Perhaps WGN-TV and the Cubs can still salvage their relationship, probably with more of a reduction of telecasts but with for more money. Channel 9 was paying the Cubs around $20 million a year during this past contract, and another $40 million a year in cable rights from CSN Chicago...after seeing what the Dodgers recently got for their new TV deal with Time Warner Cable, and what Fox Sports is currently paying the Angels and Rangers yearly, you could understand why the Cubs want a bigger rights deal.
I think, probably like a lot of other folks, that WGN-TV losing the Cubs could have an adverse effect on WGN America. We all pretty much know that Cubs telecasts are WGN-A's biggest ratings draw, and with all due respect to the Bulls and White Sox, the Cubbies made the superstation what it is today. Each passing year, WGN-A is drifting more and more away from its Chicago counterpart...and if they do indeed lose the Cubs, they may as well scrap everything left on the channel that's Chicago-centric--the newscasts, Bulls, and the Pale Hose, and certainly completely re-brand the channel. I know Tribune has plans to add more exclusive and original programming to WGN America, and losing the Cubs may futher acclerate those plans.
Before our family moved permanently to Los Angeles near the end of the 80s, I grew up in Rockford, so we got a lot of Cubs telecasts locally (for years on WTVO, and later the telecasts moved to WIFR starting in '88) and on WGN over-the-air...fuzzy signal and all. It was one of the ways my grandmother and I bonded, watching games with Harry and Steve and hoping the Cubbies can win more often than they lost. I don't watch as many Cubs telecasts as I used to, and I don't have an actual favorite team (even living in Dodger Country), but I do follow baseball quite a bit.
Sadly, everything must come to an end...nobody can imagine WGN Television and the Cubs parting ways, but it can happen and life does go on...
