I'm not exactly sure when the Cubs' decision to break away from the other Chicago sports teams and start a new regional sports network shifted from "worst-kept secret" to "something that's starting to happen," but now there's a name on it and everything.
Reports from Bruce Levine, the Sun-Times and The Athletic on Tuesday helped flesh out the picture:
*The Cubs are breaking off and starting Marquee after the 2019 season. A partnership with Sinclair Broadcast Group was originally reported, which dovetails nicely with the recently revealed Ricketts family email chain, but the idea of a done deal is premature.
*The White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks will return to NBC Sports Chicago on a five-year deal, which is short for the business. Their timeline is swifter because the deal will start in October of 2019, as opposed to spring 2020 for a baseball-only network.
Jon Greenberg's sources say the White Sox are in a position to benefit, but more because the pie has fewer slices, not because it's bigger. This move is coming at a time where all three teams are in the dumps, standings-wise and ratings-wise:
Given that a source told us the shorter length of the deal — the teams signed a 15-year deal when the original station, Comcast SportsNet Chicago, launched in 2004 — it wasn’t known if the teams will get any kind of upfront money for a new contract, though one industry source said he would be surprised if they do, considering those teams have ratings issues. Furthermore, the RSN business doesn’t look too rosy across the country, with Disney reportedly struggling to sell the Fox Sports Network stations it got in a deal with Fox.
But the teams owned by Reinsdorf will get a larger chunk of revenues from the station, given that the Cubs won’t be a part of it and that the majority of their games will be on the station, rather than split up with over-the-air WGN. The games broadcast on cable TV are much more profitable for the teams.
The split could be a delicate one for the carriers, whose customers will face higher bills from carrying two networks. And it's not just two networks, but one with none of Chicago's common teams. As popular as the Cubs are, there's a sizable chunk of the viewing area that wants nothing to do with them.
The five-year agreement gives the rebuilding teams a quicker chance to renegotiate after an upswing, or maybe it casts them back into uncertainty faster than usual. Whatever doubts exist about the White Sox rebuild, the future of cable is even harder to project, which is why Major League Baseball has been hedging its bets.
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In other White Sox business, they released their initial attendee list for SoxFest, which is a little over a month away:
White Sox manager Rick Renteria is scheduled to attend SoxFest 2019, along with current team members José Abreu, Tim Anderson, Nicky Delmonico, Adam Engel, Jace Fry, Leury García, Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech, Reynaldo López, Yoán Moncada, Daniel Palka and Yolmer Sánchez. Fans also can expect to see prospects Micker Adolfo, Luis Basabe, Dylan Cease, Zack Collins, Eloy Jiménez, Nick Madrigal and Luis Robert. In addition, newly elected Hall-of-Famer Harold Baines, Hall-of-Famers Carlton Fisk, Tim Raines and Jim Thome, as well as White Sox ambassadors Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, Carlos May and Bill Melton, will join former outfielder Dewayne Wise, whose catch to protect Mark Buehrle's perfect game in 2009 is celebrated as the exclusive SoxFest 2019 bobblehead.
