Sources and Industry Buzz Suggests Comcast and Marquee Deal is Done

As I wrote yesterday, Marquee Sports Network will be on Xfinity starting Friday. Today we are starting to see multiple other media outlets suggest that the deal is done and an announcement will be made on Friday morning.

Al Yellon suggests that a source has confirmed that a deal is done, however, the Cubs spokesman, Julian Green, added that he is, “hopeful there will be a deal.” Yellon has also spoke with representatives of Comcast which suggest negotiations are ongoing.

Evan Altman, who recently broke the news that Burl Carraway (Cubs second rounder) was joining the South Bend Cubs camp, says his sources have confirmed that the month-long stalemate is ending.

I strongly believe that a deal is done and the final details are being worked out. Comcast services 52% of the Chicago market, and is the largest cable provider in the US, adding a channel (while I admittedly have no idea the details of such work) cannot be as easy as flipping a switch. However, we all knew that kid in the 90s that would come by your house for $50 and he’d flip some switch in your cable box giving you all channels. But I don’t think it works that way anymore.

There is a suggestion that the Cubs want to control this marketing, and thus they will do so Friday morning. This will likely be done with Theo Epstein, Tom Ricketts, and Crane Kenney doing their radio tours for opening day. I would expect the news to be announced on 67-AM The Score first, the Cubs radio partner, and then on ESPN-1000. As it seems more and more outlets are starting to hear the same thing, and have been releasing sourced news of a deal, the sides very well could move the announcement up a day.

So if you see something on Twitter about a bigwig from the Cubs having an appearance on The Score today – they’re announcing the deal.

UPDATE: Jed Hoyer just mentioned on ESPN-1000 that he fully expects the entire Cubs market to be able to watch Cubs games on Marquee come Friday.

Jed Hoyer just said on Kap and Co. on @espn1000 Cubs business executives have told him they expect all of the market to be able to watch Cubs baseball on Opening Day. "I'm not breaking news here but we fully expect everyone will be able to watch our games starting Opening Day."

— David Kaplan (@thekapman) July 23, 2020

An interesting note on all of this, which should point to an imminent deal with Comcast, is Marquee has been pushing hard against YouTube TV in their online ads. These ads are pointed towards cord-cutters with YouTube TV and reminding them that they will not get Cubs games come Friday.

I think that the ads are pointed towards YouTube for two reasons. The first, they will not have a deal done with the Alphabet folks anytime soon and are hoping their Cub fan subscribers move to a platform like Hulu Live. The second reason they’re ONLY attacking YouTube TV, because they have a pocket deal with Comcast already.

Many of the folks with YouTube TV already use Xfinity for their internet provider (have you ever tried AT&T’s internet? Gross!). The folks at Sinclair absolutely know consumers will either jump ship to another streaming option in Hulu Live, or go back to their master in Comcast for their TV services. Heck, even if the consumer goes to AT&T or DirecTV – the Cubs get your eyes on Marquee and that is the end goal for the organization.

Cause people keep asking about Dish Network

Here’s the thing y’all… it’s not happening. Dish Network has made it a point to not do business with Regional Sports Networks. Their stance is, there are many more subscribers that do not watch sports than do. I cannot verify that, but I am sure they have data that suggests this to be true.

So, instead of having all of their customers pay for a service that only a fraction of their customers consumes, they have scratched RSN’s since around August 2018. So since that date, as contracts with RSN’s ran out, they haven’t re-upped and let the deals run out.

There is word that the people with Sinclair and Marquee continue to reach out to the execs at Dish Network, but I would not expect anything to happen with them until they (Dish) has a fundamental change in philosophy.