Our long local curiosity is over. The White Sox (along with the Blackhawks and Bulls) have announced their new broadcast home for the 2025 season.
At 10 a.m. Monday -- on the eve of the Crosstown Series -- the Chicago Sports Network (CHSN, likely to be occasionally confused with CHGO) announced itself to the world, promising to deliver "more than 300 live Blackhawks, Bulls and Sox games annually, along with first-class pre-and-post game coverage, and 24/7 multisport programming."
In the name of transparency and also not banking everything on my skill for parsing details about media distribution, here is the full press release.
Chicago Sports Network (CHSN) To Launch As New Home To The Chicago Blackhawks, Bulls And White Sox
CHICAGO—The Chicago Sports Network, CHSN, will launch in October across multiple platforms with plans to deliver the Chicago Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox games to the widest audience possible.
CHSN will deliver more than 300 live Blackhawks, Bulls and Sox games annually, along with first-class pre-and-post game coverage, and 24/7 multisport programming.
CHSN will broadcast from highly visible production studios located in both Chicago’s United Center and Guaranteed Rate Field.
The network will launch in October with Blackhawks and Bulls preseason games. The first CHSN White Sox game will be broadcast in 2025. All remaining 2024 White Sox games will continue to be broadcast on NBC Sports Chicago.
CHSN is a joint venture among the three teams and Standard Media and will reach a widely expanded Midwest footprint, including most of Illinois, and parts of Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin, pending league approvals.
The network will launch with agreements in place with traditional cable providers, streaming services and be available via free, over-the-air broadcast.
“As we set out to design the network, we began and ended every discussion with the simple question: What is best for our fans?” said Jason Coyle, who has been named president of the network after serving in Chicago-based sports media leadership roles for more than 20 years, most recently as president of Stadium. “What is the best approach to distribution? How can we push the limits of both in-game and studio production? We plan to serve our fans on as many platforms and in as many markets as our rights allow.”
The teams’ partner, Standard Media, owns four media stations, from Rhode Island to Nebraska. Based in Nashville, its leaders have decades of experience negotiating distribution deals with cable and streaming services.
The network is in the midst of building out its staff and has begun hiring. It will have continued announcements through the summer as distribution and other agreements are finalized. Updates will also be shared at CHSN.com.
The announcement both answers some questions that formed amid the disparate drips of information that were reported and leaked out, and prompts others. Where Standard Media's role in all this once seemed inscrutable, the release touts their experience "negotiating distribution deals with cable and streaming services" alongside the intention to place CHSN with cable carriers across the Midwest, while also making it available over the air, and through some form of streaming.
The unknown here is whether "launching with agreements in place with traditional cable providers" means "some traditional cable providers," or "all/the biggest traditional cable providers." Since NBC Sports Chicago was owned by Comcast, there were automatic carriage agreements in place, and it wasn't hidden behind premium tiers. Do the White Sox, Bulls and/or Blackhawks have connections to keep CHSN readily available on Chicagoland's biggest cable provider, or will Comcast give the new network the Bally Sports treatment?
As for the other reported partner during the lengthy run-up to this announcement, Stadium's influence will be hard to miss since their most recent president Jason Coyle is sliding over to the same position with the new network. The first broadcasts are set to begin in October with Bulls and Blackhawks preseason games. The current MLB standings will tell you that would be after the end of the White Sox season, which will finish out on NBC Sports Chicago, a network staring down the abyss. The first CHSN White Sox broadcast will be in 2025, making it irrelevant to at least half of the current active roster.
Who will host the pre- and post-game shows? Will the announcing booth remain unchanged? Will it offer coverage of these teams beyond broadcasts and the digital aggregation, as NBCSC has been reduced to? That's not answered in this release or on the CHSN website yet, though it will come from "highly visible production studios located in both Chicago’s United Center and Guaranteed Rate Field."
With so much of White Sox efforts concentrated on building a future outside of Guaranteed Rate Field, what accommodations will made or built for said production studio is another point of interest. That the comment section will soon fill up with a multitude of follow-up questions yet to be fully answered is one of the few certainties in life.
Coyle posted this on his LinkedIn page:
I have been a sports fan my entire life. My early memories are all sports. Playing catch with my dad in our front yard in a small town in Michigan just across the dirt road from a corn field, coming in for dinner as the sun went down and talking sports with my mom and brother until I was sent to bed...I've lived and loved sports every day since. 28 years ago, my life changed forever when I moved to the big city - the wonderland that is Chicago, and I've loved everything about it ever since. I love (most of) our teams, I love our city streets, neighborhoods, and food - still can't believe I get to live here. My kids have grown up playing catch with me and talking about our teams, living and dying with them along the way. Now, I have the honor of a lifetime to combine my love of sports with my love of our city.
The Chicago Sports Network (CHSN) is the new home for the Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks, and White Sox. Our primary goal is to reach, serve, and connect with as many fans as possible through first-class content and fan experiences created and delivered every day of the year. Fundamentally grounded in Chicago's neighborhoods, venues, and way of life across our great city, CHSN has been born a proud and active citizen of our hometown - this is where we live, too. Designed by fans to reach and engage as many others as possible - both geographically and across viewing platforms - we approach every key decision with the same fundamental question: what is best for Chicago fans (what would we want)? From content to distribution to value proposition, we believe that our business is best served by first serving those who make everything possible. Thank you, Chicago - we will have many updates and details to share throughout this summer.
We are excited and really think you will be, too - we will see you in October!
