Best sports story of the day comes from Chicago

The fact that WGN is showing Hawks' games in their home market is a GIANT step forward from the Wirtz days.

 

Sadly for Cincinnati, Mike Brown followed the same pattern.

 

For what it's worth, Versus and WGN are available in almost an identical number of households (both are in the low-70 million range).

 

I like that McDonough and Wirtz's kid have achieved this success with a simple marketing plan: Don't tell your fans to go fuck themselves.

That's basically what it is. The old regime felt it was proper for the fans to go fuck themselves, but McD and Co. decided it was time to do a 180. And that's really all it took to win fans back. Has any rebuilding project ever been simpler?

One story: During the previous regime, when season ticket sales were apparently in the low four figures, my buddy had just bought a 12-game pack and loved the first two games so much, he called a season ticket rep and said he was having such a great time, he wanted a full-season plan for the following year. Every sales guy's dream, right?

So what did the rep do? Did he try and upsell him for that season? Did he act enthused and say he'll put him on the first-call list when season tickets go on sale for the next season? No. He said, "I usually don't do that until May. Call back then." And that was the old Wirtz regime in a nutshell.

 

None of the Blackhawks games will be on WGN Superstation...only WGN in Chicago. It's on the Hawks website.