There have been several local articles this week in regard to the Cubs seeking a new television deal for their local broadcast rights.
As you recall, the Cubs are partners with other clubs and Comcast for ChicagoSportsNet. The Cubs are locked in through 2019 with this cable deal. The Cubs opened their other TV and radio deal with WGN. That deal now expires in 2014.
There is a five year gap before the cable and over-air television rights can synch up into one contract (or be placed on a new Cubs cable channel).
WGN welcomed the opening of the contract with the Cubs because the station says that it is losing money on the broadcasts. Poor teams equal poor ratings. But the Cubs are wanting to double the existing license fee.
WGN will not pay more money for programming that will lose money. WGN is now not locally owned (it is run by investment bankers in NYC). There is no local community tie or history to uphold for the new owners.
So the Cubs are in a quadmire of their own choosing: if WGN will not pay more, what other local TV station would pick up 60 Cubs games a season? ABC, NBC and CBS are all network owned stations with set programming. Channel 32 FoxChicago is also a network owned station with its own national programming schedules. Fox does have a new cable sports channel, but the CSN deal prevents the Cubs from parking those extra TV games on a cable outlet.
The only other alternatives would be old UHF channels, whose programming is basically syndicated talk, reality, game and classic re-runs of network shows from the 1950s-1990s. Those stations do not have any news or sports departments, or "live" broadcast studios to support telecasting 60 Cubs games per season (home and away). It would take a large capital investment for one of those stations to carry the Cubs for only 5 seasons. It makes no business sense to do so.
The Cubs really want to stay with WGN, because it gets to Iowa and downstate on local cable systems. Also, WGN America is the last vestige of the cable superstation across several region cable systems. This keeps the Cubs in the minds of their fans downstate in Springfield, or out west into Iowa.
The new radio home is also in a similar straight. The two local sports stations already have their programming pretty much locked up with other sports teams and nationally syndicated programs. The one alternative would be to convert a news-talk station with no pro sports programming into the new Cubs flag station, i.e. WLS. But that would further dilute the weak sports advertising dollar in the Chicago market. Again, it is cheaper to pay two hosts in a studio than an entire remote crew and announcing crew for 162 games plus travel if it will not be profitable (as WGN claims).
The Cubs have taken the worst time to try to get a new local television deal. The Cubs have no leverage. The team is not competitive. The team's current ratings are poor. They are not giving any new suitor any assurance of a long term deal.
It may be speculation to say that trial balloons of going to a Fox UHF affiliate would be a means to get WGN to re-up at a higher license fee, but there is little incentive for the current local broadcast rights holders to pay more for the Cubs.
