The Days Of 'Billy Cub' May Be Numbered
By Chuck Sudo in News on Jul 29, 2013 9:20PM
If you’ve attended a Cubs game, you’ve seen “Billy Cub” posing for photos with fans outside the Cubby Bear, the souvenir shops and Wrigley Field’s main gate. The man underneath the teddy bear costume, John Paul Weier, has been dressing up as “Billy Cub” for the past six years and has turned it into a cottage industry; Weier has even hired out others to dress as “Billy Cub” at other points around Wrigley Field.
But Weier is courting a possible lawsuit from the Chicago Cubs if he continues his efforts to be the team’s unofficial mascot. He was recently served with a cease-and desist letter from Major League Baseball citing trademark infringement and asking Weier to stop his “unabated Mascot Activities.” NBC Chicago reported Weier ignored the letter and was outside the ballpark the next day when he was confronted by a Cubs front office employee asking ‘did you not get our letter?’” (This is the part of the story we love most; Weier, in character as Billy Cub, started pantomiming in front of the exec, then a man handed the exec a camera to take a photo of the man’s son with Billy.)
According to CBS Chicago’s Dave Wischnowsky, Weier tried to keep this from happening in 2010, during the first Cubs convention held under Ricketts family ownership. Weier told the Rickettses of his desire to make Billy Cub the official Cubs mascot, which didn’t go over well. Cubs spokesman Julian Green has also cited a couple incidents involving altercations with one of Weier’s outsourced Billy Cubs and fans, one involving an argument over the size of a tip, the other where Billy Cub allegedly used an ethnic slur toward a fan.
Weier said he does the Billy Cub thing as a labor of love and doesn’t make much money from it.
“What I’m getting out of it is interaction with the fans. The fact that I make young and old people smile like just random strangers. Until you do it and understand the way it can make you feel, connecting with people that are complete strangers and being the highlight of some people’s experience, as a Cubs fan, you can’t put a monetary value on that.”
Weier added that, on a good day, he only makes $400 in tips. That’s still $400 he ended the day with he didn’t have, plus he’s hired three-to-four other people to walk around the park as Billy Cub. Let’s do some math.
Weier said the teddy bear suit costs $1,400 per season. The jersey he wears atop that costs an extra $400 and he has an ice suit for hot summer days underneath the costume that costs $2000. That’s $3,800 right there. Multiply that by four (assuming the other three “mascots” have the same setup) that’s $15,200 Weier is shelling out.
Now let’s assume that half of the Cubs’ 81-game home schedule are the “good days” Weier speaks about. If Weier collects $400 in 40 home games, he breaks even ($16,000). It would be daft to assume he’s simply renting the other Billy Cub uniforms out, and is receiving a cut of the tips from his independent contractors. Suddenly that breakeven point starts to look pretty enticing, although Weier can’t start planning retirement yet.
So you can see why Weier may be doing this as more than a “labor of love” and why the Cubs want him to stop. There is some money being made with Billy Cub and it isn’t the Rickettses collecting it. It’s similar to the argument the team had with rooftop clubs during Tribune Co.’s ownership of the ballclub, only on a microscopic scale. It's admirable to see Weier publicly campaigning for Billy Cub to be named the official mascot of the team, even after receiving the cease-and-desist letter. The Cubs are one of four MLB teams that doesn’t have an official mascot inside the ballpark. (The ghost of Harry Caray conjured during the seventh inning stretch does come close, however.) Weier figures that, since he’s already doing the duties of a mascot outside the ballpark, why not have the ballclub scoop him up while his property is hot?
“Basically I told them if you can’t come to an agreement with what I can wear and continue to do this, then take me to court and sue me,” he said. “What I want from them is to be the official mascot, and what they want from me is to be gone and no one to remember I was ever there.”