WGN Sports aired their last baseball broadcast this past weekend for both the Chicago Cubs and White Sox. It ends a 72-year of sports being aired on WGN which included baseball, hockey, and basketball. Channel 9 superstation is the main reason why all Chicago's sports teams have the national prominence that they do.
Chicago Cubs baseball and WGN have been simultaneous with one another for generations. Starting in 2020, the Cubs will have their own channel to air all their games which is the Marquee Network. It's ironic that the team that built its national fanbase through a local superstation that aired freely across the country will now have its games broadcast through a network that will need to be subscribed to. The partnership that began in 1947 aided both as it put both on the map when it came to the sports landscape.
Cubs baseball on WGN has led to all of their broadcasters to have long and successful careers. Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray are legendary announcers of the game because of their many years spent calling Cubs games. With a national audience, every game, announcers like Thom Brennaman, Chip Caray, and Len Kasper all have gone on to work Fox Saturday Baseball games because of their time calling games on WGN.
Where the Cubs had a long-lasting relationship with WGN, the White Sox, on the other hand, had an on-again-off-again relationship with Channel 9. Their most recent and longest partnership began in 1990 and went until 2019. Before that, the White Sox were ahead of their time in trying to broadcast their games via cable for financial purposes. Since the team was purchased by Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn in 1982, the White Sox have gone through several different cable channels to broadcast their games.
It is an extensive list that includes several now-defunct stations that are Sports Vision, Sports Channel, Fox Sports Net, and Comcast Sports Net with NBC Sports Chicago being the sole provider of White Sox games starting next season. Again WGN's superstation capability to broadcast across the country is what helped the White Sox gain national exposure, especially in the 1990s. America got to see quality Sox teams that featured All-Stars Frank Thomas, Robin Ventura, Albert Belle, Jack McDowell, and later on Magglio Ordonez and Paul Konerko. It also helped broadcaster Ken Harrelson gain the prominent fame that he has today.
Chicago Bulls basketball wouldn't be as prominent nationally without WGN during the Michael Jordan era. The nation fell in love with Jordan and the Bulls, not just because of the championships and all the games of the week featured on the NBA on NBC, but because of all the games on WGN. The broadcast team of Wayne Larrivee and Johnny Red Kerr's love and excitement for Jordan and the Bulls made it so hard for anyone to root against them. Where Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors are somewhat despised for being a dynasty now, the same could not be said for the Bulls dynasty of the 90s.
For the Chicago Blackhawks, WGN had a different role for them. When the team began to air home games again in the late 2000s, their games couldn't be televised nationally. WGN's role was more of a bridge to making amends through nostalgia. Many old-time Hawks fans of the 1960s and 70s grew up watching their favorite hockey team on WGN. Similar to the White Sox, the Blackhawks ownership saw value in cable providers in the 1980s which hurt the team's television exposure. Channel 9 allowed the Blackhawks and their fans to come together during the most important time in the team's storied history.
For what Chicago sports have become, they would not be anything with the local channel 9 to get them there. It just wasn't the teams, but the production of each game from the different camera shots to the pre and post-game shows, to the memorable voices. Fans knew that they could find their teams on at a set time no matter what when the game was on Channel 9. The Cubs home games on Friday afternoon, the White Sox late-night west coast road games, Saturday night was for the Bulls and Sunday night for the Blackhawks.
It rips at the heart that starting in October Chicago Sports will no longer be on basic cable television after so many decades. To where each team took advantage of the superstation ability to reach the whole country, they soon looked elsewhere once leagues implemented new television deals that restricted the Channel 9's national broadcasts. It isn't the national fans that miss out, but the local fans who still will watch the games, but won't be able to enjoy the games on their beloved WGN.
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