Jack Brickhouse, Lorn Brown, Milo Hamilton and Bob Costas were among those assigned to work as Bulls play-by-play announcers for the WGN telecasts, with Johnny "Red" Kerr serving as an analyst. [94][95], Attempts to restrict WGN's access to professional sports also extended to Major League Baseball under the stewardship of Fay Vincent, whose tenure as League Commissioner included various unsuccessful moves to impose blackout rules for games carried on superstations. [1] WGN-TV's final sports broadcast was the October 9 matchup between the Fire and the New England Revolution, as a result of Apple TV reaching an exclusive 10-year worldwide broadcast deal with MLS.[2]. The veteran Chicago sportscaster and former Comcast SportsNet Chicago host. He is the anchor of the 6 p.m. news. 9 reporter and former WTTW-Ch. Self - Substitute Sports Anchor 2 episodes, 2018 Eric Byrnes . Only on WMUR News 9. Presided by play-by-play announcer Jack Brickhouse and commentator Vince Lloyd, WGN co-produced the program for national broadcast on the DuMont Television Network, which aired the program from September 1949 until March 1955, during the station's tenure as a DuMont affiliate. Magiera came to WGN News from the NFL. Irish Hills Golf & Country Club Perth Brewery Salt Marsh Trail Isla Carmen Life Salon Spa Drumheller's Little Church J. Albert Bauer Provincial Park Otavalo Market Plaza Las Morlas Walt Disney Concert Hall 3 Days Omo Valley Tours From Jinka Full Day Sail with Max Charters PADI Discover Scuba Diving from Playa Flamingo Kayak or Stand up Paddle Board Island and Wildlife Exploration St. Augustine . Following its launch in January 1993, WGN-TV began leasing airtime on sister cable news channel Chicagoland Television (CLTV) to carry a limited number of live Chicago Cubs game telecasts that were prohibited from airing on the station due to Major League Baseball's national television contracts at the time with CBS and ESPN. In the fall of 1984, the Bulls signed an agreement with WFLD to broadcast the team's games for four years, effective with the 198586 season. Team co-owner Jerry Reinsdorf (a Chicago-area attorney and real estate investor) scuttled the Cablevision deal shortly after he and Eddie Einhorn assumed ownership of the team from Bill Veeck in December 1981, allowing WGN-TV to carry an additional slate of home games. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) speaks to . King was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, near Comiskey Park. Former WGN-TV news anchor Allison Payne has reportedly passed away at the age of 57. [116] Ancillary sporting events (such as the Arlington Million horse race) may continue to be shown on WGN following the removal of its professional sports telecasts. Over the years, many Bears play-by-play broadcasters have included Jack Brickhouse and Wayne Larrivee. The restrictions did not apply to the Arlington Million, which continues to be simulcast on WGN America in selected years, even after the 2014 removal of Chicago-originated sports programming from its lineup, as one of two international-stature sporting events produced by Tribune Broadcasting properties to air on the channel (coverage of the Los Angeles Marathon from sister station KTLA being the other). Caray also brought his unique rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch to the channel 9 broadcast booth. Steve Stone (1983-2000; 2003-2004) Dan Roan (1984-2019); substitute broadcaster and host of certain specials; WGN only; Dewayne Staats (1985-89) Jim Frey (1987) Dave Nelson (1988-89) WGN-TV carried select regular season NFL games involving the Chicago Bears and the now-defunct Chicago Cardinals via DuMont during the 1951 NFL season; following that, the Bears and Cardinals moved their telecasts to ABC and by association, ABC O&O WBKB-TV (now WLS-TV) under a limited contract that lasted until CBS gained primary rights to both teams as part of a league-wide television package in 1956. (The inaugural season of Fire broadcasts on Channel 9 was quickly abbreviated due to the MLS's March 12 decision to suspend its 2020 regular season amid health concerns raised by the coronavirus pandemic.)[1][42][43]. During the years leading up to the programming separation of WGN-TV and now-former national feed WGN America, the Illinois Derby and Hawthorne Gold Cup Handicap telecasts were shown exclusively over the Chicago area signal. The team's broadcast partnership with the Cubs owes itself to sister radio station WGN (720 AM)'s longtime role as the flagship of the team's radio network that dates to 1924 (when the Chicago Tribune acquired the station from Zenith-Edgewater Beach Broadcasting) and would last until 2014. Sports Reporter, Anchor, Host: Illinois, USA pxxxxxxxxxxh@wgnradio.com: Anna Davlantes: Broadcaster / Communications Manager: Illinois, USA . [76][77][78][73], When the case was remanded back to Judge Will in October 1993, it was now based on new contractual terms in the league's deal with NBC that awarded it cable rights to games not covered by a national cable agreement, despite the network having yet to own general entertainment or sports-based cable outlets, as well as plans to implement a licensing fee (reportedly $250,000 per game) to teams that telecast over superstations. 5.00 (18) 24hr. News Nation, the three-hour prime-time block of live news debuting September 1 on WGN America, has set its on-air talent lineup. $35. Mike Barz - sports anchor (now at WISH-TV) Randy Salerno - reporter/substitute anchor (later at WBBM-TV in Chicago, died in 2008) Roseanne Tellez - co-anchor (later at WBBM-TV now co-anchor at WFLD) Bill Weir - sports anchor (now at CNN) Paul Huttner - meteorologist (now Chief Meteorologist at Minnesota Public Radio) 75% of royalties from the book went to the American Cancer Society and the Chicago Lighthouse for the Blind. [97][98][99], In April 1992, Vincent lobbied Congress to repeal the compulsory license that allowed cable systems to carry superstation signals. Anchor since: 1965 to 1968 (beginning at age 26), then "World News Tonight" in 1978 (became sole anchor in 1983). [4][5] After a 1994 reader poll, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that viewers appreciated the "down-to-earth, no-hype styles" of King and his fellow WGN sports anchor Dan Roan.[6]. 50 to station rotation", "CW, Tribune Stations Set Affiliation Deal as WGN-TV Chicago Goes Indie", "WGN-TV/Chicago To Become Independent Station Featuring Local News, Live Sports, High-Quality Syndicated Programming", "WGN to air more sports after dropping CW", "WGN-TV Takes NBA to Court Over Superstation Rule", "TV SPORTS; Bulls, Superstations And Power Moves", "The Economics of Sports Leagues - The Chicago Bulls Case", "Bulls Get OK for 30 WGN Games in '92-93", "Cable Rights Spur Renewal of NBA-WGN Battle", "Bulls, WGN Hit Court Again in TV Dispute with NBA", "PRO BASKETBALL; N.B.A. [69], In April 1990, NBA Commissioner David Stern lowered the number of superstation-licensed telecasts to an annual limit of 20 games, a move it claimed would limit negative impacts on game viewership on the league's national television partners (at the time, TNT and NBC) as a result of concurring deals involving WGN and the Bulls and TBS and the Atlanta Hawks (the latter of which was part of an overall deal with Turner Sports that granted TNT national telecast rights to games from other NBA teams). CLTV also offered late-night replays of afternoon Cubs games from the previous gameday. "Masters of the mike - Fans pick best (and worst) sportscasters". As Chicago was one of the last major metropolitan areas in the U.S. that had yet to be fully wired for cable television service, WPWR which operated as a timeshare with HATCO-60-owned Spanish-language independent WBBS-TV (now UniMs owned-and-operated station WXFT-DT and sole occupant of channel 60) would cede most of its broadcast day (running from 7:00p.m. to 2:30a.m.) to the subscription sports service, offering a mix of nighttime games from the White Sox and other local professional sports teams (including the Bulls and the Blackhawks); some of Sportsvision's Sox broadcasts were also simulcast over companion pay service ONTV (carried at the time over WSNS) and were also contracted out to WFLD to maintain free over-the-air coverage. Bill Kurtis and Walter Jacobson (WGN-TV photo) Suggest a Correction Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. Show more Show. The station has been noted for being one of a handful of commercial television stations in the United Statesand, from the early 2000s until 2019, the only such stationto maintain a substantial schedule of locally originated telecasts from multiple major professional sports franchises. Menu. Hale, Bob - Retired from radio. The first Fire telecast to air on the station was an early-afternoon away game against the New England Revolution on March 7. [3] The station aired its inaugural sports telecast on April 16, two weeks after WGN-TV signed on, involving an exhibition rivalry game between the Cubs and the White Sox (which the Sox won, 4-1).[4][5]. Off the Beaten Path. )[57], As a result of its decision to exempt the station from a renewed affiliation agreement involving the group's 12 other CW-affiliated stations dating to the network's 2006 founding with CW managing partner CBS Corporation, on May 23, 2016, Tribune announced that WGN-TV would convert into an independent station effective September 1. Sportspodcasting #podcasting #podcast #podcasts #TikTok #Instagram #yahoosports #ESPN #ABCSports #NBCSPORTS #CBSSPORTS #WGN #WTBS #Chitown #Skytown #Bulls --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the . Compartilhar isto. Collegiate, semi-professional and amateur sports, (mainly on either 9.2 or 9.3; select games on 9.1), (mainly on 8.3; select games on 8.1 and 8.2), prohibited local coverage of his team's home games, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, International Association of Athletics Federations, "WGN-TV to air 24 Chicago Fire Football Club games in landmark multi-year broadcast agreement", "WGN loses Fire as MLS moves games to Apple", "Wrigley 100 4/16: WGN-TV 1st Wrigley Broadcast", "Today in Chicago Cubs history: The very first WGN-TV baseball telecast", "Chicago Cubs Are Sold by Wrigley to Tribune Co. for $20.5 Million", "Owners Approve a Plan to Split Baseball Season", "Chicago Cubs History: Owners Approve of Sale to Tribune Company", "The Chicago Cubs Friday were sold to the Tribune", "Tribune Firm To Get Cubs for $20.5 Million", "Holy Cow! 4.95 (161) 24hr. Stephen Benjamin, the former mayor of Columbia, S.C., will be the new senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement, replacing Keisha Lance Bottoms, the White House announced on Monday. He shed some tears, too. The station's relationship with the Cubs was further cemented on June 16, 1981, when the Tribune Company (renamed Tribune Media in August 2014 following the spin-off of its publishing division) purchased an 81% share in the franchise from William Wrigley Jr. who sold the franchise to alleviate himself of the large estate taxes that were accrued upon inheriting the team following the death of his parents for $20.5 million. Even prior to Tribune's purchase of the team, Chicago Cubs management had lauded the benefits that WGN-TV's telecasts of their games for providing needed exposure and bolstering their fanbase dating to 1953, when Cubs business manager James P. Gallagher expressed that the team's telecasts "[had] helped to promote interest in the Cubs and in baseball in general in the Chicago area[, helping] to keep [..] attendance up and [bringing] the game[s] to many people who could not get out to the ball park. Allison Payne, a nine-time Emmy Award winner who was the face of WGN-TV for two decades and inspired a generation of Black women reporters, died Sept. 1 in her hometown of Detroit, the television station reported. Anchoring weeknight broadcasts from 8PM to 11PM will be Joe Donlon a WGN Sports (originally known as WGN-TV Sports from 1948 to 1993) was the programming division of WGN-TV (channel 9), an independent television station located in Chicago, Illinois, United Stateswhich is owned by the Nexstar Media Groupthat was responsible for all sports broadcasts on the station, some of which were previously also broadcast on its former national superstation feed, WGN America (now news and entertainment channel NewsNation). WGN sportscaster Rich King announces retirement, 1997 to 1998 Chicago/Midwest Emmy Winners, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rich_King_(sportscaster)&oldid=1085229383, American television reporters and correspondents, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 29 April 2022, at 05:56. "[96], In August 1990, the MLB filed a petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to propose allowing local television stations to force cable systems to blackout superstation-licensed games involving local franchises within the team's home market through a change in how network program non-duplication rules define a "network program" to include live sports broadcasts shown simultaneously on local and out-of-market stations available via cable. [9] The book is about his second wife and life after Maggie. "Sportscasters We Love to Love . When former WGN-Ch. The move sparked concerns that WGN-TV's revenues from the Cubs telecasts would be impacted if the Cubs were forced to play a larger number of games against other Western Division teams based in the Pacific Time Zone, resulting in an increased number of games being shown in the late evening locally and potentially impact advertising revenue from the 9:00p.m. newscast if it had to delay it after prime time more frequently because of the late baseball starts. (Lorenzo Bevilaqua / ABC) After drawing on local station news operations to staff NewsNation for. $50. Jack Taylor, a TV news anchor in Chicago for more than 20 years who helped put WGN-TV near the top of the 10 p.m. news ratings in the 1970s, died of heart failure over the weekend, the station. [21] On January 7, 2014, as part of a four-year contract with the station, WGN-TV announced that it would air a reduced slate of 45 Cubs games per season beginning in 2015; the remaining share of over-the-air broadcasts, totaling 25 games per season, would air on ABC-owned WLS-TV (channel 7), which acquired partial broadcast rights to those games on December 12, 2014. When permitted under its contracts, WGN America occasionally aired national simulcasts of WGN's sports programming, mostly Cubs, White Sox and Bulls games. Tyree Wilson of Texas Tech and Will McDonald IV of Iowa State appear to be the top defensive ends. As a result, on November 9, 1966, the Sox struck a five-year deal with Field Communications-controlled UHF independent WFLD-TV (channel 32, now a Fox owned-and-operated station) to televise the team's full slate of home and away games starting in 1968. Combining his relationships with both the Cubs and White Sox, Brickhouse called over 5,000 baseball games during his career, sharing the booth with announcers such as Milo Hamilton, Lou Boudreau, Vince Lloyd (who also served as a sports anchor for WGN-TV) and Lloyd Pettit (who also served as a WGN-TV news and sports anchor during the timeframe). In 1998, King was honored with a Regional Emmy for his coverage of the Chicago Bulls basketball team.[11]. In honor, Nick Digilio and listeners discuss the best Chicago News Anchors: Past and Present. (Sportschannel subsequently filed a breach of contract lawsuit against the White Sox as a result, with the new White Sox ownership contending that the original agreement was not binding for the 1982 season as contended by Cablevision. Holidays. On November 5, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the appellate court decision. Brendan Cullerton Multimedia Journalist Brendan Cullerton joined the Gray Television Washington News Bureau in March 2022 as a multimedia journalist after spending four years covering state, local,. Or Do They? Steve Gelbs. In those cases, although ABC-owned WLS-TV has right of first refusal to MNF simulcasts as its corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, holds majority ownership of ESPN, WLS management elected to exercise the station's right of first refusal over the game telecasts to avoid preempting ABC's live Monday night broadcast of Dancing with the Stars.[44]. (Under NFL broadcasting rules, games that are televised on the league's national cable partners are required to be simulcast over a local broadcast station in the home markets of the participating teams.) Channel 9 originally served as the broadcast home for the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks from 1961 until 1975. Mark Gaffney. Black History Month. The ruling permitted the station to televise at least 30 games (eleven fewer than the 41 annual games that the Bulls and WGN requested) over the Chicago signal and superstation feed, while allowing the NBA to impose a reasonable rights fee (around $40,000, rather than the $100,000 licensing fee sought by the NBA) for broadcasts of each game, based on the consideration that the league received more than $2 million in annual copyright payments from WGN's Bulls broadcasts. [13][14] For the next 16 years, primarily working with analyst Steve Stone, Caray further established his place among Chicago's most-beloved personalities. Roan started his career at WCIA in Champaign, Ill. in 1977. [73][82][83][84], On September 10, 1996, a three-judge Seventh Circuit panel overturned the 1992 decision and remanded the case to be re-heard by a federal judge. To mark the shift, WGN America changed its named to NewsNation on March 1. In November 2010, WGN-TV became the home for preseason and regular season games involving the Bears the latter originally consisting of NFL Network Thursday Night Football simulcasts that are not carried by a broadcast network. Along with Major League Baseball telecasts, WGN-TV's initial sports lineup included a Saturday night wrestling program produced by National Wrestling Alliance promoter Fred Kohler, Wrestling From Marigold, originating from the Marigold Gardens arena in downtown Chicago. Dominick Stasi, news director of the Nexstar Media station, confirmed in an email to staff Monday that Roan's last day on the air would be May 26. She was 57. Since the inception of the sports programming unit, the station had produced ancillary pre-game and post-game shows for most of its sporting events, including The Lead-Off Man (pre-game) and The Tenth Inning (post-game) for its Cubs and White Sox baseball telecasts and BullsEye for its telecasts of Bulls basketball games. [114][115] WGN-TV's final sports telecast involving one of the four legacy professional sports franchises that the station has been involved with during its history was the second game of a White SoxDetroit Tigers doubleheader at Guaranteed Rate Field on September 28, 2019. Rich King (born 1947 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American sports journalist who worked for CW affiliate and national cable superstation WGN-TV in Chicago, Illinois. (This also was the case for WGN-produced games shown on WPWR-TV, as well as WLS-TV's Cubs broadcasts.) Barry Cronin. )[72][73], On January 26, 1991, Senior U.S. District Judge Hubert L. Will granted a permanent injunction in favor of the Bulls and WGN, prohibiting the league from instituting the policy on the determination that the NBA's superstation licensing restrictions were "a significant restraint of trade" in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. . WGN-TV has also held broadcast rights to the Illinois Derby, Hawthorne Gold Cup Handicap and Arlington Million (except in years NBC Sports carried coverage as part of the Road to the Breeders' Cup) horse races. Dating back to at least the early 1980s, WGN-TV had syndicated its Chicago Cubs and White Sox telecasts to television stations in parts of the Midwestern U.S. (among them, WCEE [now Daystar owned-and-operated station WPXS] in East St. Louis, IllinoisSt. On a stage he'd always dreamed about taking, the former Georgia defensive star stood before a group of reporters and gave an emotional memorial about his friend and former college teammate, Devin Willock, who was killed in a car crash Jan. 15. Matthew Todd Lauer (; born December 30, 1957) is an American former television news anchor. With NBC, he hosted the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1998 to 2017 and co-hosted the opening ceremonies of several Olympic Games. And Hate - Weigel, Jiggets, Larrivee Win Poll Position". $34. WGN sports anchor Dan Roan will retire in February 2022. [36] In the spring of 1972, the Bulls signed a three-year agreement with WSNS-TV to broadcast Bulls basketball games beginning with the 197374 season. 9 ratings". [113] WGN-TV's final Cubs game broadcast aired on September 27, 2019, against the rival St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. On January 2, 2019, NBC Sports Chicago reached exclusive multi-year deals with the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks to take effect that fall, relegating their regional telecasts exclusively to multichannel television services. Along with Jarrett Payton and Josh Frydman, they will cover stories across the Chicago sports spectrum, anchor sports segments throughout WGN newscasts, and host GN Sports, a live half-hour sports show airing seven nights a week at 10:30-11 p.m. With WGN-TV's emerging prominence as a national superstation during the 1980s and 1990s, Caray's fan base and that of the Cubs grew beyond Chicago and the Midwestern U.S. into other parts of the country. Dan Roan will cap a 45-year career in sportscasting including the last 38 years as main sports anchor at WGN-Channel 9 with his long-rumored retirement next month. He also won awards from the Illinois chapters of the Associated Press and United Press International for his sportscasts. Throughout its history, WGN-TV has had a long-standing association with Chicago sports. [39][40] Since the start of the initial contract during the 200809 campaign, WGN-TV has carried between 20 and 25 Blackhawks games per season. From November 8, 1978 until December 31, 1989, Tulsa, Oklahoma-based satellite uplink firm United Video Inc. distributed the WGN-TV Chicago signal nationwide, which allowed viewers outside Chicago to watch the station's sports telecasts as they would be seen locally with local advertising and station promotions intact except where league rules applying to superstations (such as the WGNBullsNBA dispute and restrictions on national superstation telecasts based on time periods where broadcast and cable partners held national exclusivity) as mentioned above or requests from local stations that held the exclusive local rights to opponents of the Chicago teams resulted in blackout restrictions applying to the game broadcasts. Among the Bears games shown on the station were simulcasts of ESPN-televised Monday Night Football broadcasts (including match-ups against the Dallas Cowboys on October 1, 2012, and against the Washington Redskins on September 23, 2019). [2] In 1970, Rich moved to radio station WBBM (AM) as a writer and producer, before becoming the assistant news director and managing editor two years later in 1972. Here's what that means for fans", "Cubs launching a network of their own, Marquee Sports Network", "Sports media: Will Chicago teams leave WGN-TV without any sports? WGN-TV shared the local telecast rights to the Cubs with WBKB-TV (channel 4, now CBS owned-and-operated station WBBM-TV on channel 2) until 1951, with Channel 9 gaining exclusive rights to the Cubs broadcasts starting in 1952. On March 30, 2008, the Blackhawks announced three-year broadcasting agreements with Channel 9 and Comcast SportsNet Chicago that would allow both broadcasters to carry a divided schedule of the team's home and away games beginning with the 200809 season. On March 7 of that year, Channel 9 acquired the local television rights to broadcast all of the Cubs's daytime home games at Wrigley Field during the 1948 season, beginning with the team's April 23 game, in which the Cubs were set to play against the St. Louis Cardinals. The team returned to WGN for the 197677 season, running on the station for an additional eight seasons. From the 199798 season thereafter, the number of games permitted to air on the superstation feed increased to 15 per year. [25][26], Those rights were passed onto WSNS-TV (channel 44, now a Telemundo owned-and-operated station), as a result of then-owner Essaness Television Corporation signing a one-year agreement on August 3, 1972, that would see the competing independent acquire a package of at least 144 White Sox regular season games, beginning with the team's 1973 schedule. However, criticism of the move from some subscribers led TCI to reverse course and retain the WGN superstation feed from affected systems in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan. A bruising presidential. That was the case for Robin Baumgarten, a WGN Chicago morning news anchor, who expressed frustration with co-anchor Larry Potash after he allegedly failed to play a video clip during a newscast. Josh Elliot was abruptly fired by CBS News on Monday and escorted out of the building by security. Lauren Magiera Chicago native Lauren Magiera joined the WGN News team in April 2016 as the station's first female sports anchor and reporter. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=WGN_Sports&oldid=1141190302, Articles with dead external links from July 2021, Articles with dead external links from September 2018, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Dan Roan Cubs fill-in play-by-play announcer (2005; 2019); Horse racing host, Tyler Terens Fire fill-in play-by-play announcer/sideline reporter (20202022). Tribune responded to the move with a breach of contract lawsuit, alleging that the action overstepped the bounds of Vincent's authority. As such, beginning with the April 1 game between the Blackhawks and the Winnipeg Jets, WGN wound down its local sports coverage throughout the Spring and Summer of 2019 as the station's contracts with all four teams expired. White Sox Play-By-Play Announcer Ed Farmer passed away Wednesday at the age of 70. (The first WGN-leased game on CLTV, which provided supplementary local cable coverage to the team's existing agreement with SportsChannel Chicago, was an exhibition game against the Seattle Mariners on March 21, 1993. Rich King (born 1947 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American sports journalist who worked for CW affiliate and national cable superstation WGN-TV in Chicago, Illinois. [41], On February 19, 2020, WGN-TV announced a multi-year agreement with Chicago Fire FC, awarding it the exclusive local broadcast rights to the franchise's Major League Soccer games as well as a monthly series featuring interviews and profiles of Fire players, coaches and fans; the initial 2020 season broadcast schedule will encompass 24 regular season matches, 18 of which will air in prime time. WGN Radio Sports Reporters Dave Eanet and Mark Carman join John Williams with the story of how Ed Farmer's phone call to President Bush allowed the game to go on, and more fun memories. (L-R) Violeta, Branko, Brenda and Vera Podrumedic in Little Bucharest Bistro (Courtesy: Violeta Podrumedic) John Williams (Detroit Tigers owner John Fetzer also owned television and radio stations in the Midwest during his ownership of the team from 1956 to 1983; however, none were based within the Detroit market. WGN Radio AM 720 United States employs 59 employees. (Televised Blackhawks road games were subsequently carried on WFLD from 1975 to 1978, and then shifted to WSNS-TV from 1978 to 1980. [65][66][67][68], In 1982, the NBA instituted limits on the number of basketball games that teams could license to designated superstations such as WGN-TV that reached at least 5% of American cable households (not counting carriage within their home market), applying only to games that would conflict with those airing on the NBA's national cable partners, ESPN or USA Network, while allowing them to continue carrying up to 41 games per season under existing NBA local broadcast rules. President of Baseball Operations/General Manager: This page was last edited on 23 February 2023, at 20:42. $250. WGN-AM 720 News Anchor/Reporter/Writer: Illinois, USA . $299. (The NBA contended the restriction was exempt from antitrust law under a provision of the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which was deemed in later rulings to only be applicable to the sale or transfer a national game package to a television network and not those involving individual teams. In connection with the out-of-court settlement between WFLD station management and the White Sox, through the same agreement signed on September 14, 1989 that resulted in that station also re-acquiring the local television rights to the Sox, the Bulls (which Reinsdorf as part of Chicago Professional Sports Limited Partnership, a 23-member majority shareholder group that acquired portions of its 56% share of the team from shares owned by, among others, the estate of longtime owner Arthur M. Wirtz and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner bought in March 1985 for an estimated $9.2 million) announced that it would move its local television broadcasts back to WGN-TV under a five-year deal, beginning with the 198990 season. Kupcinet began writing sports columns for the The Chicago Daily Times (now known as the Sun-Times) in 1935. (Due to low subscriber rates and resulting financial losses, Sox ownership sold Sportsvision to a venture of Cablevision Program Enterprises and The Washington Post Company in December 1983. WGN-TV's respective relationships with Chicago's two Major League Baseball (MLB) franchises, the Chicago Cubs (of the National League) and the Chicago White Sox (of the American League), trace back to shortly before the station's inception in April 1948.