Crain's Chicago Business reports that the Chicago Cubs and WGN Radio are ending one of the longest
broadcasting partnerships in sports history, dating back to 1924.
The Cubs will announce a new
seven-year agreement with WBBM-AM/780 to air the team's games beginning
in 2015.
The
new deal will put the Cubs, Bears and White Sox all under the CBS Radio
banner. CBS-owned WBBM and WCFS-AM/105.9 air Bears games, while
WSCR-AM/670 airs White Sox games. Since the Cubs are coming late to the CBS party, its broadcasts will take a back seat to other existing sports contracts, such as the Bears. Normally, a professional team would want a "flagship" station to focus its entire attention on the team broadcasts, including during the off-season. WBBM, a news station, continues to fill its schedule with live sports programs.
"The economic terms just don't make sense for us,” WGN Radio President Jimmy de Castro media columnist Robert Feder. “So it's really not us saying we don't want them anymore. It's the Cubs
saying that the economics they need are much greater than what we think
they're worth or what we'll pay. They chose to go another way
economically and made a decision to move on.”
It had been previously reported that the WGN was losing money on Cubs broadcasts because of broad industry changes and fewer advertising dollars rolling in for poor Cubs baseball.
Advertisers
typically pay for ads before a season starts based on the most recent
ratings, but they can claim free air time when stations don't live up to
promised ratings. That has decimated WGN's margins for airing Cubs
games.
In addition, WGN parent Tribune Co. is set to spin off
its newspaper group later this year from its broadcast operations. CEO
Peter Liguori recently announced the company's intention to stop
televising Chicago sports nationally on WGN America as it converts it
from a superstation to a basic cable channel.
Still to be
determined in the months ahead for the Cubs is the fate of the 70 games
per year televised by WGN-TV/Channel 9, which will generate far more
revenue for the team.
The Cubs last year opted out of their
TV deal with the network, giving it a chance to either pay more for
broadcasting rights beginning in 2015 than it currently does or lose the
games to a rival network.
Those negotiations continue while the team shows few signs of promise on the field and while local TV ratings remain in a slump. There is a problem that no other local station has the air time or coverage that WGN did. Some speculate that the 70 games may be rolled into the current Comcast Sportschannel contract (which the Cubs are a partner until that deal expires in 2020.)
WGN
Radio, meanwhile, still has deals to carry Chicago Blackhawks games
through 2018-19 and Northwestern Wildcats football and basketball
through the 2015-16 season.
