WGN, Chicago Cubs will announce new multi-year deal soon

When you think of Chicago Cubs baseball, you can’t help but think about the television network WGN, a partner that has been broadcasting games for a very long time. In fact, the relationship between the two parties dates back to April 1948.

Knowing that there was a chance that the Cubs would no longer be shown on WGN as a whole after the 2014 campaign was very disappointing. Most fans, including some of the staff here at Cubbies Crib, grew up watching episodes of ‘Bozo the Clown’ before the Cubs took the field. From Jack Brickhouse and his “Hey Hey” call, to hearing the wild commentary from legendary broadcast man Harry Caray, to his grandson Chip alongside Steve Stone, there have been multiple personalities that have grown on fans throughout the years.

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Last November, the Cubs decided to opt out of their television contract with WGN after the team was searching for a higher annual value from games that were currently on air.

Now according to MLB’s Bruce Levine on Twitter, the Cubs and WGN will in fact announce a brand new multi-year deal in which 45 games will be broadcast this upcoming season. The Chicago Tribune’s own Robert Channick is reporting that it will be a five-year deal is only for Ch. 9, not WGN America as they are heading in a totally different direction from local sports programming.

WGN reportedly paid around $250,000 per game last season while losing around $200,000 according to Channick.

Besides the soon-to-be announced deal with WGN, the Cubs currently have a 25-game deal in place with ABC-7, with 80-to-90 games going to CSN Chicago. With the team considering the possibility of creating their very own network in the future, they could very well opt out of this deal before the contract is up – but that may not happen until 2020.

It definitely feels great knowing that the Cubs will remain on Ch. 9 over the next five-years, but it will take some time getting used to hearing them on WBBM-AM 780 instead of WGN-AM 720. Either way, the future for this team is looking very bright.

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