USA Today: White Sox Will Retain Robin Ventura, If He Wants to Return

[Reddy]

You aren't new here. This argument has been going in circles for the past year +. Everybody is bored with it, except Thad Bosley who isn't happy unless he has something to complain about.

It's just stupid to compare attendance between the Cubs and Sox at ALL. They're just completely different entities in almost every way. It's like comparing New York and Chicago pizza. It's literally pointless because they're two different foods. They just happen to have the same name.

[Dick Allen]

It's absolutely a strong showing given the park's capacity. Get a grip.

No it's not. It isn't league average. Besides, if there was demand for more tickets to be sold in worse seats, they would have filled the seats that were available. Another laughable comment that makes no sense.if they can't sell the seats available, they aren't going to sell more if more are available

 

They also had an extra home game last year. That one did sell out.

Edited October 2, 2016 by Dick Allen

[captain54]

You aren't new here. This argument has been going in circles for the past year +. Everybody is bored with it

 

Valid point. Even though everyone is bored with it, there are those that still continue to take any opportunity to take a jab at Sox fans, and try to compare Cubs = Superior fans. Vs Sox = Inferior fans. Which then, adds a spark to tired debate

 

You follow?

[captain54]

It's just stupid to compare attendance between the Cubs and Sox at ALL. They're just completely different entities in almost every way. It's like comparing New York and Chicago pizza. It's literally pointless because they're two different foods. They just happen to have the same name.

 

 

This. ^^^^^

 

Thank you

 

It's almost as divergent as LA Dodger fans vs NY Yankee fans. Two completely different environments, fan bases, experiences.

 

So to hold up Sox vs Cubs attendance #'s as a true mark of fandom loyalty..complete and total BS

 

[Dick Allen]

Valid point. Even though everyone is bored with it, there are those that still continue to take any opportunity to take a jab at Sox fans, and try to compare Cubs = Superior fans. Vs Sox = Inferior fans. Which then, adds a spark to tired debate

 

You follow?

As far as supporting their team, they are superior. All oher aspects, definitely not.

[southsider2k5]

Well, in 2008, the last time the Sox went to the postseason and one of only five times in the past 56 years they've done so, they drew 2.5 million plus fans to the park. Last I looked, that was considered a very strong attendance showing.

 

Now why you keep bringing up 2012, I'll never know. They didn't win anything that year. They did not go to the postseason, so it doesn't even matter. Throw it on the scrap heap with the other 50 years of non-postseason appearances of the past 56 years and forget about it already.

 

2008 was lower than 2007, when they lost 90 games.

[southsider2k5]

This. ^^^^^

 

Thank you

 

It's almost as divergent as LA Dodger fans vs NY Yankee fans. Two completely different environments, fan bases, experiences.

 

So to hold up Sox vs Cubs attendance #'s as a true mark of fandom loyalty..complete and total BS

 

Yet you have people trying to sell the White Sox as a large market team in the exact same thread.

[Reddy]

Yet you have people trying to sell the White Sox as a large market team in the exact same thread.

 

..... We are a large market team. That doesn't mean the Sox and Cubs aren't still two completely different entities. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

[southsider2k5]

..... We are a large market team. That doesn't mean the Sox and Cubs aren't still two completely different entities. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive.

 

We exist in a large market, but are not a large market team. Even at our best, we ranked in the bottom part of the league in attendance.

[caulfield12]

2008 was lower than 2007, when they lost 90 games.

 

It's called the World Series Effect. It lasts for at a minimum of five, and even up to seven years, for some franchises.

 

You can clearly see the same thing happening with the Sox, with 2007, 2009 and especially 2011 killing the season tickey buyers.

 

In 2006, you could at least argue you had a 90 win team with perhaps even more talent on paper than 2005. Coming into 2008, the bloom was already off that rose, no dynasty in the offing.

 

Attendance never shows up until the following season, see 2006 compared to 2905, when they were ahead for the whole season.

[TitoMB345]

It's called the World Series Effect. It lasts for at a minimum of five, and even up to seven years, for some franchises.

 

You can clearly see the same thing happening with the Sox, with 2007, 2009 and especially 2011 killing the season tickey buyers.

 

In 2006, you could at least argue you had a 90 win team with perhaps even more talent on paper than 2005. Coming into 2008, the bloom was already off that rose, no dynasty in the offing.

 

Attendance never shows up until the following season, see 2006 compared to 2905, when they were ahead for the whole season.

Damn we going deep on this comparison! See you guys in 900 years!

Edited October 3, 2016 by TitoMB

[caulfield12]

We exist in a large market, but are not a large market team. Even at our best, we ranked in the bottom part of the league in attendance.

 

Halfway true.

 

If we had the same or lower tv rights deals of all those bottom 10 teams, that argument would be easier to make...we have a larger POTENTIAL market than the majority of teams, but have surrendered a lot of it to the Cubs over the last 30 years or so.

 

Or you can simply argue Sox fans have gone inactive due to apathy, and the full Cubs' bandwagon has been reactivated with championship caliber teams and the potential for it to continue for at least 4-5 more years.

 

Bad timing with both bad teams with limited offense and no ability to draw on mushrooming media rights deals that have elevated teams like the Rangers and Mariners into the upper tier revenues-wise.

Edited October 3, 2016 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

Damn we going deep on this comparison! See you guys in 900 years!

 

JR will still be "penny pinching" that year, as the Scorpion team will have cryogenically frozen his body and downloaded his brain onto a Quantum computer so that he can keep annoying Thad Bosley and continue as owner for centuries until the last mutant strain of Sox fanaticism has been put out.

[southsider2k5]

Halfway true.

 

If we had the same or lower tv rights deals of all those bottom 10 teams, that argument would be easier to make...we have a larger POTENTIAL market than the majority of teams, but have surrendered a lot of it to the Cubs over the last 30 years or so.

 

Or you can simply argue Sox fans have gone inactive due to apathy, and the full Cubs' bandwagon has been reactivated with championship caliber teams and the potential for it to continue for at least 4-5 more years.

 

Bad timing with both bad teams with limited offense and no ability to draw on mushrooming media rights deals that have elevated teams like the Rangers and Mariners into the upper tier revenues-wise.

 

When the White Sox were at their apex, and the Cubs sucked, they couldn't out draw them. The Sox don't have that fan base. Period.

[Chicago White Sox]

Why the f*** are we debating Cubs fans vs. Sox fans in a Robin Ventura thread?

[South Side Fireworks Man]

As far as supporting their team, they are superior. All oher aspects, definitely not.

Bulls***. There are many more Cubs fans due to the way the Cubs marketed their team as opposed to the way Einhorn and Reinsdorf marketed the Sox over the past few decades. But Sox fans are just as loyal and support their team as well as any other fans. It's just that there's not as many of us.

 

One example, how many out of town visitors to Chicago make a point of attending a Sox game as opposed to visiting Wrigley Field?

 

If JR and Co. want to increase attendence perhaps they should try to create more White Sox fans.

[Lip Man 1]

Bulls***. There are many more Cubs fans due to the way the Cubs marketed their team as opposed to the way Einhorn and Reinsdorf marketed the Sox over the past few decades. But Sox fans are just as loyal and support their team as well as any other fans. It's just that there's not as many of us.

 

One example, how many out of town visitors to Chicago make a point of attending a Sox game as opposed to visiting Wrigley Field?

 

If JR and Co. want to increase attendence perhaps they should try to create more White Sox fans.

 

Well making the playoffs more than once every seven or eight years (if we are lucky) would go a long way towards developing that aspect.

 

Mark

[Reddy]

When the White Sox were at their apex, and the Cubs sucked, they couldn't out draw them. The Sox don't have that fan base. Period.

And that has nothing to do with LOYALTY!

 

That has to do with the location of the park, the history of the park, the trendiness of the team, the fact that it's a bar-type college bro atmosphere. The reason they draw has NOTHING TO DO WITH BASEBALL

 

Come on man. This is obvious.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Reddy

[Thad Bosley]

When the White Sox were at their apex, and the Cubs sucked, they couldn't out draw them. The Sox don't have that fan base. Period.

Are you surprised at this? Only 5 trips to the postseason over the last 56 years. What more do you expect?

[captain54]

And that has nothing to do with LOYALTY!

 

That has to do with the location of the park, the history of the park, the trendiness of the team, the fact that it's a bar-type college bro atmosphere. The reason they draw has NOTHING TO DO WITH BASEBALL

 

Come on man. This is obvious.

 

Of course it's obvious.. Old Man Wrigley figured it out 80 yrs ago. How to put those butts in the seats even though the team sucked. So anyone that thinks those all or most of those 41.268 that are sitting there in that nice old vintage ballpark are doing so out of their sheer love and loyalty to their team, just flat out doesn't know what the hell they are talking about

 

From The Atlantic. July/August 2016

In the mid-1930s, the Cubs’ owner, chewing-gum magnate Philip K. Wrigley, was poring over yearly figures when he noticed a correlation he didn’t like: When the Cubs won fewer games, fewer people came to games. When a team executive mentioned that the public had been conditioned to expect a winner, Wrigley averred that this could be changed. “See those people going by,” he said from his office overlooking Michigan Avenue. “They are all consumers of chewing gum.” They could be made into consumers of baseball, too, with the right advertising campaign.

 

Wrigley’s gum company spent as much as 25 percent of its revenues on advertising—“a rate,” Fortune marveled, “matched not even by the cigarette industry”—and in many ways functioned like an ad agency disguised in a gum wrapper. Philip Wrigley himself wrote copy, selected artwork, and oversaw ad placement.

 

The ad campaign he envisioned for the Cubs, he told team executives, would shift the emphasis to “the fun and the healthfulness … the sunshine and the relaxation” of a day at the ballpark. The idea, he said, was “to get the public to go see ball games, win or lose.”

 

To this end, in 1937, he had ivy planted on Wrigley Field’s previously barren outfield wall. A monumental hand-operated scoreboard was constructed that, even brand-new, looked like a mechanical holdover from an earlier era. Wrigley wanted the same “outdoor, woodsy” motif he had just used to convert another property, Catalina Island, off the coast of California, into a profitable escape from nervous tension. Only the eight Chinese elms planted above the bleachers refused to take.

 

Meanwhile, Wrigley set the gum company’s top illustrator, Otis Shepard, to work designing just about all the visual elements familiar to Wrigley-goers today: new uniforms whose colors would pop vibrantly against the field’s carpet of green; the circular red C on their front; the stylized cub-face patch; the W flag flown atop the scoreboard after each home win. Most striking of all, perhaps, were Shepard’s illustrations for the official game program, which began to feature the faces of fans—not identifiable players—in bright sunshine.

 

The final piece of the marketing puzzle was the one that hooked Moskowitz as a boy. Any radio or television station that wanted to broadcast the games could do so, free—with the understanding that the announcers refer to “beautiful Wrigley Field” whenever possible.

 

It worked. It worked so brilliantly that when the Cubs suddenly plunged to the bottom of the standings in 1948, a near-record 1,237,792 fans still came to the park that season. Wrigley, according to a biography written by a family friend, “took satisfaction in the phenomenal drawing power” of the team. It validated his theories.

[southsider2k5]

And that has nothing to do with LOYALTY!

 

That has to do with the location of the park, the history of the park, the trendiness of the team, the fact that it's a bar-type college bro atmosphere. The reason they draw has NOTHING TO DO WITH BASEBALL

 

Come on man. This is obvious.

 

This is a great job at hitting some of the best historical excuses. A It even has the thinly veiled racial reference to the "neighborhood".

[Kyyle23]

And that has nothing to do with LOYALTY!

 

That has to do with the location of the park, the history of the park, the trendiness of the team, the fact that it's a bar-type college bro atmosphere. The reason they draw has NOTHING TO DO WITH BASEBALL

 

Come on man. This is obvious.

 

Nah, the Cubs have a large fanbase, they travel extremely well, their fans are pretty loyal. You can put things in caps all you want, but they draw well because their fans love them.

 

That doesnt mean Sox fans dont love their team, there just arent as many as there are cubs fans

[Dick Allen]

Harry Caray and Sportsvision almost 35 years ago are what people are blaming the discrepancy of the attendance on the north and south sides.

 

Can someone explain to me why, the first 3 years Harry was with the Cubs, and when Sportsvision was a pay per view hardly anyone was wired for, the Sox outdrew the Cubs?

 

1984 happened, and it set the Cubs up for what seems like could be forever. It applies to other Chicago teams. The Bears will sellout no matter how horrid their team. The Bulls used to play to a pretty empty Chicago Stadium. Then Michael Jordan happened, and now they draw no matter what. They had the worst 2 or 4 year stretch in the history of the NBA after Jordan retired, and still led the league in attendance or were very close to it. It will be interesting to see how the Blackhawks do when they go bad. It should be a pretty long time so perhaps they will be OK.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Dick Allen

[Hatchetman]

As recently as 2011-12, the Sox had the same TV ratings as the Cubs:

 

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/201...ox-stuck-in-the

 

Not sure what that tells you but interesting just the same.

[Reddy]

This is a great job at hitting some of the best historical excuses. A It even has the thinly veiled racial reference to the "neighborhood".

Has nothing to do with race, though if you're talking about race stemming from income inequality, then sure.

 

One neighborhood gets a ton of foot traffic by wealthy, upper class finance guys and frat boys. One doesn't. Hm. I wonder which is going to sell more tickets.