I'll admit this at the beginning. The reporting on the following story has been very sloppy and I tried my best to accurately report on it. What am I referring?
It's no secret that the Bulls, Blackhawks & White Sox will sign on a new channel as soon as October. Today, it became official.
Confirming a story that was first reported by The Athletic, the Bulls, Hawks & Sox have indeed signed on with Nashville-based Standard Media Group. The new channel will be called...The Chicago Sports Network. Birds chirping? Yeah.
The new network will air over 300 games involving the 3 teams, along with pre & postgame shows involving the 3 teams. Stadium Network, which was reportedly going to convert from a digital to a more mainstream sports channel to accommodate the teams, will supply additional programming to the new channel.
To make a long story short, NBC Universal will shut NBCSC down completely as a result of this news.
There is still the question of whether the current on air staff at NBCSC will follow the teams to their new home.
Submitted is a link to the Jeff Agrest story in the Sun-Times this morning regarding the new network, as well as quotes from Standard Media Group. You can find that here:
As I mentioned when the news broke this morning, the reporting on this new TV home for the Bulls, Blackhawks & White Sox has been very sloppy. It's been known that the 3 teams' deal with NBC Sports Chicago (NBCSC) would expire at the end of the MLB season.
I think what we didn't quite understand involved which outlet was going to do the heavy lifting as far as production, content & talent, let alone which side was going to handle distribution. The Sun-Times said that all indications pointed towards Stadium Network, which already has studio & office space inside United Center, being converted to more of a mainstream sports network.
Then in what seemed like a weekend news dump, the news about Standard Media Group came to the forefront, according to the Athletic. They own several TV stations in smaller markets, but what made it even sloppier was the news that Standard was NOT going to provide content for this channel.
I get the impression that Standard's job in Chicago Sports Network will be distribution, much like the controversial Sinclair Broadcast Group now does with Marquee Sports Network. Sinclair is the same company that tried to buy Tribune Media, former owners of WGN 9, 720 AM WGN Radio & NewsNation (The former WGN America), but ran into FCC opposition a few years ago. Sinclair is already in the sports TV business as owners of Tennis Channel, which also provides some non-Cubs programming to Marquee.
Stadium's job in this new channel will be to help provide programming when the Bulls, Hawks & Sox aren't playing.
At the end of the day, how much continuity will there be with Chicago Sports Network? Could the 3 teams also play a fraction of games on an over the air outlet, such as WCIU 26 or FOX-owned My 50. We will find out in due time. The TV landscape has changed.
on June 3, 2024, 12:36 pm