Opening day for the White Sox is two weeks away and there is still no carriage agreement for the fledgling Chicago Sports Network to air on Comcast, essentially blacking out a rite of spring for 1 million pay-TV viewers in the city and suburbs.
DirecTV has come up with an alternative option for Chicago sports fans with a new local streaming package – MyHome Team – just in time for the baseball season.
MyHome Team features 20 regional sports networks, including the Cubs on Marquee Sports Network and the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks on CHSN. Chicago viewers would be able to watch all local games, in addition to having access to sports news and features on out-of-market RSNs.
The new local sports offering, announced Thursday, costs $19.99 per month as an add-on to DirecTV’s MySports skinny bundle, which launched in January in 24 markets including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia with a full roster of national sports networks.
“MyHome Team delivers unmatched flexibility and control for a local sports enthusiast to tune in and watch their teams whenever they want, whether that’s all season long or during portions of the season,” Vince Torres, chief marketing officer at DirecTV, said in a news release.
Subscribing to the MySports package, which is required to get the local sports add-on, costs $69.99 per month and features ESPN, Fox Sports, MLB Network, NBA TV, NHL Network, NFL Network, Big Ten Network and other national cable channels. In Chicago, it also includes local broadcast stations WMAQ-Ch. 5, WLS- Ch.7 and WFLD-Ch.32.
The combined $90-per-month local and national sports bundle is about $25 less than DirecTV’s lowest-priced Choice package, which runs about $115 per month after a discounted three-month introductory rate.
The White Sox, coming off the most losses in a season in major league history, are set to begin anew against the Los Angeles Angeles on March 27 at Rate Field. The Cubs are traveling to Tokyo to open the MLB season against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday, and start their stateside schedule March 27 at the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The broadcast picture for both Chicago teams remains a little fuzzy, however, with their respective local networks engaged in ongoing carriage negotiations with Comcast.
A joint venture between the Bulls, Blackhawks, White Sox and Nashville-based Standard Media, the Chicago Sports Network supplanted NBC Sports Chicago, the 20-year-old regional sports network whose broadcast rights expired in September.
CHSN went live in October on pay-TV platforms DirecTV and Astound, and over the air with WJYS-Ch. 62 in Chicago. It subsequently added streaming service FuboTV and rolled out its own direct-to-consumer streaming app, but has yet to reach a carriage agreement with Comcast, turning the network’s inaugural Bulls and Blackhawks campaigns into a lost season for a huge swath of Chicago-area viewers.
Now the Comcast impasse threatens to keep the White Sox off the air on the largest pay-TV provider in the Chicago market, a potentially devastating blow to the fans, the team and the new regional sports network.
A Comcast spokesperson this week said there were “no updates” to the negotiations with CHSN.
Meanwhile, Marquee, which launched in 2020, has remained on Comcast through a series of short-term extensions after its inaugural carriage agreement expired Sept. 30. A Marquee spokesperson did not return a request for comment.
The Cubs president of business operations, Crane Kenney, told the Tribune last week he is “optimistic” Marquee and Comcast will reach an agreement to keep the team on the air.
Sources familiar with the negotiations said Comcast is looking to move both Marquee and CHSN to its more expensive Ultimate cable programming tier, something it has done with other regional sports networks across the U.S. in recent months.
The Ultimate tier costs an additional $20 per month – on top of the $20.25 regional sports network fee Comcast charges Chicago-area subscribers each month. Comcast has been issuing a monthly $8.85 credit to partially offset that fee during the ongoing carriage negotiations with CHSN.
Whether Comcast reaches agreements with Marquee and CHSN before Opening Day remains to be seen, but DirecTV’s new MyHome Team streaming package may provide the impetus and the platform for some frustrated Chicago sports fans to finally cut the cable cord.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
