On Friday, the Tribune published this article by Robert Channick on the fortunes of the Cubs’ TV channel, Marquee Sports Network.
It’s paywalled for subscribers, but I can sum up the issues delineated by Channick. He writes that viewership on the channel is down 56 percent. Here are some of the reasons:
“We launched into a headwind,” said Crane Kenney, president of business operations for the Cubs. “We had a pandemic when we launched, but also cord-cutting had become a big obstacle.”
No doubt, this is true. The 2020 season was probably the worst possible time to launch a TV sports channel, for the reasons Kenney cites, and cord-cutting was absolutely a major factor in the ratings drop.