The Chicago Cubs’ past and future World Series champions will receive lasting recognition outside of Wrigley Field.
To honor the franchise’s three World Series teams, the Cubs are creating a memorial at the Clark Street entrance at Gallagher Road, which is scheduled to be unveiled the weekend of July 17, President of Business Operations Crane Kenney told the Tribune on Saturday. The reveal of the game will coincide with the celebration of the 2016 squad during the season.
The Cubs are still in the early stages of the design phase, but the organization has opted for a more comprehensive creation rather than a single statue representing the 2016 team. Installation work will begin about six weeks before the unveiling with one of the most iconic features, the piece that reveals the name of the Champions Gate, being put in place shortly before. A narrative for each of the organization’s three title teams – 1907, 1908 and 2016 – written by historian Ed Hartig will be featured with each title team to accompany the names of each player and coach from that championship season. The construction will also include space for any future World Series title teams.
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When evaluating how to best commemorate the 2016 champions, the organization looked at what other franchises had done to honor their historic World Series champions, such as the Boston Red Sox hanging a banner for their 2004 team, and the White Sox, which created a statue of the team displayed at the front of the stadium to commemorate the 2005 lineup.
“We could never feel comfortable that there was a way, and especially because this team and Game 7, you think about Game 7 and the contributions were from everyone on the entire roster, so how can we give credit to the roster and the coaches?” Kenney told the Tribune during the Cubs conference at the Sheraton Grand Chicago. “So we came back and said, okay, let’s do something to honor them all — a gateway to Gallagher Road, where all the statues are and where we celebrate our heroes.
“We cherish our history and heritage. It allows us to share the story, the history, and most importantly, we leave nothing behind.”
Marquee Sports Network is increasing its streaming options and broadcasting fewer spring training games
When the Cubs put Marquee Sports Network on the air in 2020, the franchise embraced the control and benefits that could come from owning their network.
However, they have not been exempt from the challenging media environment, especially as consumers shift away from cable. Marquee made major changes in November to its digital product, laying off several employees while the network recalibrates to focus and emphasize producing Cubs games.
“What I tell people all the time is it’s no one’s fault,” Kenney said. “There are a lot of things that companies struggle with because technology has changed the way people consume their products. Streaming, it’s changed the linear cable business. And again, it’s not like, ‘Well, why did this happen to us?’ It’s happened to everyone.”
“It’s changing, and it’s changing because the number of cable subscribers has gone downhill. We’re in the same boat as everyone else. Fortunately, Marquee stands on its own, so we have to make smart decisions about how we spend our money. We’ve made some decisions recently that have been tough. We’ll continue to make decisions that can be tough sometimes.”
In an encouraging development in the streaming and direct-to-consumer arena, the Cubs are set to have two new live broadcasters this year catch Marquee for the first time, details of which will be announced closer to the start of the regular season. Since launching their DTC option three years ago, the Cubs have more than 100,000 direct Marquee subscribers, said Kenney, who expects that number to continue to grow.
“What we offer our fans is not going to change, it’s going to be amazing production quality,” Kenny said of Marquee’s on-air talent. “However, I think there will be some things that will change.”
One notable change: Marquee is broadcasting fewer Cubs spring training games this year.
Although they are still finalizing the total, Kenney noted that the number will “probably” be under double digits for the 32-game spring slate and certainly under the volume of Cactus League games they have been broadcasting annually. Last spring, 17 of the Cubs’ 29 exhibition games were broadcast on Marquee while in 2024, the network airs 28 of 35 games.
“It’s a really tough decision, but it seemed to make sense for us in terms of, like any budget, where do you want to cut and what do you want to emphasize?” Kenny said. “So we’re going to focus on pre and post and games with the same technology and the same talent, to give our fans the best games. We made that decision for spring training, we’re going to do less.”
The Cubs aren’t the only major league team feeling the impact of the changing media landscape. Nine MLB teams, including St. Louis, finished. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds have terminated their television contracts with Main Street Sports Group, the parent company of FanDuel Sports Network, due to potential bankruptcy. Commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters earlier this month that the league is prepared to take over broadcast operations as needed for any team. MLB already controlled broadcast games for five teams.
If MLB wants to bring all of the teams’ broadcasts under one league-run umbrella, there’s currently little appetite for the Cubs to go in that direction.
“If the league came along and said, ‘What if we put the 30 teams together?’ “Our bias is usually that we like to do things ourselves, but we listen,” Kenney said. “But it’s hard for me to see a world where Marquee isn’t king. It just allows us to do things, like, we want to spend more on (TV) talent, and if you’re in the league and they say, ‘Okay, here’s your budget for your on-air programming,’ we want the best on-air, and so it’s kind of like Jed (Hoyer) in business: We’re always listening, but I can’t see a world where we don’t do that ourselves.”
Spring training complex upgrade
The new 18,000-square-foot hitting and pitching lab is ready to go with the team reporting to their complex in Mesa, Ariz., in three weeks.
The facility is among the major upgrades the team has worked with the city of Mesa to implement to keep the facilities up to date since Sloan Park and the complex opened in 2014. Part of the original agreement with Mesa stipulated that there would be updated elements and upgrades over the years, including scaling the Cubs facility to other teams’ facilities in the Valley.
“Once we got to a certain place where we could kind of set a standard in terms of performance positions, that became a big thing,” Kenney said. “And it’s really impressive.”