For Cubs, safe at home plate

Chicago Cubs officials have not determined ticket prices for the American Airlines 1914 Club, the new home plate club for Wrigley Field, but marketing executives for a half-dozen other MLB teams say it should be a hit regardless of the price.

The American Airlines 1914 Club is set to open for the 2018 season. Photo by: CHICAGO CUBS

The Cubs are the latest team to convert prime real estate into a home plate club, a staple at multiple MLB parks over the past 25 years that provides the best seats in the house and high-end amenities in exchange for the highest-priced tickets. Last week, the team announced the American Airlines 1914 Club, a 7,200-square-foot lounge named in part for the year Wrigley opened.

It’s set to open for the 2018 season underneath the Wrigley Field stands.

The all-inclusive club package should upgrade the Wrigley experience by providing an indoor lounge and private restrooms, among other perks.

Cubs season-ticket holders now pay up to $350 a game for about 600 seats behind home plate with virtually no amenities other than seat location, said Colin Faulkner, the team’s senior vice president of sales and marketing.

The team is starting to contact those account holders to gauge their interest in the new club, Faulkner said.

Teams say the home plate club remains a key revenue source. Many similar clubs are sold out through a mix of corporate buys and die-hard fans drawn by the proximity to the field. “That part of the business is still very strong for us,” said Antonio Morici, the Dodgers’ vice president of premium sales and service. “It still has some cachet.”

Home plate clubs have become an essential premium amenity in every ballpark since they were first introduced in the mid-1990s, said sports architect Earl Santee, a designer of 20 MLB parks. “In the beginning, these clubs were all one ticket price,” Santee said. “The big trend currently is packaging unique amenities for the first two or three rows, allowing teams to provide more diverse price points … with more exclusivity.”

The Dodgers and Rockies both opened home plate clubs as retrofits over the past 15 years. In Denver, the Coors Clubhouse, a three-year commitment tied to a four-seat minimum purchase, has been sold out since 2001, said Greg Feasel, the Rockies’ executive vice president and chief operating officer.

In Houston, the Diamond Club has been sold out since Minute Maid Park opened in 2000, leading the Astros to build the 175-seat Insperity Club, a smaller premium space formerly used by writing press behind the home plate club that opened six years ago.

“Our only setback is that we have no more space to create more clubs,” said Jason Howard, the Astros’ senior vice president of ticket sales and strategy.