Cubs/Sox and TV Question

[leonbt]

Even though I am loathe to admit it (and have attempted to break the addiction) I follow the cubs. That notwithstanding I have always wondered about certain TV scheduling for both Chicago teams but mainly the cub.

What business sense does it make to show any games on WCIU? This is a local Chicago station-for you out of towners that cannot be seen by people who live even an hour outside of the city. Why would a team (or rather the advertisers) who has a very large national audience want to diminish the viewership on any given day? This was especially baffling b/c of their WGN affiliation. Obviously, WCIU gains a benefit from showing either the cub or sox. But what possible benefit do the advertisers get? Or the teams? Or anybody for that matter. In other words, why show any game on a channel with such a small audience-when there are viable options (WGN or CSN) with such a larger market share?

[NOTTHOR]

Simple. People outside of the Chicago/Rockford/Aurora metropolitan area who follow the Cubs are retards with sub 80 IQs (hence they follow the Cubs) who have no discretionary income to spend on goods and services advertised on television.

Plus, the Trib used to own (I don't know if they still do) part of CSN. Between CSN, CSN plus (on RCN and Comcast), WGN, Fox and ESPN, there should be no problem televising virtually all the Cub and Sox games nationally for people with a sports package, but my guess is that the U pays a little extra coin for its handful of Cub games a year as a way to get its top brass an awesome suite at Wrigley and time to hang with the top brass and players within the Cub organization. It's just the big fish in a little pond trying to act like badasses. WGN is also probably reluctant to cut into quality re-runs of Everybody Hates Chris and Judge Judy, whereas the U will just flip its quality programming, including Judge Joe Brown and Frasier, over to MeTV on channel 14 or whatever, but to my knowledge WGN doesn't have a local fallback channel to take care of their key demographic of unemployed ladies who sit around watching TV all day.

The ultimate issue is that MLB is years behind the NFL in terms of its content distribution rights and blackout rules. The bad guys here aren't WCIU's management (shit, I would do the same thing they do to get suites and access to the teams), but rather Bud Selig and his braindead cronies.

[leonbt]

I agree that WCIU is making the appropriate business moves and I do not begrudge them. I just don't get the economic sense for anyone else involved. Surely, WCIU doesn't have enough coin to outbid other major stations for the rights to games.

If the cub brass had any sense they would stroll on over to Steinbrenner and ask him exactly how he set up his YES network and do the same; but, the cub organization is about as slow brained as they come.

Prediction cub finish 10+ games out of playoff contention and bring back all the same players, manager, and management and argue that all we need is for everyone to have career years. It will feel like deja vu all over again.

[NotMyKid]

The games on ESPN espn.go.com/mlb/schedule

FYI- if you have DirecTV the extra innings package is free all week long so you can watch any game you want, throw in the extra Masters channels this week and is just another example why DirecTV kicks the shit out of Dish and F'ing Mediacom.

[leonbt]

Thanks for the info (unfortunately no matter what channel it is on I will be toiling at work so I cannot watch).

[101]

It all revolved (like most things) around the all mighty dollar.

If you're WCIU, you hold firm that you want some of the Cubs games, or you don't provide your content to Comcast. Simple as that.

I believe they were all on WGN intially, but then in the content wars, everyone holds all of their content hostage and wants a piece of the action.

[leonbt]

Indeed 101 that does make sense. Then the only question is what WCIU content would comcast (or any other outlet) want?

[NOTTHOR]

Apr 5, 2010 12:41:20 GMT -6 101 said:

It all revolved (like most things) around the all mighty dollar.

If you're WCIU, you hold firm that you want some of the Cubs games, or you don't provide your content to Comcast. Simple as that.

I believe they were all on WGN intially, but then in the content wars, everyone holds all of their content hostage and wants a piece of the action.

Tribune owned part of CSN, thus it made sense for them to split the games up between CSN and WGN to bolster the value of their investment in CSN. CSN has Bull, Blackhawks, Cubs and Sox games and is probably a pretty valuable business right now.

[NOTTHOR]

Apr 5, 2010 10:58:31 GMT -6 leonbt said:

If the cub brass had any sense they would stroll on over to Steinbrenner and ask him exactly how he set up his YES network and do the same; but, the cub organization is about as slow brained as they come.

The Cubs were actually ahead of Steinbrenner - Trib owned WGN and Cubs before Steinbrenner started YES, so in a sense he has just reverse engineered their model (Cubs were owned by media company - same with Braves - Yanks owned by a guy who then formed a media company). If WCIU is offering an extra $50k or something per game for a dozen games, why the hell wouldn't the Cubs take it? That's all that's going on, the U is paying a little more for a few games to bolster the swagger of its micropenis possessing management.

With Trib's BK and the sale of the Cubs, I wouldn't be surpised to see the new owners try to form a new network as soon as their current deals expire.

You coming to that party? Is it this week? If so, you can't crash at my place because everything is packed bince I'm moving. If it's next week, you can crash at my place and we can go out in the Triangle bince I'll be living right on the edge of it. The cougars will not stand a chance, especially if the old man comes, too.