Wrigley Field Without Old Style? It's a Rumor
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 2, 2011 6:20PM
There's a rumor going around, fueled by the folks at The Wrigley Blog, that Old Style "will no longer be the Official Beer of Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs." Worse for baseball purists and folks with deep veins of civic pride running through them, Old Style would be replaced by Coors Light, according to these stories.
Problem is, we aren't so sure that's s done deal, even though Pabst owner C. Dean Metropoulos (Pabst owns the Old Style brand) said in an internal memo that he'd like to extricate the brand from its sponsorship deal with the Cubs, the long history between the two ballparks be damned.
In an internal memo to top staff one month after purchasing the company, C. Dean Metropoulos outlined a plan to see PBR sales grow 30 percent per year, Lone Star's sales to double and for the company to create a "Four Loko"-like version of Colt 45, backed by an African-American star and jingle."I also want to try to exit the 'Cubs' deal and divert this money behind Old Style 'Light,'" C. Dean Metropoulos wrote. The relationship between Old Style and the Chicago Cubs baseball team has existed for 61 years.
Also, it's hard to know what beer is the official sponsor of the Cubs. Aside from Wrigley Field's long-standing association with Old Style, Anheuser-Busch has had a fruitful association with the Cubs ever since the early days of Harry Caray's tenure with the team and has naming rights over the bleachers and television broadcasts through 2013.
To see whether or not there's fire related with the smoke, we placed calls into Pabst's Woodridge headquarters, Pabst's LA offices and the Cubs media relations department for comment. We're awaiting reply from the Cubs. The phone at Pabst's Woodridge offices kept ringing without an answer; maybe they're busy packing up for their move to Los Angeles.