Without Chicago Cubs games on Marquee Sports Network for the next several months, it’s not clear when most subscribers will notice streaming service Hulu + Live TV is no longer carrying the team’s channel.
Hulu said Thursday that Marquee, the joint TV venture the Cubs launched eight months ago with Sinclair Broadcast Group, was one of several Sinclair regional sports networks it will “no longer have the rights to distribute” in its Live TV plans, effective Friday.
Marquee’s debut season had strong ratings for Cubs games.
But Hulu’s announcement comes as the channel is left to fill much of its out-of-season schedule with content from Sinclair’s other sports properties (including Atlantic Coast Conference and Conference USA games), archival material, a half-hour Chicago Bears talk show and a two-hour cutdown of days-old Bears games.
It also coincides with some area subscribers of Comcast’s Xfinity complaining about a rate increase the service attributes to the carriage of Marquee.
Hulu and Marquee have had an odd relationship since Feb. 17, when they announced a carriage agreement covering the Cubs TV territory five days before the channel’s debut.
Just as the fanfare was dying down, the streaming service surprised many by saying it would not actually be sharing Marquee with its Hulu + Live TV subscribers when the Cubs played their spring training opener on Feb. 22.
A team spokesman was left to say, “The provider determines the launch date for the service.”
Eventually Hulu began carrying Marquee. But, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, spring training was aborted, then the regular season was postponed and later abbreviated.
So the channel, like all regional sports networks, has been unable to fulfill its promise or potential for reasons well beyond anyone’s control.
No one has publicly explained yet what spurred the abrupt divorce between so many of Sinclair’s regional sports networks and Hulu, or clarified whether this looks to be a long-term split.
This is certainly disappointing for fans in the Chicago area who subscribed to Hulu given their highly touted sports-first service,” a Cubs spokesman said, noting Marquee’s website lists other services that carry the channel.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Diamond Sports, Sinclair’s regional sports network subsidiary, was seeking to restructure an estimated $8 billion debt load.
The group’s business has been rocked this year by reduction of games because of the pandemic and the loss of some carriage deals with pay-TV distributors.
One bright spot for Sinclair was the July agreement it struck with Comcast to carry Marquee, its other regional sports networks, the Tennis Channel and 78 local TV stations.
The Journal reported that in a subsequent earnings call Sinclair Chief Executive Chris Ripley told analysts that 85% of Sinclair’s RSN subscribers were locked in at least the next two years.
For disgruntled Xfinity subscribers, the only way to get out of paying for Marquee, short of dropping Xfinity altogether, would be to reduce their service to the basic tier. Seeing as that would eliminate not just Marquee but NBC Sports Chicago and Big Ten Network as well, it may not be a satisfactory resolution.
NBC Sports Chicago has no White Sox, Bulls or Blackhawks games to offer at present. But Big Ten football this week is set to launch its abbreviated season, starting Friday night with Illinois-Wisconsin on BTN and three more games on the channel Saturday, including Maryland-Northwestern.
Besides Marquee, other Sinclair regional sports networks affected by the Hulu situation include: YES Network, SportsTime Ohio, Fox Sports Arizona, FS Detroit, FS Florida, FS Midwest (including FS Indiana and FS Kansas City), FS North (including FS Wisconsin), FS Ohio, FS Prime Ticket, FS San Diego, FS South (including FS Tennessee and FS Carolinas), FS Southeast, FS Southwest (including FS Oklahoma and FS New Orleans), FS Sun and FS West.
But the absence of NBA, NHL and MLB games in the coming months may blunt the move’s impact.
For Cubs-centric Marquee, it evokes a variation on a classic philosophical conundrum:
If a tree falls in the forest, does anyone care until it’s time for spring training baseball in February?
