15 Facts About WGN Sports

WGN Sports was the programming division of WGN-TV, an independent television station located in Chicago, Illinois, United States—which is owned by the Nexstar Media Group—that was responsible for all sports broadcasts on the station, some of which were previously broadcast on its former national superstation feed, WGN America.

At various points between the station's founding in 1948 until 2019, WGN Sports produced telecasts from several of Chicago's major professional sports teams, most notably the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks.

WGN Sports-TV shared the local telecast rights to the Cubs with WBKB-TV until 1951, with Channel 9 gaining exclusive rights to the Cubs broadcasts starting in 1952.

On January 7,2014, as part of a four-year contract with the station, WGN Sports-TV announced that it would air a reduced slate of 45 Cubs games per season beginning in 2015; the remaining share of over-the-air broadcasts, totaling 25 games per season, would air on ABC-owned WLS-TV, which acquired partial broadcast rights to those games on December 12,2014.

On March 9,1948, two days after the station signed its initial broadcast contract with the Cubs, WGN Sports-TV signed a separate agreement with the Chicago White Sox to carry a package of daytime and evening games held at Comiskey Park, including all 21 nighttime games that were scheduled for the 1948 season, originally set to take effect with the April 20 season opener against the Detroit Tigers.

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The return of the Bulls to WGN Sports-TV was a major boon for the station, as it overlapped with the seven-season NBA championship dynasty that flourished during Michael Jordan's tenure with the team.

Blackhawks broadcasts on WGN Sports-TV were limited to away games, as then-owner Bill Wirtz had prohibited local coverage of his team's home games out of concern that televising those matches within the Chicago market could negatively impact ticket sales.

The WGN deal marked the first time that the Blackhawks broadcast any of their games on a Chicago-area broadcast television station, since their away games were carried on the Sportsvision and ONTV subscription services between 1982 and 1985.

On February 19,2020, WGN Sports-TV announced a multi-year agreement with Chicago Fire FC, awarding it the exclusive local broadcast rights to the franchise's Major League Soccer games as well as a monthly series featuring interviews and profiles of Fire players, coaches and fans; the initial 2020 season broadcast schedule will encompass 24 regular season matches, 18 of which will air in prime time.

In November 2010, WGN Sports-TV became the home for preseason and regular season games involving the Bears – the latter originally consisting of NFL Network Thursday Night Football simulcasts – that are not carried by a broadcast network.

From 1966 to 1991, the station carried a package of college football and basketball games involving teams in the Big Ten Conference; WGN Sports aired coverage of high school football games involving teams in the Chicago Public High School League from 1958 to 1979 and the Chicago College All-Star Game from 1948 to 1976.

In years which NBC Sports does not cover the Arlington Million as part of Road to the Breeders' Cup, WGN America carries the national simulcast, since the winner obtains an automatic bid to the Breeders' Cup Turf.

The station's telecasts ran into contractual restrictions after WGN Sports became a charter affiliate of The WB in January 1995.

Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf and attorney Joel Chefitz both argued that the team's national availability through WGN Sports was vital to maintaining the team's fanbase and to its financial success following Michael Jordan's sudden retirement from basketball and move to baseball.

On January 2,2019, NBC WGN Sports Chicago reached exclusive multi-year deals with the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks to take effect that fall, relegating their regional telecasts exclusively to multichannel television services.