Say goodbye to sports on WGN

[The Ghost of Bob Starr]

I will miss you Hawk.

Get ready to say goodbye to sports on WGN America http://t.co/3DPgxz7M29

[YouthofToday]

I find it hard to believe anybody could miss the atrocious announcing by the Hawk.

[Amazing Larry]

Some things change but the Cubs will always suck.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

WGN is supposedly the reason that the Atlanta Braves wound up in the NL West when the AL and NL split into two divisions. The Cubs insisted on staying in the same division with the rival Cardinals, and somehow they convinced MLB that the news on WGN would be "too late" for their viewers if they played that many west coast games. Never mind that the Braves, who were on WTBS at the time, were in a state with an Atlantic coast and were a time zone earlier.

[DowningRules]

Jeebus!  Who (didn't) proof read that article?!

 

Ligouri, the CEO of Tribune is spinning the reason WGN is phasing sports out.  The truth is, there IS a national market for White Sox and the Cubs and da Bulls.  But Ligouri don't want to pay for the rising price of sports programming.  It's a lot cheaper (and more profitable) to make your own low budget shows these days and sell them to markets domestic and especially foreign. 

 

I wish Ligouri would just tell the truth. 

[nando714]

I used to love as a kid. Having the summer off from school and cubs games at 11am with Harry Caray being the mic.

[LBHalos17]

Hopefully, MLB Net will pick-up the slack on Cubs day-games..  Doubt it tho; they really miss the boat in the off-season, showing their BS list-shows instead of LIVE games around the world.

[The Ghost of Bob Starr]

There are a lot of Cubs band wagoners because of WGN. Games were on every day.

Yes I will miss hawk. I like old school guys who tell stories and not reciting sports anchor jocks with manicured hair , affected voices, and throw out numbers like a roto geek.

Anyone can google numbers and narrate.

I like announcers that tell stories of towel-ass-snapping in the showers, hot foot pranks, and kangaroo courts. And of course, the drunker the better.

Edited June 1, 2014 by SOTO

[ten ocho recon scout]

^yep. Im not a cubs 'fan' at all, but I like them just because I watched so many games in the day growing up.

[disarcina]

wow -- no national WGN tie in to the Cubs -- and Sox.

 

sort of like the de-coupling of WTBS from Atlanta......

 

I think this may hurt the White Sox more than the Cubs -- the Cubs have pretty much always sold out Wrigley Field -- which like Fenway - is pretty much a tourist stop of its own regardless of how the team is doing ---

 

but the White Sox -- I have to believe that the WGN broadcasts help them draw some fans.......

 

and, yes, it's a lot cheaper for the national channel to have schedule of old re-runs and movies and nonsense........even if the viewership goes down so do the expenses so it ends up being a win for the station......

 

this sort of reminds me of (on the radio side) when KMOX dropped the St. Louis Cardinals a few years back -- like WGN and the Cubs and with some of the same personnel (well, Harry Carray, anyway) -- the Cardinals on KMOX was a Midwest staple for more than 50 years -- heck, the popularity of the St. Louis franchise dates to KMOX 50,000 watt spread across the Midwest with Harry Carray announcing the games far and wide back when -- the KMOX/ St. Louis Cardinals de-coupling was a shocker -- so much so -- it only lasted a year or two and now the Cardinals are back on KMOX  where they belong.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

Tribune CEO Peter Liguori told reporters that the Bulls, Cubs and White Sox have little to no national appeal and their advertising amounts to less than one percent of Tribune’s operating profit.

 

The Cubs in particular have considerable national appeal. Their fans show up at road games (Chicagoans both traveling and transplanted) in significant numbers. Like the Braves when they were on WTBS, the Cubs have a national following because of WGN carrying their games into households all across the country. This is doublespeak for "I don't want to pay what the rights are worth." If sports constituted dying programming, we wouldn't have ESPN or Fox 1.

[HaloMagic]

If the rights were worth that much he would be making money by buying them. Clearly he doesn't feel he would.

[Vegas Halo Fan]

If the rights were worth that much he would be making money by buying them. Clearly he doesn't feel he would.

 

Agreed, but that isn't what he said. He said that they have "little to no national appeal", which is easier to contest than saying "It doesn't make financial sense for us to bid on the television rights."

[JAHV76]

This is sad. It was the only way to watch day time baseball before TBS and MLB Network.