SOX, BULLS AND BLACKHAWKS TO LAUNCH CHICAGO SPORTS NETWORK

Starting in October, the Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks and White Sox—three of the city’s five major professional franchises—will play their games on a brand-new regional sports network.

In an embargoed press release, the Chicago Sports Network (CHSN) announced Monday that it will launch this fall with Blackhawks and Bulls preseason games, while the White Sox will make their televised debut in 2025.

NBC Sports Chicago—previously known as Comcast SportsNet Chicago—had been the TV home to the trio, as well as the Chicago Cubs, since 2004. In 2019, the Cubs split from the pack to form their own regional sports network with Sinclair Broadcast Group, while the Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox signed a five-year extension with NBC Sports. That deal expires October 1.

CHSN is a joint venture between the teams and Standard Media, a Nashville, Tenn.-based privately held company that owns local television stations in Rhode Island, Nebraska, Missouri and Kentucky. News of the impending deal was first reported last month by the Chicago Tribune. When asked by Sportico, a spokesperson declined to say how the ownership stakes of CHSN are being divvied up.

Any new regional sports network would have to receive the consent from each of the affiliated pro sports leagues. The spokesperson said “the leagues have approved everything thus far,” but did not specify where in the process that is.

Jason Coyle, who previously served as CEO of Stadium, the Chicago-based online sports TV network, will serve as CHSN’s CEO, according to the release. Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the White Sox and Bulls, purchased a controlling ownership stake in Stadium from Sinclair last year.

CHSN is entering the space at a time of great upheaval among regional sports networks, which includes the collapse and Chapter 11 bankruptcy of Sinclair-owned Diamond Sports Group.

It is also an inauspicious time for CHSN’s future inventory, with the Bulls, Blackhawks and White Sox each struggling of late. Reinsdorf’s Sox currently own the worst record in Major League Baseball, while his Bulls have made the NBA playoffs in only two of the last nine seasons, losing both times in the first round. Despite their on-court mediocrity, the Bulls are still the fifth-most valuable NBA franchise, worth $4.56 billion according to Sportico‘s latest valuations.

The 88-year-old Reinsdorf, for his part, has become a subject of statewide contempt in Illinois, further aroused by his recent appeal for $1 billion in public funds to finance a new baseball stadium for the Sox.

The Blackhawks, meanwhile, have suffered a steep comedown since winning the Stanley Cup three times between 2009 and 2015. Since then, the team has failed to make it past the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and finished the most recent season with the league’s second-worst record. The team’s longtime CEO and chairman, Rocky Wirtz, died unexpectedly last summer, leaving the team in the hands of his son Danny Wirtz.According to The Athletic, the Blackhawks had been exploring their own broadcast offering, as the Cubs have with their Marquee Sports Network. Instead, Wirtz Corporation, which co-owns the United Center along with Reinsdorf, will maintain those ties on the airwaves as well.

In 2003, Reinsdorf, Bill Wirtz (Rocky’s father) and the Tribune Company, then owner of the Cubs, launched Comcast SportsNet Chicago. The channel was renamed NBC Sports Chicago in 2017 following Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal.

A spokesperson for NBC Sports Chicago did not respond to a request for comment.

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