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MrOct44
04-03-2015, 12:56 PM
From Crain's Chicago business today

Cubs now selling memorabilia for charities instead of profits

By Danny Ecker April 03, 2015
Revenue from sales of game-used Chicago Cubs memorabilia will now be funneled to the team's charitable arm instead of its pocket, the Cubs announced today.

After three years of selling items used by players during games through the Cubs Authentics platform mostly to boost team coffers, the team is canning its practice of banking the profits and instead donating net proceeds to Cubs Charities.

The move follows the lead of many other MLB teams that donate memorabilia proceeds to their charitable arms, including the Chicago White Sox.

Cubs Authentics launched in 2012 with an online store and a kiosk in the main concourse at Wrigley Field that periodically features game-used balls, bats and bases for sale. The online store offers game-used jerseys and apparel, as well as a growing collection of items from Wrigley Field as the team proceeds with a $375 million ballpark renovation.

"It was kind of a no-brainer" to redirect the revenue, said John Morrison, the Cubs' assistant director of brand development and activation.

Initially, "the few teams already in this (in 2012) were running it for profit," he said, adding that the team recently "stepped back and took a more holistic view."

The team does not disclose how much it has profited from the sales, but among the pricier game-used items sold over the past couple seasons have been the jersey worn by Cubs star Anthony Rizzo for his first home run in 2012 ($4,100) and an on-deck circle used during a 2013 game ($2,100).

The team has also held a Cubs Authentics live auction the past few years at the annual Cubs Convention. Proceeds from those sales have gone toward Cubs Charities, which supports sports and fitness education with grants for nonprofit programs and development of parks and baseball fields.

The Cubs will release a new crop of authenticated items after next week's season-opening series against the St. Louis Cardinals that includes "rare merchandise" and items collected during spring training such as locker room nameplates and game-used hats.

The progress of the renovation process will dictate what types of stadium collector's items might hit the market, but Morrison said they could involve Wrigley seats, ballpark signage and potentially tiles from the original center field scoreboard.

Selling authenticated game-used items has been a growing trend across Major League Baseball as the league has made its authentication process—which was born in 2001 out of a federal investigation into counterfeit memorabilia sales—more robust.

About 60 percent of the roughly 5 million unique items certified by the league's authentication department are from the past five years, according the the league.