{"id":3949,"date":"2026-02-16T19:29:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=3949"},"modified":"2026-02-16T19:29:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T19:29:45","slug":"cubs-chairman-tom-ricketts-on-potential-mlb-broadcast-consolidation-we-love-our-independence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/?p=3949","title":{"rendered":"Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts on potential MLB broadcast consolidation: ‘We love our independence’"},"content":{"rendered":"


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MESA, Ariz. \u2013 With the regional sports network model on shaky ground, and Major League Baseball set to produce broadcasts for at least 14 teams this season, the sports broadcast landscape is at a tipping point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at baseball right now, there\u2019s a lot of really nice tailwinds,\u201d Cubs<\/a> chairman Tom Ricketts said Monday at the team\u2019s spring training complex. \u201cAttendance is up, ratings are up. There\u2019s a lot of things going in the right direction. We\u2019ve got a lot of good young stars and exciting young players, and that\u2019s all going well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some challenges. The regional sports network model has been under pressure for the last few years. Certain teams felt it the most this offseason, and it\u2019ll take a while for it to work out, but it\u2019s certainly a challenge for the entire league.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cubs\u2019 in-house network, Marquee Sports Network \u2013 which is operated by the team and Sinclair \u2013 hasn\u2019t been immune. Launched in 2020, its first season was just 60 games long, shortened by the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

More recently, the network went through a round of layoffs this offseason <\/a>that slashed its digital department and eliminated the GM position. This spring, Marquee is scheduled to broadcast just 11 Cactus League Games.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven all the market headwinds for RSNs, Marquee was one of the best things we ever did,\u201d Ricketts still said Monday. \u201cTo be in control of our own destiny and be able to produce the games we want to produce the way we want to produce them, with the right people and the right staff and the right level of production quality. For us, it\u2019s been a huge home run.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a moment of meta cinema, a Marquee camera was nestled among the gathered reporters, capturing his comments. Despite the cuts, Ricketts didn\u2019t falter in his praise, saying that starting the network was \u201cmaybe the smartest thing we\u2019ve done in all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVery happy with the product,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone is. We\u2019ve won tons of Emmys, and we get great feedback, and we have broadcasters who are loved by the fans, and we do a great game day production.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we also have the economic realities that are facing other sports networks and the declining revenue model. So we just have to balance that out and try to focus our efforts where we can get a great experience and a great production for fans, and just being mindful of expenses, because it\u2019s getting tougher.\u201d<\/p>\n

As MLB continues to add teams\u2019 broadcasts to its portfolio, there\u2019s been discussion about whether the league would take over all 30 teams\u2019 broadcasts in the coming years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of speculation on that,\u201d Ricketts said. \u201cI don\u2019t want to get too deep in the weeds, but we love the network, and we love our independence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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MESA, Ariz. \u2013 With the regional sports network model on shaky ground, and Major League Baseball set to produce broadcasts for at least 14 teams this season, the sports broadcast landscape is at a tipping point. \u201cIf you look at baseball right now, there\u2019s a lot of really nice tailwinds,\u201d Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/firearmupgrades.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}