The Chicago Purple Stars see each the historical past and future of ladies’s sports activities of their short-term house at Wrigley Area.
The Nationwide Ladies’s Soccer League (NWSL) makes its debut on the house of Main League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs on June 8, when the Purple Stars match up towards Bay FC. It’s the primary skilled ladies’s sports activities occasion held on the ballpark since 1943 when the All-American Women Skilled Baseball League—yep, from A League of Their Personal—performed Wrigley Area’s first night time recreation with assist from lights arrange for a Ladies’s Military Auxiliary Corps recruiting occasion earlier within the night.
Whereas researching that historical past, the Purple Stars’ companions at inventive company Havas Chicago additionally found that one other Wrigley Area staple—the seventh-inning rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Recreation” as soon as led by announcer Harry Caray—was strongly tied to ladies. Written in 1908, the tune was initially carried out in vaudeville acts about or by a girl attempting to get her date to take her to a ballgame as a substitute of a present.
Contacted due to their shut relationship with Cubs advertising chief Jennifer Martindale, Havas Chicago pulled collectively its analysis inside two weeks with assist from a technique group that included former College of Maryland soccer participant Andi Wenck and inventive director Michelle Underwood—a former crowd-favorite arm wrestler.
The end result was a marketing campaign that featured Purple Stars gamers taking on Wrigley to the soundtrack of a reimagined “Take Me Out to the Ball Recreation.”
“It didn’t begin out as this ambition to be a bit of feminist or be hardcore, pro-female athlete,” stated Myra Nussbaum, co-president and chief inventive officer of Havas Chicago. “We wish to promote out a recreation, and the gamers occurred to be ladies.”
Havas’ acknowledged objective of promoting 40,000 tickets to the Purple Stars’ Wrigley Area matchup would break the NWSL attendance file of 34,130 set by Ballon D’or winner and two-time World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe’s farewell match in Seattle. However it could additionally assist the Purple Stars’ case in rebuilding Chicago followers’ belief whereas looking for a house nearer to them.
