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The Cubs have also committed to better availability through streaming services like Hulu, YouTube TV, etc as cord-cutting grows in popularity. Syndication deals with several local stations have gotten the WGN-9 and ABC-7 games to areas outside Chicagoland, but not every cable provider has NBC Sports Chicago. Kenney has gone on record as saying they’d like to do a better job of covering more of Iowa and Central Indiana, areas that have seen spotty coverage at best over the last few years. As such, it made more sense for them to find a partner that would handle all the logistical and administrative hassle of getting Marquee set up in as many markets as possible within their territory. That’s why a legal filing against MLB.tv was successful, a win for which I feel partially responsible.Īnyway, this is why the Cubs couldn’t simply launch their own venture and go with an over-the-top subscription service that anyone in the country could purchase at their leisure. But MLB has other ideas, some of which make less sense than a Wookiee living on Endor. Listen, I think that’s a dumb idea too, since they’d be better off just letting every team offer its own product to whomever’s willing to pay for it. If we’re being honest, though, it’s really about protecting the interests of teams in smaller markets that would otherwise see their product usurped by more popular teams. To understand what I mean by that, you must first understand how MLB restricts teams to specific territories in order to protect the interests of all 30 individual properties. The team also receives “equity distributions” from their NBCSC partnership, though we can assume those will be eclipsed by the new Sinclair deal. While the specifics aren’t known at this point, Eric Fisher of Sports Business Daily says the Cubs are expected to see a significant increase over the roughly $70 million they will pull down in broadcast-rights fees this season. Will they all see a revenue bump because their individual pieces of pie are larger, or will the pie be so much smaller in total that it won’t matter? Somebody get on that and report back to me.Īnyway, the motivation for the Cubs is clear: Both the financial pie and their slice of it become much larger with this new deal. While it’s of no concern for the purposes of this post, I’m curious how losing their anchor team will impact the other three organizations. The Cubs hold a large stake in the network through the end of this year, with NBCSC holding some and the White Sox, Blackhawks, and Bulls splitting the final slice. NBC Sports Chicago, which was Comcast SportsNet Chicago at the time, became the Cubs’ flagship station and offered the team significant equity in the resultant revenues.

The station’s local arm, WGN-9, continued to carry games on a smaller scale, with ABC-7 picking some up as well. That’s also when WGN Superstation opted to pivot away from sports in favor of original programming like Outsiders and Salem. note: In case you prefer not to slog through all the minutiae, there’s a tl dr at the end.Īs a bit of background, this all got started when the Cubs’ initial agreement with WGN expired at the conclusion of the 2014 season. I’ve been fascinated by the ins and outs of MLB broadcast rules since the Cubs first entered their current multi-faceted arrangement four years ago, so I’m hoping to share some of that with you here.Įd.

While it seems simple on the surface - it’s just a new channel, after all - the reality is anything but.

Now that the Cubs have finally finalized their partnership with Sinclair on the new Marquee Sports Network, it’s time to dive into exactly how fans will be affected.