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Chicago Cubs teaming with Sinclair for new sports network
- Thread starter philosofy
- Start date
Pretty soon DirecTV is going to need another whole satellite just to handle the regional sports nets.
FSN Chicago (the successor to the original SportsVision/Sportschannel Chicago) shut down years ago, when Comcast took over the local teams' game rights. It'll be interesting if Comcast refuses to allocate a channel to them, at least at the start.
what does WGN put on now? more news? bozo reboot?
Could a token number of games be "farmed out" to OTA TV as crumbs to people who can't afford to pay for TV, the way a few Yankees and Mets games are in New York?
don't be surprised if they move the radio broadcasts to SiriusXM or a paid stream
IIRC, their radio contract with Entercomm/The Score runs through the 2022 season. Even after that, a move to anything other than broadcast radio would be the dumbest thing the Cubs could do. Out of sight/sound, out of mind. See also: White Sox, Sportsvision (1982-84).
It's also available via "paid stream," via either MLB Gameday Audio or included with TuneIn Plus. But I think he meant that the Cubs will remove themselves from broadcast radio, something I can't see happening, at least in the short-term.
Money is money. As long as they get the money they want, and they're happy with the coverage, I see no reason why they'd want to remove their content from ANY platform. The goal of content owners is to have multiple revenue streams from the same content.
Theoretically that could happen but all indications are that the new Cubs network will carry all Cub games that are not nationally televised. Same thing with the White Sox with their new TV contract. Over the air local baseball telecasts have become almost extinct. The few teams that still have them it is a very limited number. Fewer than the 21 Yankees games and 25 Mets games shown on WPIX. The Cubs and White Sox were the two teams that still aired a large number of over the air games but obviously that will change in 2020. It will be weird for WGN not to have any baseball at all in 2020 with both the Cubs and White Sox going exclusively cable especially considering I believe that they have carried the Cubs for about 70 years.
I don't see baseball teams taking their games off of broadcast radio in the foreseeable future unless they have no other alternative. Although Oakland came very close this season to looking at other alternatives because they had difficulty finding a station to air the games but finally came to an agreement with a radio station shortly before spring training began. The only sport I believe where several teams have gone almost exclusively to online radio streaming is hockey. Almost all of the Devils games are online only with only a few airing on WFAN. Same deal with the Islanders except I believe they air all of their games on a college station but that isn't going to help most people. I think the Los Angeles Kings are exclusively online and there might be one or two other teams that offer at least some games online only.
Hockey is the only major sport where you don't have to pay to listen to the radio broadcasts online. Baseball, football and basketball you have to pay to listen to the radio broadcasts online. They are controlled by the leagues. I have had MLB TV for quite a few years and if you purchase it you get the radio broadcasts included. Although you can just buy the radio if you choose to do that. Not sure what it costs per year but I don't think it costs that much. I think it is the same deal with the NBA. MLB TV costs 120.00 this year which is still a bargain if you love baseball like I do.
But baseball is the one sport where radio rights are still very valuable. People will listen in their backyards, in their car and on the beach. That is an advantage of being a spring and summer sport. People are not always home to watch the games on TV. How can you ask a 80 year old man who has been listening to games on the radio for almost his entire life to listen to the games on a computer or phone because they are not going to be broadcast on the radio anymore? Some people rely on the radio for their baseball for a variety of reasons. They might be visually challenged or can't afford cable TV.
Chris Carlin of WFAN this week said something very interesting this week that I didn't know. He said his company Entercom only pays right fees for baseball and no other sports. The other sports they carry the team buys time on the station to carry the games and then handles all the advertising. So for the Yankees and Mets they pay for the rights but not for the Giants, Nets, Devils and Islanders. This tells me that radio rights for sports other than baseball are a losing proposition. Even in baseball the radio rights might not be a money maker especially if the team is bad. I did read that WOR lost money on the Mets contract and that is why they chose not to renew at least at the same price they were paying and is the main reason the games are now on WCBS.
You have to pay for Sirius don't you? I don't think you can listen to a baseball game online for free at least you shouldn't be able to. You either have to purchase Sirius, Tune In Plus MLB TV or Gameday Audio. Stations that carry major league baseball that broadcast online are supposed to black out the broadcasts because they are controlled by MLB. WFAN online switches to CBS Sports Radio when the Yankees are playing and WCBS online stays with their all news format when the Mets are playing. Online they can broadcast the pre and post game shows but not the games. And it is the same for spring training games as it is for regular season.
But there may be a way to listen to major league baseball games online for free. There used to be a website called free baseball on the radio or something like that. I don't even know if it is still around but what this website did was listed all the stations that belong to the various teams radio networks that broadcast online with links to the stations websites and a daily schedule so you could see if you could get the broadcast off an affiliate station All the network stations are supposed to black out the games online but if it is a small station they might either forget to do it or maybe might not even know they are supposed to do it I would not recommend trying to listen to a game doing that. You might go through dozens of stations and not find one airing the game online. And if MLB found out a station was airing major league baseball games on their online stream trust me they would put a stop to it. And another issue is sometimes network stations don't air the entire schedule. For instance they might only air weekend games or don't air weekday day games or don't air other games for various reasons. Sometimes a conflict with another sporting event they are airing.
Years ago, there was a station on the Yankees network that "went rogue" and kept streaming games long after all the other stations had complied with the MLB edict. I believe it was the Watertown, NY, affiliate, WIRY. The streams lasted a season or two before the station finally gave in.
Of course, there are plenty of foreign-based (usually eastern European and Scandinavian) streaming sites that US rights holders and authorities are seemingly powerless to go after that stream TV of every MLB game, but i've never seen such a site featuring radio broadcasts.
The site is still around.
freebaseballradio.com/
It is more pot luck than anything else. You click on all the stations listed as being on a team's network and hope you find one that is streaming the game. My guess is you probably won't find many because odds are if they were doing it they would have been caught by now. But it could be possible that if it is a small station they might not know the rules and MLB might not find out And if they depend on a human to push a button it is possible on a given day it might not happen because somebody will forget to do it. As for the Watertown station MLB must have found out and then blew the whistle on them. They can't have people getting something for free that other people are paying for. That wouldn't be fair. If you purchase either MLB TV or Gameday Audio you will get the radio broadcasts for every team and for radio there are no blackouts like there are for TV. You live in CT like I do right? I am curious as to how you found out the Watertown, NY station was streaming the Yankees games illegally.
You bring up an interesting point about the foreign based streaming sites. I think they are peer to peer. People from mostly outside the United States download the games from either MLB TV or Extra Innings and then they can streamed by anybody from the website. There are a lot of issues with that. If the person stops downloading the game before it is over you are out of luck. Plus there is often a lot of buffering and the quality of the stream can be poor. Plus you risk infecting your computer with a virus. And if the people are doing this from another country there is little if anything MLB can do to stop it. MLB is not stupid. They know this is going on but are powerless to stop it. If you love baseball and want to watch all of the games you are probably better off just getting MLB TV.
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