Cubs TV Deal Stuff

[dfnowak]

There was an article a few weeks ago about WGN Radio opting out of the agreement and wanting to renegotiate with the Cubs. There was discussion about the losing decreasing the audience and impacting radio revenues. The Cubs are open to negotiate with another radio station. After 2014 the Cubs may be entirely off WGN altogether (radio and TV).

 

Whatever works to increase revenue and payroll.

 

There's not going to be another radio station. WGN probably will get the Cubs for less.

Any chance the Cubs can re-up for a one year extension for cheap? That way the contract will run out at the same time as the White Sox and WSCR. Would love to have the Cubs on the Score.

[Banedon]

There was an article a few weeks ago about WGN Radio opting out of the agreement and wanting to renegotiate with the Cubs. There was discussion about the losing decreasing the audience and impacting radio revenues. The Cubs are open to negotiate with another radio station. After 2014 the Cubs may be entirely off WGN altogether (radio and TV).

 

Whatever works to increase revenue and payroll.

 

There's not going to be another radio station. WGN probably will get the Cubs for less.

Any chance the Cubs can re-up for a one year extension for cheap? That way the contract will run out at the same time as the White Sox and WSCR. Would love to have the Cubs on the Score.

 

Unlikely. Whatever radio station has the Cubs, be it WGN, or another station, will specifically try to avoid that scenario, surely. They wouldn't want that option to be available to the Cubs to use as leverage.

[Guest]

Since it makes so little difference financially, I'd like to see them remain on WGN. If they can't then the Score would be preferable I guess, but then they have to basically change their entire programming bent for half the year so they may not be so willing a partner.

[davell]

Typical Cubs.....Aren't allowed to negotiate with anyone other than CSN until 2020, if they leave WGN. So much for leverage.....

[Guest]

Who else was going to bid on it? There were rumblings that maybe the Fox affiliate(I think Fox) could pull that off, but that'd be a hail mary at best. It's always been CSN v. WGN for these intervening years, for better or worse.

[Ryne Ween]

Cash flows from the contract in-place with WGN would have be reflected in Rickett’s purchase price for the team. The trend on the TV deals other teams are getting can only be gravy at this point, id think, with the renegotiation with WGN. The TV deals going crazy is a reflection of the TV ad dollars needing to go to live content, way more so than in 2008-2009 when they negotiated the purchase of the Cubs.

 

The important thing to remember is that they own 20% of CSN. That has to be quite a pleasant surprise because they are getting the net profit of the station that’s carrying the majority of the Sox, Bulls and Hawks games and associated programming as well. That partnership with the other owners and Comcast cant be a long term equity model so whatever that’s been raking in has to be a somewhat substantial immediate cash impact and likely worth way more now than anticipated when they bought it in 2008. The Tv deals, the various stadium issues, the rooftop deal, the debt load etc: these were all known quantities 5 years ago. The CSN piece, I think is the variable and id guess its been pretty favorable.

[Irrelevant Dude]

Typical Cubs.....Aren't allowed to negotiate with anyone other than CSN until 2020, if they leave WGN. So much for leverage.....

What do you mean by this?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Typical Cubs.....Aren't allowed to negotiate with anyone other than CSN until 2020, if they leave WGN. So much for leverage.....

What do you mean by this?

 

Cubs' deal with Comcast forbids them from dealing with any other cable stations for the rest of the games. That just leaves over-the-air, and there doesn't seem to be any interest there.

[davell]

Typical Cubs.....Aren't allowed to negotiate with anyone other than CSN until 2020, if they leave WGN. So much for leverage.....

What do you mean by this?

 

It's in the contract, according to Levine, they can't bring in an outside source through the entire CSN deal. According to a pair of the knowledgable guys at PSD, its only true if WGN decides they can't pay at least what the "fair market value price" is, which was given to them on Tuesday.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Typical Cubs.....Aren't allowed to negotiate with anyone other than CSN until 2020, if they leave WGN. So much for leverage.....

What do you mean by this?

 

It's in the contract, according to Levine, they can't bring in an outside source through the entire CSN deal. According to a pair of the knowledgable guys at PSD, its only true if WGN decides they can't pay at least what the "fair market value price" is, which was given to them on Tuesday.

 

Tribune today said that it was the higher of "fair market value" appraised and a pre-written level in the contract, and in this case the pre-written value is higher.

[davell]

Typical Cubs.....Aren't allowed to negotiate with anyone other than CSN until 2020, if they leave WGN. So much for leverage.....

What do you mean by this?

 

It's in the contract, according to Levine, they can't bring in an outside source through the entire CSN deal. According to a pair of the knowledgable guys at PSD, its only true if WGN decides they can't pay at least what the "fair market value price" is, which was given to them on Tuesday.

 

Tribune today said that it was the higher of "fair market value" appraised and a pre-written level in the contract, and in this case the pre-written value is higher.

 

 

Hmm, not sue if thats good or bad then. Would WGN overpay to keep it?

[LaSalle.St.Station]

I ultimately see the Cubs and Hawks forming their own sports network down the line. Currently the Cubs and Sox overlap frequently and the bulls and Hawks overlap often in their schedules. Its seems like a logical split to increase brand identity between the teams and their network. It also would get the Cubs away from the mocking tone of the Rainstorm picked anchors that host most of the CSN programming.

[jersey cubs fan]

I ultimately see the Cubs and Hawks forming their own sports network down the line. Currently the Cubs and Sox overlap frequently and the bulls and Hawks overlap often in their schedules. Its seems like a logical split to increase brand identity between the teams and their network. It also would get the Cubs away from the mocking tone of the Rainstorm picked anchors that host most of the CSN programming.

 

That's what makes most sense to me. There are ties between the Cubs and Blackhawks already. However, there are also longstanding relations between the Blackhawks and Bulls.

 

 

I don't see the point of avoiding "mocking tones" of anchors. You avoid that by winning more than you lose. I would prefer people just grow thicker skin with that stuff and that we avoid a cast of homers heaping nothing but praise on the organization.

[LaSalle.St.Station]

I don't mind critical analysis by so called " Professional Sports Anchors " but dismissive mocking tone torwards the Cubs is commonplace, while no such tone is used in covering the team whose owner controls 50 % of the station these anchors are employed by. Hollinsworth is very critical at times but doesn't mock, Pat Boyle, Garfein, Schenowski all use mocking dismissive tones when giving cubs highlights on the recap shows. Edited November 15, 2013 by LaSalle.St.Station

[Sammy Sofa]

The Sox commentators complain about the Sox all the damn time.

[SouthSideRyan]

I didn't notice a mocking tone when we weren't on a 5 year run of being one of the worst teams in baseball. Only the Astros have been worse since we were last good.

[jersey cubs fan]

I don't mind critical analysis by so called " Professional Sports Anchors " but dismissive mocking tone torwards the Cubs is commonplace, while no such tone is used in covering the team whose owner controls 50 % of the station these anchors are employed by. Hollinsworth is very critical at times but doesn't mock, Pat Boyle, Garfein, Schenowski all use mocking dismissive tones when giving cubs highlights on the recap shows.

 

Garfein is a bit of a homer for the Sox, but those other guys are just typical snarky sports talk types. The Cubs suck, therefore the tone about the Cubs is going to lean toward mocking. If the Cubs didn't suck, they wouldn't be mocked for sucking.

[LaSalle.St.Station]

I don't mescrow throwingcritical analysis by so called " Professional Sports Anchors " but dismissive mocking tone torwards the Cubs is commonplace, while no such tone is used in covering the team whose owner controls 50 % of the station these anchors are employed by. Hollinsworth is very critical at times but doesn't mock, Pat Boyle, Garfein, Schenowski all use mocking dismissive tones when giving cubs highlights on the recap shows.

 

Garfein is a bit of a homer for the Sox, but those other guys are just typical snarky sports talk types. The Cubs suck, therefore the tone about the Cubs is going to lean toward mocking. If the Cubs didn't suck, they wouldn't be mocked for sucking.

 

 

"Typical snarky sports talk types" it's fine if they were on WSCR, but CSN project themselves as sports news. Derogatory coverage only belies their biases. REINSDORF COMPANY TOWN = CSN

 

 

The sooner the Cubs cut ties with CSN the better. No need to indirectly subsidize a sports network that is undermining your product with mocking ( disguised as objective ) coverage.

[Sammy Sofa]

Again, the talking heads on CSN "mock" all of the Chicago teams when they lose/are bad. You keep talking like they're singling out the Cubs, but they're not. And there's presentation of being objective or unbiased when you're talking about commentators/analysts; it's their job to give their opinion.

[LaSalle.St.Station]

^

 

I'm not referring to the opinion shows like Sports Talk Live, I'm talking about the straight reporting recap show like Sports Central. Again there is a difference between critical analysis ( which I accept and enjoy ) and dismissive mocking derogatory wise cracks. I've noticed it in my critical perception that the network has an obvious bias to promote it's largest owner's teams and to minimize and degrade the coverage off the team that is in direct competition with his team.

 

To think that there isn't benefit to the White Sox if they can chase away interest in the Cubs by subtly mocking the team in CSN's coverage is blind ambivalence.

 

It's the same complaint the Sox had about Tribune coverage ( or lack of ) of the Sox when Tribune owned 100 % of the Cubs. I'm not blind to the competitive forces the two teams use in battling for market share ( hearts and minds ) in Chicago.

 

The sooner they get away from CSN the better. :yahoo:

[jersey cubs fan]

You should probably consider growing thicker skin on the matter and not worry so much about what you perceive as everybody mocking your team.

[Sammy Sofa]

To think that there isn't benefit to the White Sox if they can chase away interest in the Cubs by subtly mocking the team in CSN's coverage is blind ambivalence.

 

It's the same complaint the Sox had about Tribune coverage ( or lack of ) of the Sox when Tribune owned 100 % of the Cubs. I'm not blind to the competitive forces the two teams use in battling for market share ( hearts and minds ) in Chicago.

 

But it's not the same; the Cubs owners are also significantly invested in Comcast as well. Reinsdorf having a 40% stake to the Ricketts' 20% doesn't make him some kind of overlord that the station is catering to; if this was an actual issue and the Ricketts wanted it knocked off it would stop. The reality is it's just sports reporters/hosts/commentators/analysts/whatever you want to call them making fun of bad teams. They were taking just as many "shots" at the White Sox; I can't even count the number of times they started a White Sox segment with some variation of "just when you thought things couldn't get any worse..." as often as they did the same sort of thing with the Cubs.

 

Bottom line, Comcast isn't being used as a tool to "drive people away" from the Cubs to the Sox, and even if it was that would be a terrible plan that likely would accomplish squat.

[LaSalle.St.Station]

Thicker skin ? Just calling it how I see it. Everyone has their own perception. Time will tell how happy the Team is with the CSN set up. I'm betting not very and will get out as soon as contractually able to. Teams want their broadcasting operations to be mechanisms to help build brand identity and loyalty, not foster antagonistic sniping from the sidelines.

[Sammy Sofa]

OK, again, you realize the Ricketts have a 20% stake in the network, right?

[treebird]

the cubs will have great brand loyalty just as soon as they manage to win 80 games again.