Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Chicago Cubs Look To Cash In With Next TV Deal

From reading this article, it's apparent that the Chicago Cubs appear headed to ending their generations old agreement to televise games on WGN.  Last year, the Cubs announced the option to opt-out of their agreement with WGN at the end of the 2014 season.

Rumors are that the Cubs & Fox could partner up for a mega-deal to create a new regional sports network ("RSN") for the Chicago area and would televise Cubs games on a Chicago-area Fox station until 2019 and then launch the Cubs RSN in 2020 following expiration of the Cubs agreement with Comcast SportsNet Chicago.

The new MLB TV agreement announced in 2012 that begins this year will include up to 40 MLB telecasts on Fox Sports 1 using the TV feed of the home team.  Fox recently acquired a 49% of the Yankees Yes NetworkSTO (the Cleveland Indians owned rsn), and was attempting to acquire MASN  (the RSN home to the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals) all to bolster MLB inventory for Fox Sports 1.

With the bubble bursting on sports rights TV fees not on the horizon, the Cubs definitely needs to think big with their next TV deal in order to keep up with the have's in the world of TV rights



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