Love was in the air Monday as the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers started their big four-game showdown at Wrigley Field.
But it wasn’t about the long-running bromance between managers Craig Counsell and Pat Murphy, or Cubs fans showering Pete Crow-Armstrong with adoration, or anything at all involving the actual game on the field.
No, this crazy little thing called love was a byproduct of Cubs Productions, which announced the upcoming release of a TikTok series targeted at Gen Z and millennials, “Nine Innings to Love.”
According to the Cubs, it’s a fictional story about two young Cubs fans who find true love in the bleachers, told in 17 episodes over nine innings.
“By blending a game of baseball with BookTok fandom and the vibes of a classic rom-com, we’ve created a story that could only unfold in the Budweiser Bleachers at Wrigley Field,” Cubs executive vice president of marketing and communications Jen Martindale said in a statement.
Any resemblance between the TikTok series and the real-life version of Chairman Tom Ricketts meeting his wife, Cece, in the bleachers is purely coincidental, a Cubs source said.
The trailer was released Monday before the Cubs showdown with the Brewers, which usually would’ve been the big story of the day if not for the fact that Milwaukee led the division by eight games with a month left. The series will be released on Sept. 4, and by then the Cubs and Brewers will have played 10 games and we’ll know if the race is over.
It’s hard to compare a TikTok series to an actual movie, but it’s probably closer to the Jimmy Fallon-Drew Barrymore rom-com, “Fever Pitch,” which was about an obsessive Red Sox fan falling in love with America’s Sweetheart. That was a full-length movie filmed in 2004 when the Red Sox were breaking their storied curse, and included Johnny Damon and other players in cameos.
There are no Cubs players involved in the TikTok series, the Cubs told me, which is unfortunate since Crow-Armstrong has acting in his DNA — his mother and father are both actors — and probably would be at least as good as Damon.
As a big fan of rom-coms and a good bleacher meet-cute, I’m all in on the Cubs creating content for young women to help spread the brand.
The Bears are doing much the same and are involved in the making of a TV movie for the Hallmark Channel called “Holiday Touchdown: A Bears Love Story.” Coach Ben Johnson, Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet reportedly have cameos, along with some former Bears. The Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills were part of similar Hallmark movies, so apparently it’s a growing trend to promote your brand with a love story. After the 1985 Bears made “the Super Bowl Shuffle,” every team in the NFL made their own music video.
It’s a copycat world.
If the Cubs’ TikTok series is a hit, I would not be shocked if the White Sox came up with their own rom-com series that included the magic wand and the pope.
We all love seeing our favorite teams on TV shows and in movies. I can still remember watching “Brian’s Song,” the heartbreaking TV movie about the friendship between Bears players Brian Piccolo and Gale Sayers, and pretending I wasn’t crying at the end.
And we all love seeing a good rom-com based in Chicago, though there hasn’t really been a decent one since John Cusack’s “High Fidelity” in 2000.
Julia Roberts’ Chicago-based rom-com, “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” had a few scenes filmed at new Comiskey Park back in 1996, and I was there when her bodyguard scaled a wall to fetch a 470-foot home run by Mark McGwire to give to her. (Sox security caught him and ejected him.)
But Comiskey Park wasn’t the focal point of the movie like Wrigley is for “Nine Innings to Love.” Wrigley Field is a perfect setting for a rom-com, since many young fans are looking for romance and not paying a whole lot of attention to the actual game. The teaser video even included a shot of a fan with a beer cup snake, a symbol of the lack of focus in the bleachers.
Hopefully the Cubs’ TikTok doesn’t overshadow my own upcoming Cubs TikTok rom-com project, which has a working title of “You had me at Woo.”
It’s about Chad, a hedge fund manager from Glenview, who meets Windy, a public relations intern from Lincoln Park, while both are taking videos of a brawl between Cubs and Sox fans in the right-field bleachers. They meet-cute while bumping into each other trying to get the best angle of the brawl. Windy bets Chad her video will go viral before his does, and suffice it to say, it’s the start of a beautiful romance.
I don’t want to give too much away since we’re still searching for the perfect Chad. But there’s a goose, a rat and a giant cup snake involved. Hijinks and hilarity ensue.
Anyway, good luck to the Cubs on their own rom-com. And if it takes anyone’s mind off their recent pitching woes, it’ll be a success.
