Why Is Jerry Useem The Curse Of The Loyal Sports Fan

Jerry Useem is a talented writer who has covered business and economics for The New York Times, Fortune, and other publications. Useems intended audience to read his article “The Curse of the Loyal Sports Fan” are sports fans and people who may buy into some superstitious beliefs about the Cubs’ terrible record. My whole life I’ve been a big baseball fan, and my mom is a loyal Cubs fan, so I wanted to know more about the team. Useem informs us of the background of the Cubs’ organization and about their lack of success. The Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908, and the fans believe they are cursed: Either by a billy goat, a black cat, a fan whose name we shall not speak of, or just plain bad luck. Those may be a factor to their losing, but Useem argues that more likely it's the fans themselves; they are too loyal.

Jerry states in his sub heading, “The Chicago Cubs’ customers show up win or lose--which may explain why, until now, the team has mostly done the latter.” Baseball teams make money by filling up the seats, not by winning games. Economist Philip K. Porter, of the University of South Florida, wondered if

In the mid-1930s, the Cubs owner, Philip K. Wrigley, was pouring over yearly figures when he noticed a correlation he didn’t like: When the cubs won fewer games, fewer people attended the games. He was set into fixing this. As the owner of Wrigley’s gum company he was a master of advertising. Wrigley wanted to emphasize in his ads about how going to the ballpark was fun and relaxing. The idea, he said, was “to get the public to go see ball games, win or lose.” It worked so good that when the Cubs’ suddenly plunged to the bottom of the standing in 1948, a near-record 1,237,792 fans still came to the park that season. Philip Wrigley saw the game through an economic lens. What he did not recognize was how one corporate function could subtly foil the goals of