At some point they sold sponsorship to the bleachers at Wrigley Field. I’m not sure how I even feel about that. I’ve only sat there once back when the pitchers still hit. I can tell you that scientifically speaking hot dogs and beer taste better in the bleachers at Wrigley.
I can also tell you they didn’t brand the bleachers back then. And I’m almost positive not a single person outside the Cubs marketing department calls them that.
But they aren’t wrong that there is a certain magic to the idea of the bleachers. You grab a ticket and who knows who you end up sitting next to. Could be a cool baseball nerd keeping score. Could be a dude who goes tarps off in the bottom of the first inning. Could be the person you marry.
Yep. The Chicago Cubs just did some advanced analytics calculations on that and turned it into a rom com.
Not the first time that the Cubs have executed on this brief. Back in 2008, Fallon, an agency that turned out rad work like this for decades. For Nuveen Investments they mined those outfield bleachers and a fan base that had not won the World Series in an iconic 108-year dry spell. That all changed in 2016.
FORGET OPS WE’RE WRITING SCRIPTS NOW
This week the Cubs are premiering “Nine Innings to Love” on TikTok.
A 17-episode series taking place across nine innings of one game. It’s a classic meet cute.
The romance writer is in a serious hitting slump. The love-shy seat mate who doesn’t believe she can find him a summer fling before the end of the game.
Along the way there will be a makeover, a returning ex and a ninth-inning chase sequence. All while the Cubs are in the hunt for the playoffs.
The whole series is written and created in-house by Cubs Productions. Maybe I need to be working there. This is the creative team that’s racked up regional Emmy nominations and the rom com director is the team’s director of content and production.
If you read about this the EVP of marketing tells us it’s a story that could only happen in the bleachers at Wrigley Field. So everything about this whole endeavor is designed to ensure we know the section is sponsored by Budweiser.
As you can imagine the internet is torn. Some can’t hardly wait.
Others are saying, “A rom-com should feel like Wrigleyville, Old Style, bad decisions and generational trauma. This sounds like Hallmark with a Cubs hat.”
Not wrong. But there’s nothing wrong with Hallmark.
THIS IS DEFINITELY A CHICAGO STORY
Back in 1930, WGN started airing “Painted Dreams.” This was a 15-minute daily serial radio play about a widow and the young women in her house. And it was generally credited as the first soap opera. Written by Irna Phillips, a former teacher who fell into radio acting. She would go on to create As the World Turns, Another World and Guiding Light which ran until 2009.
WGN had also been broadcasting Cubs games since April 14, 1925. Quin Ryan on the call, the home opener against Pittsburgh.
Listeners to that first game would have heard an absolute gem thrown by Grover Cleveland Alexander, or Ole Pete as they called him. Oh, and speaking of pitchers who can hit, he went 3-4 and hit a home run too.
So the city that invented the soap opera and had also been broadcasting baseball games for over 100 years is now doing a serialized romance for baseball fans. The Tiktok series is trying to do the same thing. Simply get fans to come back to watch tomorrow.
THE SOAP COMPANIES ARE BACK
It wasn’t until 1932 that Procter & Gamble figured they probably should make a serial too. Their first one is called The Puddle Family. It didn’t really work. So they replaced it with a show called Ma Perkins. The story is about a widow (wait, why is it always about a widow?) whose family and friends could not stop needing her advice.
It was marketed as “Oxydol’s own Ma Perkins.” And that’s where the word soap opera comes from.
The brand even tested if it was working by offering a packet of flower seeds for 10 cents and an Oxydol box top. They found out that the genre was in fact very real. People took them up on that seed offer.
Earlier this year, the same company launched “The Golden Pear Affair.” A shockingly long 50-episode “microdrama” tied to a limited edition fragrance collection. They called it a “microsoap”.
So the brand that helped pioneer the genre wanted to take it back and optimize it for our phones.
They aren’t the only ones. In August Urban Outfitters clothing rental division Nuuly, rolled out “Heart on My Sleeve.” A 12-part drama about modern dating on TikTok, Reels and Shorts. It’s the same old story. Everyone tells marketers they are tired of being sold. So short dramas that are more subtle are like hiding the vegetables under the meat.
And why not. Microdramas are so hot right now. Short drama app downloads grew 95.5% year over year in the first half of 2026. Like we’re talking 1.45 billion. And where viewers are, the advertisers follow.
One thing I keep thinking about this week is that these series have to really ensure that every episode is an entry point. I’ve noticed in watching both The Madison and Stuart Fails to Save the Universe that every episode gives you a really comprehensive, almost insultingly thorough “previously on” montage.
They tell you everything you need to know about the series - whether it’s episode two or six.
That’s the algorithm at work.
WRIGLEY FIELD WASN’T SOLD TO A BRAND
I can’t do a sneaky baseball issue of the Drink Cart and not talk about more baseball. Everybody now assumes that Wrigley Field was simply the original sponsor of the ballpark. Kind of true. But not in the way you’d expect.
Originally Wrigley Field opened as Weeghman Park. It was simply named for Charles Weeghman, a lunch-counter magnate who built the ballpark for the Federal League. A league that lasted just two seasons. (And you can read a bit more about here)
After that Weeghman teamed up with others including William Wrigley Jr. and bought the Cubs and moved them in. It would become Cubs Park in 1920 and only in 1926 would they finally rename it Wrigley Field in honor of the man who owned the whole team.
So it wasn’t a clever marketing team that bought the rights for the Gum brand. It was just a coincidence that a man named Wrigley also sold chewing gum. And sneakily squeezed over 100 years of branding out of it. Same with the iconic Wrigley Building. A branding lesson for the ages. Name your product after you family name, and you get the stadium naming rights completely free.
In case you are wondering, yes, I would watch a 9-part series about the Wrigley Family and how they ended up selling the Cubs.
The closest Wrigley comes to sponsorship is the logos that sit on the iconic sign. On the outside Wrigley is nearly sacred ground. There’s one brand logo under the iconic marque. On the inside you can brand anything like you’re Don Draper after a massive Martini lunch. With heritage designation, Wrigley Field is likely to remain Wrigley Field despite the selling of the team in 1981 to pay off massive estate taxes and then the gum brand to Mars in 2008.
COCKTAIL OF THE WEEK: THE CHICAGO COCKTAIL
You might have been expecting something with Malort. But we can’t have things like this in Canada. Also this cocktail is almost certainly not from Chicago.
It sounds like it was simply a “Fancy Brandy Cocktail” that was rebranded. It shows up in Harry Johnson’s 1882 bar manual as brandy, curaçao, bitters, absinthe if required (for the record, there is never a need to add absinthe to anything, ever) and champagne. But this was a western favourite drink.
By 1922 Robert Vermeire says that the Fancy Brandy Cocktail and the Chicago Cocktail are actually the same thing. Then good old Harry Craddock put it in his Savoy cocktail book in 1930. By 1931 Chicago Daily News critic John Drury added it in his guide to Chicago dining, noting that it came from The American Bar in Nice and the Embassy Club in London.
Classic cocktail lore. A drink named for a city, only certified by guys in Europe thus solidifying it as a “local” classic. It just makes sense. And just like Wrigley Field, it was an enduring name that just stuck.
The Chicago Cocktail
2 oz brandy or cognac
1/2 oz orange curaçao
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Chilled dry sparkling wine to top
Lemon wedge and superfine sugar for the rim
Rim a coupe with lemon and sugar. Stir the brandy, curaçao and bitters with ice, strain in, top with sparkling. No garnish, the elaborate rim is the only garnish you need. Despite AI putting a cinnamon stick in that image above. I’d like to think that now that I’ve published it, other AI’s will start to insist on adding it in. I’ve done my part on the slop wars.
The Drink Cart is the newsletter version of sitting at a really good bar with someone who thinks too much about advertising and won’t shut up about it. Subscribe to get it on Wednesdays and Fridays.
That rom-com idea is so fun! Looks like it’s getting a good response too.