its new T-Mobile One unlimited data plans.
“This started as a great relationship with baseball and has only grown since then,” said T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere. “The exclusive nature of the deal, getting high levels of access into the ballparks, these things have been really important to us. It’s been a great partnership, and one I can see only getting deeper and heavier next year. Unlimited Baseball is a very big deal to us, and we’ve seen this year how consumption of baseball is one of the biggest things on our network.”
