When the Chicago Sports Network launched one year ago, the White Sox were coming off the losingest season in baseball history, the Bulls and the Blackhawks were starting preseason play with dim playoff aspirations, and 1 million Comcast subscribers couldn’t see any of it.
It was a challenging rookie season for the fledgling regional sports network.
One year later, the picture looks a little brighter. CHSN struck a deal with Comcast in June and now has full pay-TV distribution in Chicago, enabling more fans to watch the White Sox lose 102 times this season — a 19-game improvement.
Meanwhile, the Bulls and Blackhawks both begin play anew this month after what was a lost season for Comcast subscribers last year.
“The content is fully available, the teams are in the hopeful preseason mode and the fans are excited,” said Mike McCarthy, the new president and CEO of CHSN. “We have nowhere to go but up with this.”
The price is certainly going to go up for Comcast subscribers who want to tune in. The cable giant put CHSN on its more expensive Ultimate tier, which costs an additional $20 per month — on top of a $20.25 regional sports fee.
Getting Comcast subscribers to pay up for the Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks, after a season-long blackout and years of on-field mediocrity, may take more than a channel number on the cable box, according to Marc Ganis, a Chicago-based sports marketing consultant.
“Tiers that cost extra over basic cable are always deterrents to subscriptions and reduce viewership,” Ganis said. “That’s why regional sports networks have fought so hard to remain in basic cable.”
Beyond full distribution, Ganis said it will take winning teams to make CHSN must-watch TV — especially at a higher price point. But after a rough first year, the pressure is on CHSN to get the ball rolling now.
McCarthy, a veteran sports executive who previously headed MSG Network in New York before serving as the inaugural general manager at the Cubs’ Marquee Sports Network when it launched in 2020, knows a little something about building a regional sports network.
A consultant for CHSN since its inception, he became its chief operating officer in June. Last month, McCarthy replaced Jason Coyle at the helm, and is gearing up for what he hopes will be a more successful second year for CHSN.
A joint venture between the Sox, Bulls, Blackhawks and Nashville, Tennessee-based Standard Media, CHSN went live Oct.1, 2024, on pay-TV platforms DirecTV and Astound, and over the air on WJYS-Ch. 62. It soon added streaming service FuboTV and its own direct-to-consumer streaming app.
But CHSN was blacked out from the jump on Comcast, the market’s largest pay-TV provider, leaving the cable giant’s 1 million Chicago-area subscribers in the dark for the entire Bulls and Blackhawks seasons.
CHSN finally struck a carriage deal with Comcast in June — well into the White Sox season — putting the sports network on the Ultimate tier, which costs subscribers an additional $20 per month. Marquee also shifted to the Ultimate tier last week at the conclusion of the Cubs’ regular season, with the team moving to national TV for the playoffs.
Comcast has shifted more than 20 regional sports networks across the U.S. to its more expensive Ultimate tier over the past year, seeking additional revenue as cord-cutting and streaming eat away at what was once cable TV’s cash cow — live sports programming.
More than half of Chicago-area Comcast subscribers already pay for the Ultimate tier, which features a wide array of sports and entertainment channels not included in the basic plan.
While the additional $20 charge — on top of Comcast’s monthly $20.25 regional sports network fee — may be an impediment for some subscribers, it is finally a level playing field for CHSN and Marquee on the cable giant. And the drawing power of the Cubs may actually benefit the rival network, Ganis said.
“Having Marquee on the same tier is going to be very helpful to them,” Ganis said. “Marquee will bring a lot of subscribers who might not have purchased the tier if it was just CHSN.”
CHSN is already seeing increased viewership with its full pay-TV distribution. From the All-Star Game on July 15 through the end of the season, White Sox ratings were down just 5% from the team’s final season on its previous TV home, NBC Sports Chicago, the network said.
That still leaves plenty of upside, however. Last year, when the White Sox lost a record 121 games, the TV audience on NBC Sports Chicago averaged a paltry 0.7 rating, according to Nielsen data.
With cord-cutting shrinking the pay-TV audience for regional sports networks, both CHSN and Marquee are increasingly relying on their $19.99 per month direct-to-consumer streaming apps to reach sports viewers in Chicago.
Marquee launched its streaming app in July 2023, while CHSN rolled out its app, which costs $29.99 for all three teams, in November.
“We’re expecting a lot of growth on it,” McCarthy said. “And it’s sort of the antidote to anybody saying, ‘Well, how do I get it? I can’t get it.’ Everybody can get it.”
One option missing this year for CHSN viewers is the free over-the-air broadcasts it touted at the network’s launch. When CHSN struck a deal with Comcast in June, it abruptly pulled the plug on local TV affiliates in Chicago, Rockford, Peoria, and Fort Wayne and South Bend, Indiana.
CHSN did, however, simulcast seven games on WCUI-Ch. 26 from July through September, including the crosstown series with the Cubs, boosting exposure for the new network.
“In hindsight, maybe they could have done more of that,” Ganis said. “I think they needed to get the games on.”
Despite the protracted Comcast blackout, CHSN achieved some critical success during its first year, earning 12 Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award nominations.
CHSN is bringing back its full slate of programs for year two, including “The Chicago Lead,” the network’s signature 6 p.m. roundup and lead-in to nightly play-by-play broadcasts. It also recently renewed its simulcast of the “Mully & Haugh” morning show on WSCR-AM 670.
Whether Comcast subscribers pay up to watch three losing teams after a year of finding something else to do on game nights, remains to be seen.
“Unfortunately, out of sight, out of mind, plays a role here,” Ganis said. “If one or more of the teams does not break out either by record or have a breakout star, each year becomes more and more difficult to recapture the fans.”
McCarthy remains confident that CHSN is positioned to succeed, citing die-hard Chicago sports fans as the basis for his optimism.
“A winning team,” McCarthy said. “It sounds like a pretty good business plan to me. But I’ve never seen a market where the fan base is as loyal as it is, win, lose or draw, as here in Chicago.”
David Perlman, a Comcast subscriber in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood, was unable to pull in the free over-the-air TV signal to watch CHSN last fall, and resigned himself to waiting for a carriage deal to get done. When CHSN finally came on Comcast in June, he was pleasantly surprised to find that he was already on the Ultimate tier and able to watch.
As a Cubs fan, he didn’t tune in much during the rest of the White Sox season. But Perlman said he “probably” would have paid an extra $20 a month, if necessary, to watch the Bulls and Blackhawks this season.
“The Bulls look like they might have a pretty good team. I love the Blackhawks,” said Perlman, 76. “I lived one season without them, I wouldn’t want to live more.”