Don’t count out all-Chicago Series

Aug. 26 - Let me take you back to the World Series of 1906, the first and last played between Chicago’s White Sox and Cubs.

STADIUM NAMING RIGHTS were a thing of the future — the Cubs played at West Side Grounds, while the White Sox toiled at 39th Street Grounds (and no, Grounds was not one of Folger’s clever marketing ideas). Forget television ratings — the radio had just been invented. Cub ace Mordecai “Three-Finger” Brown garnered zero endorsement interest in 1906. Luxury suites were available at Chicago’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, not the ballparks.

Nearly a century after the White Sox’s “Hitless Wonders” knocked off Tinkers-to-Evers-to-Chance’s crew in six games, the two teams are threatening again to battle in the World Series. In the interim, the sports business has boomed. If the Cubs and White Sox actually faced each other in October . . .

Would a Cubs’ win elevate Sammy Sosa, only months removed from the corked-bat scandal, to the king of sports endorsers?

Gordon Kane, head of Victory Sports Marketing in Kenilworth, Ill., answers this question with a question. “If you were a sponsor trying to create excitement around this series, where else could you go?” he asks. “Kerry Wood? Frank Thomas? There aren’t a lot of national names to draw from.”

But Bill Norris, senior vice president of sports & sponsorship marketing for Edelman Sports in Chicago, thinks Sammy’s appeal is limited and could never reach the level of Tiger Woods’s or Michael Jordan’s.

“Some marketers will stay away from the language barrier and some may never forget the controversy around the cork incident,” he said. “His schedule is already full [with Pepsi, MasterCard and McDonald’s], and at a certain point he may run out of days, which may be a make-or-break factor for marketers who need to create impactful programs in a short time.”

Would the Cubs, at the height of their popularity, welcome naming-rights offers for venerable Wrigley Field?

Sports business expert Robert Baade, a professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois, can’t imagine such a scenario. “Their naming rights would be worth a lot more, but fans and politicians may dig in their heels even more,” Baade said. “There’s so much nostalgia. Maybe inside the stadium they could name the concourses.”

How high would ticket prices soar on the street?

Hosts for WSCR-AM 670, a Chicago sports radio station known as “The Score”, predicted a Wrigley Field bleacher seat could sell for $5,000. All-Star Game tickets at U.S. Cellular Field sold for $1,500-$2,000, “which could be a good barometer for point of entry,” according to Edelman’s Norris.

With MLB sponsors, advertisers and TV partners nabbing their share of tickets, would average fans be left out in two of the smaller ballparks in the majors?

Though they may fork over a year’s salary for a standing-room-only seat, Chicago fans will be able to buy tickets. Said Edelman’s Norris: “Even in the [2000] Subway Series between Yankees and Mets, there wasn’t an outcry of fans who couldn’t get tickets.”

While Chicago dances all night, would Fox’s national TV ratings flounder?

Most likely. Even though the Cubs and Sox are watched across the country thanks to WGN’s reach, “it probably wouldn’t attract much national interest,” said Lake Forest College’s Baade. “There might be a backlash where people in small communities say, ‘This is all big-city stuff, forget it.’ They’d rather see a David vs. Goliath matchup.”

Who would make the most money?

The guy who prints up “Cubs Suck” and “Sox Suck” T-shirts.

All in all, quite a different business environment from 1906 — except for one item, which warms the heart of both the Tribune Co. and Jerry Reinsdorf. As it was in the horse-and-buggy days, this World Series would have no travel expenses.

David Sweet is a sports business writer in the Chicago area and a contributor to NBCSports.com. He can be reached at dafsweet@aol.com.