Chicago Cubs 2016 Broadcast Schedule Released

The Chicago Cubs quietly released their 2016 regular season broadcast schedule. Not much has changed since last season but there were a few surprises.

The Chicago Cubs broadcast schedule came out a little earlier than normal this year and also without much press so far. The TV networks remain unchanged with CSN getting 85 games, WGN getting 40, ABC getting 25 and WPWR getting 5.

National networks, ESPN and FOX, will also get two and five games respectively.

On the radio side, the Cubs games have moved down the dial WSCR 670 The Score. This is where the Cubs radio home will be for the next six years and it should be much of an improvement from WBBM 780.

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While WBBM’s coverage of the Bears takes up practically the entire Sunday morning and afternoon, the Cubs coverage did not get much in terms of pre-game and post-game shows. It was rather simple and they never took fans calls after the games.

That’s about to change, however. Cubs pre-game and post-game host, Mark Grote, announced on his Facebook page the changes.

Grote stated that the post-game show will be doubled and will feature taking fans calls. He also stated the fans calls will be taken during rain delays. As for the pre-game, Len Kasper, Bruce Levine, and Chris Bosio will all be regular guests.

Len Kasper is an interesting addition to the Cubs radio pre-game seeing as he will also have TV pre-game duties to do as well. As you can see, though,

The Score is devoting much more attention to the Cubs than WBBM did and pre and post-games will probably be similar to what they were like when WGN Radio had the radio rights.

You can go to this link for the full broadcast schedule, but one surprise this year is that ABC 7 Chicago will get the season opener against the Angels on April 4th. This is a 9:05 p.m. start time and the game will also be on ESPN2.

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WGN’s first game will be on Friday, April 8th against the D’backs and they will also get the Cubs home opener against the Reds on April 11th. WGN also gets the regular season finale on October 2nd in Cincinnati.

FOX gets their first game on Saturday, May 21st against the Giants. As for the White Sox series, ABC gets one game, WGN gets one game and CSN gets two games. However, like in years past, the two CSN games will likely be on WGN as well, just with the Sox broadcast team.

The Cubs have yet to release the affiliated stations for the 70 over-the-air games. Since the WGN and ABC games are only in the Chicago market, those outside the market and in other neighboring states could get the games via a local station. Chances are that the stations that carried games last year will be on board this year as well, but that hasn’t been fully squared away yet.

Should be another fun season to watch and like last year, it might be a struggle to find exactly where they are on TV with so many stations have rights to the games.