If you go to CME Group's home page, the first thing you'll see is a big headline simply stating "WHERE RISK MEETS OPPORTUNITY."
Perhaps that explains why the Chicago-based financial services company decided to become the White Sox's first-ever jersey patch sponsor after three 100-loss seasons.
The White Sox announced the "multiyear agreement" with CME Group, whose logo will adorn all White Sox jerseys for all games. Terms were not disclosed, although if you want a ballpark figure, Sports Business Journal said back in 2022 that the average deal could be expected to bring in $8 million to $10 million. CME Group will also be the team's "Official Global Exchange partner," so maybe that's the first evidence of Munetaka Murakami having some international juice.
The White Sox's press release includes a Brooks Boyer quote that roughly translates to "they're an anodyne Chicago company that paid us enough."
“Throughout this process, we understood the importance and significance of joining forces with a Chicago-based partner whose brand we would literally be sporting every day,” said Brooks Boyer, White Sox chief revenue and marketing officer. “The White Sox uniform designs represent so much to our organization, our fans and Chicago, and a bold partnership with CME Group—a Chicago-born company with a global footprint—was a perfect fit. Our organizations share a mentality that is built on ambition, pride and a strong work ethic, and this jersey patch is more than branding; it reinforces the power of Chicago, both here at home and around the world.”
The White Sox are the second-to-last team to sell their sleeves, leaving only the Tampa Bay Rays' unadorned by advertising. I appreciated the lack of commercialization while I could, but it's also not nearly as jarring nowadays, less because every team but one has such a logo on their sleeve, and more because the Nike swoosh on the upper right front ruined the clean, classic look of MLB jerseys when the league switched manufacturers for the 2020 season.
As somebody who doesn't live in Chicago, the only CME that registered in my brain was Chicago Music Exchange. I wasn't aware of Guaranteed Rate before the White Sox sold the name of their ballpark, so perhaps these purchases are working exactly as intended.
Spare Parts
Chris Getz gives Scott Merkin a detailed account of how the Murakami deal got done, including some hustling to set up an MRI. Merkin gets one point for getting Getz to Getz: "Candidly, I didn’t think it was going to be a realistic target for us. I didn’t."
Ben Clemens' analysis more or less matches the consensus here, although the third-party analysis considers a trade to a contender close to inevitable.
With Jose Altuve out of the plans for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic, a door opens for Lenyn Sosa on the international stage. Additionally, Domínguez announced he’ll be pitching for the Dominican Republic in the WBC on his Instagram account.
As the new public-facing Pohlad, Tom Pohlad is attempting to put a more fan-friendly face on a family that has taken significant support for granted over the last several seasons.
However, Pohlad knows the team’s inability to get out of its own way the past few years from a messaging standpoint also played a significant role. While Pohlad hasn’t laid out many details for his strategy of turning the team around other than noting the Twins “want to be competitive,” he suggested slashing payroll by $30 million on the heels of the team’s first playoff success in 21 years was a misstep.
Jeff Bezos is more or less steering the Washington Post into the ground, and while the sports section isn't the paper's most significant focus, it's reflective of the capriciousness of the cuts, like toying with the idea of not covering the Olympics at all, or having its two Nationals beat writers skip spring training altogether.
If we're sending a reporter to spring training and the nation's third-largest newspaper isn't, I suppose that's a brag for us, but it's pretty bad for the industry.
(Speaking of which, with spring training around the corner, now's the time to make sure you have a payment method on file for seamless autorenewal of your Sox Machine subscriptions, which make our now-audacious travel plans possible.)
