Over the weekend, news broke that the Cubs’ days broadcasting on WGN-TV could end after next season, when the team’s contract with the network expires. The Cubs are instead considering a long-term deal that would move all their games to random stations that no one can find in the channel guide.
“Unfortunately WGN no longer is a superstation and can’t pay us top dollar to broadcast Cubs games,” said Cubs President of Baseball Operations Crane Kenney. “So we’re going to look into partnering with a bunch of stations scattered all over the TV dial, or maybe we’ll create the Cubs Cable Network, make it available in only a few hundred thousand homes and bury it in between Animal Planet 2 and C-SPAN Romania.”
Traditionalist fans fear the Cubs splitting with WGN would further strip away the unique fabric of the team they love. The Cubs insist the financial realities of the game no longer allow for a broadcast deal like the one they’ve shared with WGN since 1948.
“We’ve already had a lot of success broadcasting games on WCIU, in between episodes of ‘The Steve Wilkos Show’ and reruns of ‘King of Queens,’” said Kenney. “The big-wigs at the U really like the way our brand of baseball sets up viewers for the slapstick antics of Kevin James and are willing to pay a premium for that sort of thing.”
Added Kenney: “Trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
