The Cubs should have more promotional giveaway items

Overall, though, the biggest issue is having only 10,000 gate giveaway items when the team generally averages over 37,000 fans per game.

This is not the way many other teams do giveaways. I have numbers for you! On Wednesday, I went through the websites of all 29 other teams to see what their policies were for gate giveaways. Many teams, including the Cubs, now have other giveaways that you have to buy a special ticket for, and those are more limited in number. These numbers are only for gate giveaways that are open to all without a special ticket.

Dodgers: 40,000 (except two Shohei Ohtani giveaways that are listed for 54,000 fans)
Padres: 40,000
Angels: 25,000
Brewers: 25,000 (some 10,000)
Giants: 25,000 (some 15,000 or 20,000)
Diamondbacks: 25,000 (some 15,000 or 20,000)
Mariners: 20,000 (some 10,000 or 15,000)
Nationals: 20,000
Orioles: 20,000
Royals: 20,000 (some 10,000 or 15,000)
Pirates: 20,000 (some “all fans”)
Yankees: 18,000
Mets: 18,000 (some 15,000)
Guardians: 15,000
Cardinals: 15,000
Blue Jays: 15,000
Braves: 15,000
Rockies: 15,000
White Sox: 15,000
Twins: 10,000
Rangers: 10,000
Astros: 10,000
Marlins: 10,000
Rays: 10,000
Red Sox: 7,500

Four teams did not post specific numbers.

Phillies: “all fans”
Tigers: “limited quantities”
Athletics: “while supplies last”
Reds: “while supplies last”

The number that sticks out the most to me in the list above is from the Dodgers. The Dodgers, who lead MLB in attendance every year. The Dodgers, who averaged 49,537 per date in 2025, have 40,000 of every giveaway item, which means that pretty much everyone who wants one would get one.

As noted above, Ohtani items basically go to everyone:

It should be noted that for some of the teams that have smaller numbers, those come close to matching their average attendance. For example, the Orioles have 20,000 giveaway items, their average attendance so far this year 21,362. The Royals, at 20,000 items, are above this year’s attendance average to date of 16,893. Clearly, for teams like this, promotional giveaways might actually draw larger crowds and bump up their averages. That’s not the case for the Cubs, who played to 89.5 percent of capacity in 2025 and who have most of their bobblehead giveaways — the most popular ones — on Saturdays when they’re likely close to sold out anyway. This year, for nine home dates, the Cubs have averaged 32,755, with quite a number of home dates played in very cold weather. That number will almost certainly go up.

The Marlins increased their giveaway item number from 8,000 to 10,000 this year, and so far this year they have averaged 11,713 for 10 home dates. Some other teams giving away more items this year: Giants (from 15,000 to 25,000), Mets (from 15,000 to 18,000, perhaps to match their crosstown rival Yankees) and Mariners (from 15,000 to 20,000).

The only teams that draw well and have as few or fewer giveaway items than the Cubs are the Astros (10,000 giveaways, 33,677 average in 2025) and Red Sox (7,500 giveaways, 34,278 average in 2025).

But most teams have enough for a large percentage of their fans to get popular giveaway items without having to rush to get to the ballpark early, or be disappointed if they can’t. As the Cubs surely know, many fans come to Wrigley from all over the Midwest — should they have to get up at 4 a.m. to drive to Chicago from Iowa just to get a bobblehead?

Occasionally at Wrigley Field, popular gate giveaways draw huge numbers of fans arriving early, creating potential crowd control issues. There’s another popular bobblehead this weekend (Ron Santo) and on Sat., May 24, likely the most popular gate giveaway item of the season, a Ryne Sandberg bobblehead.

Yes, I know the argument — teams want fans in the park early to consume more food and drink. At the same time, enough teams have enough giveaway items for fans that maybe this shouldn’t matter. As noted above, the Cubs (along with almost all other teams) have reduced the number of gate giveaways anyway in recent years, shifting over to the “special ticket” items that have proven to be popular.

The Cubs really should increase the number of gate giveaway items to at least 15,000, or hey, why not match the mighty Yankees at 18,000? Or perhaps to half of the 40,000 the Dodgers give, to 20,000? That would leave far fewer dissatisfied Cubs fans, and there shouldn’t be any additional cost to the team, since the items generally have a sponsor who pays for them. (The Ben Zobrist bobblehead, for example, had Jewel/Osco as its sponsor.)

Get it done, Cubs.