ConCast: How Cable Has Ruined America's Pastime

Did you catch your favorite team's Opening Day game? 

If you live in that team's city or outside of a certain mile radius of it, chances are you did. I'm sure it was an exhilarating experience. 

For the sake of keeping things simple, we will use the one team in Major League Baseball that seems to have fans everywhere—the Chicago Cubs—as an example of a team fans could not see if they were affected by the insane gerrymandering done by the local sports cable company, Comcast SportsNet. 

The Cubs opened their 2009 campaign in Houston, Texas. The game was set to be aired on both Comcast SportsNet and ESPN 2. It was a plan that made sense to the big whigs. Those in the Chicagoland area can watch it on Comcast, and those outside of the area have ESPN 2. 

Makes sense, right?

Here is the inevitable kicker. For residents of Indiana, Iowa, Ohio, and other Midwestern states, the game was blacked out. This means that if you don't have Comcast SportsNet Chicago, your ESPN 2 channel was, instead, showing ESPNEWS. 

Why are these areas affected by the blackout? That is a question that ranks with, "why are we here?" 

If you search "blackout areas" on their website, Comcast SportsNet Chicago does not offer any results. With this, one can only conclude that the only way you can find out if you are in their blackout area is if you turn on the tube and see anything but a Cubs game. 

If you think this is pulling at the heartstrings of the "who's who" in the Cubs organization, perhaps you should think again. 

The Slow Death of WGN

For the past 60 years, Cubs games have been broadcasted on WGN-TV. It was a local station that evolved into a national cable station, and it became a staple station for Cubs and baseball fans alike.

Personalities like Jack Brickhouse, Harry and Chip Caray, and Steve Stone were like music to fan's ears.

Over those 60 years, WGN has lost its grip on the Cubs. In 2008, WGN broadcasted a record-low 63 games, leaving the remaining 99 to FOX, ESPN, Comcast, and WCIU, a channel local to Chicago.

Perhaps the most maddening aspect of the loss of nationally televised games is the audacity of the upper-ups in Chicago.

"We get paid twice as much on our Comcast games," said Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney in 2008, "Now we're taking eight, real high-ratings programming off WGN. That's the asset Sam (soon to be former Cubs president Zell) is going to keep."

We all know baseball is a business, but how far is too far? By taking the higher amount of money as the right amount, you are alienating the gigantic fan base living outside of your area. 

The Cubs' rationale was that Comcast paid more, and more money equalled a bigger payroll. A bigger payroll leads to championships. So with the leagues seventh highest payroll in 2008, that must have meant a championship was coming? 

Ask the Yankees. We know how that story ends.

The Future of Cubs Broadcasting

It is getting pretty clear that the Cubs will continue their expanding of Comcast, and the correlating destruction of WGN.

With the purchase of the team, the Ricketts family is also getting a 25 percent of Comcast SportsNet, leaving them no monetary investment in WGN. 

Therefore, if you are a Cubs fan who does not live in the Chicago area, but you live in an area where you are expected to have Comcast SportsNet (regardless of whether your cable company even carries it), you have the following options to watch half of your team's games:

1.) Move to Chicago

Purchasing DirecTv's Extra Innings package or MLB.com's MLB.TV means nothing if you live in these areas, as you will simply be staring at a black screen. 

To be fair, the Cubs do still broadcast the most over-the-air games than anyone else in baseball, but the reason the Cubs have as many fans outside of Illinois as they do is because of their airing of the games on national, free TV. 

Mr. Zell is not only selling his team and all it's assets, but he is selling the fans that gave him those assets.

And the buyers have no use for them.