The Chicago Cubs, Topps enrich fan experience

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For fans of the Chicago Cubs it isn’t about wins and losses-  It is about a storied franchise and the passion the fans have for their team on the North Side.  On any given gameday, the ballpark is filled with a mix of diehards, local workers and tourists, but it is the season-ticket holders that are the pulse of any ballpark.

The season-ticket holders are some of the most passionate fans of any team, and when Colin Faulkner joined the Cubs organization in 2010, his main focus was customer service and expanding the customer experience.  By 2012 the Cubs had some of the largest season-ticket holders in franchise history, according to the Cubs website.

Faulkner had been  recently promoted to Vice President of sales, and with Brain Garza as Director of Ticket Sales and Service, they are working to find different ways to improve the overall experience of attending a Chicago Cubs baseball game.  In 2012, the Cubs home office decided the approach Topps Sports about using some of their baseball card designs for upgrading the look of the season ticket presentation, and after deciding how to incorporate different players into the schedule, they were able to use current players, feature some historical achievements and also some of the opponents that they played on a certain date. ” We tied jersey numbers with calendar and home game dates”, Garza says also, ” We also had players selected on dates that had historical achievements, like Ernie Banks hitting his 500th homerun.”

With the projects success, Brian Garza wanted to make the project even more interesting.  It was after purchasing a pack of 2012 Topps Archives that the idea of using that style could be used for the tickets, but also for a set of stadium giveaways for season-ticket holders and at the general admission gates. Garza says, ” My boss, Colin Faulkner, and I flew out to NYC in August and met with Mark Sapir from Topps and presented him with the idea.  He loved it and agreed to partner with us again to create this year’s offering.”

The cards given at the gate will be distributed among four games and will be among the first 10,000 to attend.  20 cards are available each time, so if you want the full set, you will need to attend each of the four games.  The Cubs have even created multi-game ticket packages that revolve around those games and the full schedule can be found on the Cubs’ website. And even though they are the same look as the Topps cards, each season-ticket holder card will feature a special stamp as seen in the Starlin Castro card below.

For Garza, Faulkner and the rest of the Cubs front 0ffice, the fan experience doesn’t end with the design of the tickets.  Garza says, ” The one [thing] that has me really excited about this year is the upgrade of our promotional item schedule.  We realize that Chicago has a very robust collector’s market.  There is obviously a reason why the National Sports Card Convention is held in Chicago every other year. We will have some highly collectible promo items that will defnitely address our collector base. Among them are the Darwin Barney bobblehead giveaway and a Kerry Wood Gnome.”  The Barney bobble head will be limited to 10,000, but there will be 1,000 with a gold paint scheme to celebrate his Gold Glove award. Here is the Cubs’ promotional schedule and card giveaway schedule.

The full checklist of players:

• Card #1 Ernie Banks 1954 Topps design
• Card #2 Fergie Jenkins 1996 Topps design
• Card #3 Ron Santo 1984 Topps design
• Card #4 Don Kessinger 1965 Topps design
• Card #5 Shawon Dunston 1996 Topps design
• Card #6 Starlin Castro 1971 Topps design
• Card #7 Bobby Murcer 1996 Topps design
• Card #8 Andre Dawson 1971 Topps design
• Card #9 Fergie Jenkins 1954 Topps design
• Card #10 Sammy Sosa 1956 Topps design
• Card #11 Jeff Samardzija 1971 Topps design
• Card #12 Anthony Rizzo 1984 Topps design
• Card #13 Starlin Castro 1987 Topps design
• Card #14 Ernie Banks 1977 Topps design
• Card #15 Darwin Barney 1965 Topps design
• Card #16 Billy Williams 1987 Topps design
• Card #17 Mark Grace 1964 Topps design
• Card #18 Starlin Castro 1956 Topps design
• Card #19 Andre Dawson 1954 Topps design
• Card #20 Ernie Banks 1982 Topps design
• Card #21 Dave Kingman 1996 Topps design
• Card #22 Aramis Ramirez 1961 Topps design
• Card #23 Ryne Sandberg 1962 Topps design
• Card #24 Glenn Beckert 1984 Topps design
• Card #25 Kerry Wood 1977 Topps design
• Card #26 Ron Santo 1990 Topps design
• Card #27 Steve Stone 1964 Topps design
• Card #28 Greg Maddux 1963 Topps design
• Card #29 Jeff Samardzija 1956 Topps design
• Card #30 Mark Grace 1972 Topps design
• Card #31 Greg Maddux 1971 Topps design
• Card #32 Jon Lieber 1962 Topps design
• Card #33 Randy Hundley 1982 Topps design
• Card #34 Kerry Wood 1962 Topps design
• Card #35 Don Kessinger 1990 Topps design
• Card #36 Alfonso Soriano 1954 Topps design
• Card #37 Rick Sutcliffe 1956 Topps design
• Card #38 Sammy Sosa 1965 Topps design
• Card #39 Bill Buckner 1977 Topps design
• Card #40 Ryne Sandberg 1972 Topps design
• Card #41 Billy Williams 1996 Topps design