No one’s immune to awkward grocery-store conversations with random strangers, and that includes Chicago Blackhawks defenseman Seth Jones.
Fans have come up to him, saying, “It’s not too easy to watch the games right now,” Jones told the Tribune.
That’s because the majority of viewers within Chicago’s TV market are subscribers of Comcast — or “Xfinity” on their bill — and the cable provider is at a standstill in carriage negotiations with Chicago Sports Network (CHSN), the new network broadcasting Hawks, Bulls and White Sox games.
“No, I can’t fix it,” Jones laughed, “but they were insinuating it, maybe.”
Comcast customers used to be able to watch the teams on NBC Sports Chicago before that network went dark on Sept. 30, and the cable provider hasn’t offered the same deal to the new network because circumstances have changed for both.
CHSN made its feed available over the air for free for anyone who can hook up a digital antenna, or through other pay-TV providers such DirecTV, Astound and, as of Friday, FuboTV.
Comcast has balked at paying CHSN a cut of subscriber fees for programming the network’s giving away to some viewers (about 15% of the market), though it does pay traditional broadcast networks such as ABC and Fox.
Caught in between are many fans in the Chicago area, some who don’t want to switch providers or buy an antenna or who’ve struggled to pick up the signal over the air.
Jones and several other Hawks players say that while they’re focused on hockey, they’re not oblivious to the frustration much of the fan base is feeling.
“You’d think we’d want to make it as easy as possible for our fans to watch their games and watch us perform,” Jones said. “I think as the team gets better here, you want there to be as many eyes as possible.”
Added forward Joey Anderson: “I understand where they’re coming from, because if you’re a fan, you want to watch a game, and it’s unfortunate that it’s a situation we’re in right now.”
Anderson said that unlike Jones, no one has approached him on the street about the impasse, but there’s at least one person inside the United Center who has heard — and received — some of the backlash.
“Look, it doesn’t hurt my personal feelings,” said Hawks Chairman and CEO Danny Wirtz, who’s a partner in CHSN along with White Sox and Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and Standard Media. “I realize that in this position that I’m accountable for delivering for the fans. …
“And I care about the fans. I mean, they’re our customers, and the minute you stop caring about your customers is the minute your product is doomed. And so I care deeply, and I want to see something get resolved, but it is a complicated set of circumstances that we have to resolve.”
When it comes to negotiations, “I’m not at the table,” Wirtz said, adding that CHSN’s negotiating team has been empowered by all the parties involved to work out a deal with Comcast.
Comcast is facing a shrinking customer base, so it’s clinging to exclusivity. Sports teams — not just the Hawks — recognize that the audience continues to fragment among pay-TV providers and streamers, so that teams must strike deals with several distributors to reach the same audience, let along grow it.
“There’s 600,000 residents of the Chicagoland area that rely on antenna for their TV entertainment, and so they are now able to access (Hawks games) for free,” Wirtz said. “So I never want to underestimate that group of our fans and audience, a potential audience that maybe hasn’t been able to access our games before, as well as the other territories that are now part of our expanded network.
“Our goal was always to grow our audience.”
Wirtz insisted that the teams didn’t kick the can down the road with Comcast, knowing for months that NBC Sports Chicago likely would cease operations.
“It’s not a lack of urgency by any means,” he said. “I wish we’d been able to get these things done way in advance. But that is not how, unfortunately, the negotiations and the deals come together.”
Wirtz said nothing was moving on the regional sports network front until Comcast reached a carriage agreement in late July with Diamond Sports Groups, which runs 15 RSNs under the Bally Sports brand.
The deal ended a three-month blackout for the Bally networks, which bumped up to Comcast’s pricier “Ultimate” tier under the new arrangement.
“This is not just two local companies making a deal,” Wirtz said. “We are part of a larger system of media. We’d rather not have to be caught up in that dynamic, but it’s the nature of media.”
The “nature of media” today frustrates many sports fans — and some professional athletes too.
“I find it really annoying how games are always streamed on different things, and all sports are like that now,” Hawks defenseman Connor Murphy said. “It’s just tough, because you expect to just sit down and turn the TV on and it to be there, and now you’ve got to search through apps, and you ‘ve got to subscribe to something, and it’s just inconvenient.”
Murphy’s family already had DirecTV, so his wife is able to watch his games before all the network drama, but he has frustrations as a viewer.
“I like watching soccer and Premier League stuff, and I don’t really feel like getting Peacock or getting the other things, the apps,” Murphy said. “It’s not that I can’t or won’t, it’s just that I’m sick and tired of going through the work of subscribing and getting a bunch of spam emails after I sign up for something.
“It’s like, I’m already paying good money for a cable provider, I’d like for it to just be in one place.”
He’s preaching to the choir as far as forward Jason Dickinson is concerned.
“I don’t love the (NFL) football situation because it drives me nuts that I’m subscribed to YouTubeTV, Peacock, Disney, Hulu, just so I can watch one game on Sunday and then one game on Monday,” he said. “I’m paying, like, 90 bucks a month for YouTubeTV? And I thought I got every game on Sunday, and then it turns out I’m blacked out for two of the games because they’re within my network.
“If I could subscribe to just get all the sports, who wouldn’t do that? If all the leagues could come together and just be like — maybe it’s 300 bucks a month, you get every single sport — a lot of sports fans would do that.”
But those are national issues, as leagues carve up pieces of the TV schedule to dish to the highest bidder.
The 29-year-old Georgetown, Ontario, native is old enough to remember when watching his favorite teams as a kid was simpler.
“That’s how it was when I grew up,” Dickinson said. “I remember being able to just turn the TV on and a (Toronto Maple) Leafs game was on.”
Dickinson said he understands Comcast’s position as a business that needs a solid customer base but also the teams’ and leagues’ need to reach more people and convert more fans.
“How do we make it the most accessible to the most amount of people?” he said. “I don’t know what the right answer is, but it sucks that this is an issue.”
When told an option to watch Hawks games now includes antennas, Dickinson’s eyes bugged: “Like the bunny ears? I haven’t seen those in like 25 years, at least.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to get an antenna,” he said. “Does Best Buy sell that?
Anderson, the Hawks forward, said ultimately the method may not matter: If the Hawks win more games, they’ll draw more viewers, however they get there.
“It starts with good hockey and doing our job on the ice,” he said. “I believe that. So that’s what we can control, at least as a player, and that’s what I think we should focus on.”
