The Chicago Cubs have announced a partnership with RingCentral, making the Silicon Valley firm their official provider of cloud-based business communications.
The Cubs host almost three million baseball fans annually, placing enormous demands on their communications systems – from ticketing and security to hospitality and fan engagement.
Until recently, it had relied on on-premises systems that were costly to maintain and ill-suited to the scale of operations.
"The Cubs have one of the most passionate fan bases in baseball, and we're excited to help them connect with those fans in new ways," said Akshay Srivastava, Executive Vice President & GM, Go-to-Market at RingCentral.
Our AI communications platform will streamline how the organisation communicates internally and externally, making every interaction more meaningful."
By replacing legacy infrastructure with cloud UC, the Cubs are aiming to improve employee collaboration, cut operating costs, and enhance the fan experience.
Beyond new branding on the famous Wrigley Field Marquee, the collaboration represents a broader trend: the migration of even the most tradition-bound institutions to the cloud, in search of efficiency, scalability, and new ways to engage customers.
Why This Matters for IT Leaders
For enterprise buyers, this is more than a story about baseball.
It’s a case study in how unified communications and AI-driven collaboration tools can address three perennial concerns of the buying committee:
- CIOs / CTOs: Integration with Microsoft Teams, resilience at scale, and the security of moving sensitive customer data into the cloud.
- CFOs: The total cost of ownership compared to legacy systems, with savings from reduced maintenance and increased workforce productivity.
- CHROs / Business Unit Leaders: The ability to empower employees with tools that streamline workflows and boost engagement.
- Heads of Customer Experience / CMOs: Enhanced service responsiveness and fan (customer) satisfaction, powered by AI analytics and conversation intelligence.
This alignment of technology with organisational outcomes is the essence of digital transformation: less about the tools themselves, more about how they reshape work, customer relationships, and competitive advantage.
