An urgent email from CHSN arrived in my inbox at 6:30 a.m., awakening me with a welcome ping.
Finally, the newly created sports network for the Chicago Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox would be announcing its agreement with Comcast, just in time for Wednesday’s Bulls’ opener.
All the angst over missing the start of the Hawks and Bulls’ seasons was for nothing, and my antenna-reliant days of watching our legacy sports teams would be over.
Alas, it was only an announcement that the new station, Chicago Sports Network, also known as the Chicago Haugh Sports Network, was adding another David Haugh show to its Haugh-packed schedule. A simulcast of WSCR-AM 670s “Mully & Haugh” radio show would give the station three Haugh shows, confirming his position as heir apparent to former NBC Chicago Sports host David Kaplan as the ubiquitous Chicago sports media expert.
If Haugh decides to shave his head and come up with a catchphrase, you’ll know the transition is complete.
“This simulcast provides a new way for fans to experience the show,” the press release said. “As part of the partnership, CHSN will be allowed to cut into the live radio show whenever they want to for breaking news.”
That was good enough for me. I love breaking sports news in the morning, so I immediately fired up the antenna to tune in, just in time to catch CHSN President Jason Coyle getting interviewed about the fledgling station’s first three weeks.
Coyle called it “a great day for Chicago sports,” which seemed like a stretch since the Bears were off this week and none of the other teams were playing Monday. Haugh said they loved the partnership, no surprise.
But then they got to the nitty gritty.
When was CHSN going to get a deal with Comcast to allow most Hawks and Bulls fans the opportunity to watch their games?
Coyle went into a long-winded answer before saying they’d made two offers to Comcast and were “extremely flexible … at significant discounts to ensure access, and that prices don’t go up for any fans.” But not only was there no agreement, he said they had “not gotten a single offer back” from Comcast.
Imagine Comcast making you wait without giving a reason. It’s almost as though it’s their company motto.
So why would they ignore CHSN’s “extremely flexible” offer? Coyle said he didn’t want to speculate on their motivation, but rejected the idea Comcast didn’t want to pay for something the station was already giving away for free to anyone with an antenna.
Whatever the reason, the Hawks already have played six games without a single Comcast viewer, and they’ve missed one Connor Bedard goal and a Tyler Bertuzzi-ignited 10-man brawl during the third period of Saturday’s Buffalo Sabres game, where analyst Darren Pang shouted: “Everybody is in!”
Well, everybody but most Hawks fans.
Barring a last-minute agreement, Bulls fans will miss out on watching their new team in semi-rebuild mode, which begins with the regular season opener Wednesday in New Orleans.
CHSN wants fans to “demand” Comcast carry their teams, but that’s not going to happen. Show co-host Mike Mulligan put the blame squarely on Comcast and asked why the company was denying people their games.
It’s easy to blame Comcast, which, after all, is a cable company. Americans’ hatred for cable providers has now been ingrained in us for decades. That famous “Seinfeld” episode where Kramer sticks it to the cable repairman who makes him wait forever for no reason is already 28 years old.
But another way to look at it is this: Why didn’t Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf and Hawks Chairman Danny Wirtz keep NBC Sports Chicago going until they were sure they could start a new station with the largest cable company in the area carrying their games?
They surely could have extended the contract for a couple of years while they tried to read the TV landscape, but opted to cut their own cord without a guarantee the new station would be accessible to all their fans.
If this goes on for long, it will go down as a colossal blunder by Reinsdorf and Wirtz, whose Bulls and Hawks, respectively, will pay the price with attendance drops at the United Center. That new car smell of the Bedard era will wear off eventually, and the Matas Buzelis bandwagon hasn’t even begun yet.
It’s a critical season for both franchises, and a lack of access for most viewers would be a catastrophe. A worst-case scenario — no agreement for the entire season — would mean few Chicagoans cared enough to even complain. There also are many other things in the world to worry about than the Bulls or Blackhawks.
When Coyle was done talking on the simulcast, the station went into a commercial break — and stayed there for the next hour, repeating an infomercial for a Medicare provider over and over again. Viewers missed an interview with baseball insider Jon Heyman that included discussions on Reinsdorf possibly selling the team, the search for a Sox manager and other topics.
I asked why those segments weren’t included in the simulcast but was informed it ended at 9 a.m. with an hour left in the radio show. After the infomercials, the station aired another repeat of the Hawks-Sabres game. It did not cut in for breaking news on Nico Hoerner’s flexor tendon surgery.
At the end of the “Seinfeld” episode, the cable guy stands outside Kramer’s apartment and offers an apology for making him wait.
“I don’t know why we do it,” he says. “I guess we just enjoy taking advantage of people. Well, that’s going to change.”
There’s still hope for a big hug between CHSN and Comcast. But they better hurry up before fans give up on waiting and find something more interesting to watch.
