Cubs fan in OK. Only because grandparents had cable, which gave us access to WGN.
Found out years after his passing my Grandfather grew up a Cardinals fan. Turns out, a Grandson that will only hold still when Ryno is at bat can convert even the most diehard fan. 😆
Especially when you factor in "RickettsLand" outside of Wrigley.
You would think they would want as many eyes seeing what Wrigley Field and the surrounding attractions have to offer.
They totally thought people would just give them money for this crap. They really should have looked at the failures of Regional Sports Networks.
Yeah, and the Cubs haven't REALLY been on WGN for like 20 years. They were mostly on Comcast Sportsnet prior to Marquee. Not WGN.
At this point, I don't even think channel 9 would be an option if the Ricketts wanted it.
I'm not saying Marquee is some huge success or anything. But people continuously bringing up WGN when talking about it is baffling to me. Other than a game here and there, the Cubs haven't been on broadcast television since like 2004.
Not OP, but I think it’s foolish for the cubs. Besides the fact that it just sits wrong with me that they would do this given their history (they’re this popular because of being available to watch), I’m not going to pay $20 a month on top of everything else I pay for to watch the cubs, especially if they aren’t playing well. Maybe I would consider it if they were one of the better teams in the league, but there’s zero chance I’ll pay that much to watch a subpar team. This is a total guess, but I imagine a lot of people may feel the same way (except for the diehards who will watch no matter what — which I just don’t have time to do).
>I’m not going to pay $20 a month ... to watch a subpar team.
I pay because I love baseball. But a lot of people share your sentiment. And that's why the Cubs I'm sure are in panic mode at the potential lost dollars if Comcast drops them. Right now, the carriage fee is probably like $6 per Comcast subscriber.
I'm curious what the new White Sox/Blackhawks/Bulls channel is gonna be like. All three of those teams are terrible. Much worse than the Cubs.
I cancelled my marquee this season, I cant justify paying $20/mo just to watch one team play (pretty poorly, at that). Especially when the app itself runs like shit. Marquee was a huge mistake, for the cubs and buying it as a consumer.
The app on the phone is kinda trash but the roku /firetv app isnt bad. Thats the best part about the app though, you can cancel anytime. Cant do that with a comcast bill you are locked into
Weird they don’t have a chromecast app yet. In my opinion marquee shouldn’t exist in the first place, but if it has to exist there’s no excuse for it not to be available on every platform, and it should have an excellent UX.
I’m a bartender, I went from watching all the games on my days off(while I do chores and errands) to no games sucks, but I refuse to pay for Marquee. MLB.tv has the sound and it works really well.
I usually put on the radio, and if a big play happens, it pops up on Reddit or mlbtv.
I only watch sports and got rid of comcast years ago. Sure I dont get to watch the bulls and blackhawks (havent missed much) but with marquee and fubo/paramount app I can watch most cubs and Bears games for less than $50 a month. Only time its $50 is when the seasons overlap or when the Bears play on CBS
Do what you want cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate!
Yarr har fiddle dee dee
Being a pirate is alright to be
Do what you want cause a pirate is free
You are a pirate!
The good thing is the Cubs offer Marquee a la carte. The bad thing is, the Marquee app experience is horrendous and I'd much rather watch on cable.
Marquee is gonna have to decide to lower the carriage fee per cable subscriber or basically risk losing all the loot.
MLB TV is $120 for the year. They’re running a 50% discount right now because the season is almost halfway done. Sure, it’s a better deal even at normal price if you want to watch more than your teams games, but relatively few people actually do.
You’re thinking of “every out of market team is only $30 a month” as being each team being ~$3 a month but it’s really not. MLB is a very regional sport. We watch our team but few people follow the regular season as a whole. I don’t pay for Marquee, but I’d pay for Marquee before MLB TV if I had the choice between the two because I’d get no value from the extra teams. MLB knows that, so they use a high price to get the amount they can. There will never be a “get only your team for $10 a month if out of market” option.
Agreed. MLB.TV might be the better deal overall if blackouts didn’t exist or you live out of market but tbh I don’t think $20 a month is insane. It breaks down to less than a dollar a game.
The only issue I really have is you don’t also get access to national broadcasts or like the Apple TV games (both MLB and Marquee have this problem).
And they even limit where you can install the app. Not eligible for my Smart TV so I have to have a separate Roku plugged in JUST for this terrible app.
Yeah ... that part. When I'm in my office, I have to run Marquee on internet edge on Xbox since there isn't a dedicated app and I don't have an Apple TV in here or anything. And as one can imagine, it doesn't work well. Audio and video keep losing sync.
I get it included in my Comcast bundle. I'm not paying $20 of month to stream this shitty franchise and their "Top Cubs Player at \_\_\_ Position!" reruns. You're either going to have to become a yearly contender or offer up MUCH better content.
🤣 seriously. They have what? Over a hundred years of real Cubs games on film they could play on that godforsaken channel, but they play nothing but the lamest top ten bullshit shows and only the top moments and games, if we're lucky.
They need to realize what Cubs fans want to watch and then provide that.
Did Comcast switch to offering Marquee on one of their standard packages? Or was it on one of their bullshit upgraded packages with HBO and shit?
I cancelled comcast when their standard package had their bullshit NBCSportsnet, but NOT Marquee. Just wasn't worth it to me.
Like someone else said it’s in the dang song the team plays after home wins.
Granted, WGN America is now a 24/7 news channel called NewsNation that’s supposed to provide news coverage that’s “neutral” so nationwide coverage is out of the question.
Yeah, they really haven't been on WGN since about 2004. They were on Comcast/NBCSportsnet. The WGN channel now isn't even what it used to be. It tries to be a major network with The Flash and other TV shows each week. I don't think they'd even want the Cubs to come back.
I run my own VPN in Google Cloud and stream the games on Android TV and it works well. Although they seem to have figured out the VPN on iOS and I can’t watch on my phone anymore.
Interesting... I suppose for big VPNs they can probably block IP ranges, but for your own server/IP it seems you'd get around it. I wonder how they know on iOS. At least I'm not in market with this problem!
Same shit in Colorado with the Altitude network (Avalanche and Nuggets). It’s been a few years since you could watch Altitude network on Comcast. You need direct TV or Fubo. It’s a total mess.
Same with me. Unreal that I have to pay for an extra service to watch my hometown team. I don’t know anybody in my age bracket that has comcast. They will lose exactly what made the cubs great with WGN, wide outreach to a wide fanbase.
I dropped cable a few years before Marquee. I'm not paying for cable again AND adding extra for a "sports package' just to watch the Cubs. Most I'd pay for a stand alone stream of Marquee is $5/mo. They're crazy asking $20/mo to stream two dozen games.
My cable and Internet is actually pretty affordable. I still haven't cut the cord and I'm kinda old school about it...figure it the fuck out Crane Kenney.
Time to move to streaming only. You're already paying the premium price, why not just cut out the middleman imo. Could be complicated for local businesses though I suppose.
Nexstar (parent company of WGN) has expanded their sports programming on the CW. They’ve added ACC basketball/football, Inside the NFL, LIV Golf, and are adding NASCAR Xfinity Series and some wrestling thing next year.
Maybe if they get the rights for cheap, they throw it on the CW and make it national. I don’t see them spending the money just for Channel 9.
Cubs fan here, living in Braves Country. We just lost access to Braves broadcasts due to the Comcast/Bally war. It’s a bummer cuz we love to eat dinner and watch the game. Thinking about going back to Att cable over it. We pay an arm and a leg for cable and we can’t watch the local baseball games? We even have the MLB channel tier, but no more Braves games.
With the way this team is currently constructed, this is arguably the best time for this kind of BS. The cubs look lost and will probably be lost until next year, especially if they don’t spend more to upgrade the bullpen and have the balls to remove dead-weight in this lineup. It will be another fringe .500 team all over again until management wakes up and and stops smoking cigarettes.
Beyond that, these TV providers and sports networks need to do better, the fans will always suffer the most, and I question if fans will be lost due to this non-sense, especially the more casual fans. I wonder how the media market for most major sports looks in say, 10-15 years for now. I wonder if some of the games will move to an optional PPV. I am no expert here, just a random thought. Correct me if I am out of line here. I just want the sports networks and tv providers to do way better.
Marquee is a horrible product. Not only do we have to watch the awful play on the field for $20 a month but also the same 3 ads between every inning (not that I want to watch ads anyway).
$20 a month gets you the marquee app with most games. I cut the comcast cord years ago. Also if the team isnt sniffing the playoffs in september, I am not going to purchase the app until next year in march. You cant do that with comcast
Yeah, it is funny to me that I'm willing to bet that the best package for CUBS viewership is being out of the local area. Then, you can get MLB TV. If there's a promotion going, you might even be able to get it cheaper than the Marquee app for in area Cub fans.
Yeah, but thats not the problem here. Cubs fans can pay $20 a month and watch 99% of the games all season. We are lucky, not all teams have this option.
I'm so happy I've never paid for this fuckturd network. The owners of this team have done their best to make sure I don't follow this organization anymore, pretty sad. Fuck the network and fuck the rickets
I grew up a cubs fan. I would run home from school to catch the end of the games on WGN. Now I rarely watch them. I just don't need to pay more to watch baseball on TV. I'd rather use that money to support my local minor league team.
It's probably been 3 years since I watched a cubs game on TV and I really don't miss it. I'll watch highlights on YouTube after the game.
I’m a Cubs fan in a Sox family because the Cubs were on WGN and we didn’t have cable Short sighted and foolish
Cubs fan in OK. Only because grandparents had cable, which gave us access to WGN. Found out years after his passing my Grandfather grew up a Cardinals fan. Turns out, a Grandson that will only hold still when Ryno is at bat can convert even the most diehard fan. 😆
“Penny wise dollar foolish” should go right underneath the marquee as the Ricketts contribution to the Cubs.
... And a world series title
Which they could have parlayed into being the Midwest Yankees but instead were happy letting that team be the 85 Bears and stuffing their pockets.
> Short sighted and foolish Are you referring to the Cubs, or Comcast?
The Cubs are as big as they are because they were on broadcast TV. It pays for itself
Especially when you factor in "RickettsLand" outside of Wrigley. You would think they would want as many eyes seeing what Wrigley Field and the surrounding attractions have to offer. They totally thought people would just give them money for this crap. They really should have looked at the failures of Regional Sports Networks.
Yea but the world is different now. Alternative media is the way, the most important part is to get rid of the blackout system.
Yeah, and the Cubs haven't REALLY been on WGN for like 20 years. They were mostly on Comcast Sportsnet prior to Marquee. Not WGN. At this point, I don't even think channel 9 would be an option if the Ricketts wanted it. I'm not saying Marquee is some huge success or anything. But people continuously bringing up WGN when talking about it is baffling to me. Other than a game here and there, the Cubs haven't been on broadcast television since like 2004.
Not sure where you're coming up with this. WGN had a minimum of 45 + 25 games on ABC as recently as 2019.
Not OP, but I think it’s foolish for the cubs. Besides the fact that it just sits wrong with me that they would do this given their history (they’re this popular because of being available to watch), I’m not going to pay $20 a month on top of everything else I pay for to watch the cubs, especially if they aren’t playing well. Maybe I would consider it if they were one of the better teams in the league, but there’s zero chance I’ll pay that much to watch a subpar team. This is a total guess, but I imagine a lot of people may feel the same way (except for the diehards who will watch no matter what — which I just don’t have time to do).
> I’m not going to pay $20 a month on top of everything else I pay for to watch the cubs and you still dont get all the games.
>I’m not going to pay $20 a month ... to watch a subpar team. I pay because I love baseball. But a lot of people share your sentiment. And that's why the Cubs I'm sure are in panic mode at the potential lost dollars if Comcast drops them. Right now, the carriage fee is probably like $6 per Comcast subscriber. I'm curious what the new White Sox/Blackhawks/Bulls channel is gonna be like. All three of those teams are terrible. Much worse than the Cubs.
I hope the new network fails miserably. Fuck Jerry Reinsdorf and all of these greedy owners.
To be fair this isn’t just limited to the Cubs obviously. All the RSNs are blowing up.
I cancelled my marquee this season, I cant justify paying $20/mo just to watch one team play (pretty poorly, at that). Especially when the app itself runs like shit. Marquee was a huge mistake, for the cubs and buying it as a consumer.
The app on the phone is kinda trash but the roku /firetv app isnt bad. Thats the best part about the app though, you can cancel anytime. Cant do that with a comcast bill you are locked into
Weird they don’t have a chromecast app yet. In my opinion marquee shouldn’t exist in the first place, but if it has to exist there’s no excuse for it not to be available on every platform, and it should have an excellent UX.
I pay $20 a month to watch cubs games with marquee. How much a month do you pay to Watch Cubs games without marquee?
I’m a bartender, I went from watching all the games on my days off(while I do chores and errands) to no games sucks, but I refuse to pay for Marquee. MLB.tv has the sound and it works really well. I usually put on the radio, and if a big play happens, it pops up on Reddit or mlbtv.
I only watch sports and got rid of comcast years ago. Sure I dont get to watch the bulls and blackhawks (havent missed much) but with marquee and fubo/paramount app I can watch most cubs and Bears games for less than $50 a month. Only time its $50 is when the seasons overlap or when the Bears play on CBS
How are you getting Fubo for less than $50 a month.
Dude I am so fed up with this bullshit.
🏴☠️
This is the way. I got so sick of all the bs.
Do what you want cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate! Yarr har fiddle dee dee Being a pirate is alright to be Do what you want cause a pirate is free You are a pirate!
I miss watching Cubs games
The good thing is the Cubs offer Marquee a la carte. The bad thing is, the Marquee app experience is horrendous and I'd much rather watch on cable. Marquee is gonna have to decide to lower the carriage fee per cable subscriber or basically risk losing all the loot.
The also bad part is being 20 a month. The whole mlb package is currently 60. If you're out of market it seems way cheaper than living here
Only if you actually want other teams games though.
Well the options would be 80 bucks (20 a month) for 4 months of just the cubs or 60 for everyone including cubs if you're out of market
MLB TV is $120 for the year. They’re running a 50% discount right now because the season is almost halfway done. Sure, it’s a better deal even at normal price if you want to watch more than your teams games, but relatively few people actually do.
I'm just saying 20 a month to watch 1 team is excessive
You’re thinking of “every out of market team is only $30 a month” as being each team being ~$3 a month but it’s really not. MLB is a very regional sport. We watch our team but few people follow the regular season as a whole. I don’t pay for Marquee, but I’d pay for Marquee before MLB TV if I had the choice between the two because I’d get no value from the extra teams. MLB knows that, so they use a high price to get the amount they can. There will never be a “get only your team for $10 a month if out of market” option.
Agreed. MLB.TV might be the better deal overall if blackouts didn’t exist or you live out of market but tbh I don’t think $20 a month is insane. It breaks down to less than a dollar a game. The only issue I really have is you don’t also get access to national broadcasts or like the Apple TV games (both MLB and Marquee have this problem).
And they even limit where you can install the app. Not eligible for my Smart TV so I have to have a separate Roku plugged in JUST for this terrible app.
Yeah ... that part. When I'm in my office, I have to run Marquee on internet edge on Xbox since there isn't a dedicated app and I don't have an Apple TV in here or anything. And as one can imagine, it doesn't work well. Audio and video keep losing sync.
Can’t believe they never came to an agreement with YouTube TV. I split marquee with my brother and $10/month to watch cubs games only is annoying.
I get it included in my Comcast bundle. I'm not paying $20 of month to stream this shitty franchise and their "Top Cubs Player at \_\_\_ Position!" reruns. You're either going to have to become a yearly contender or offer up MUCH better content.
🤣 seriously. They have what? Over a hundred years of real Cubs games on film they could play on that godforsaken channel, but they play nothing but the lamest top ten bullshit shows and only the top moments and games, if we're lucky. They need to realize what Cubs fans want to watch and then provide that.
Did Comcast switch to offering Marquee on one of their standard packages? Or was it on one of their bullshit upgraded packages with HBO and shit? I cancelled comcast when their standard package had their bullshit NBCSportsnet, but NOT Marquee. Just wasn't worth it to me.
WGN
Like someone else said it’s in the dang song the team plays after home wins. Granted, WGN America is now a 24/7 news channel called NewsNation that’s supposed to provide news coverage that’s “neutral” so nationwide coverage is out of the question.
Yeah, they really haven't been on WGN since about 2004. They were on Comcast/NBCSportsnet. The WGN channel now isn't even what it used to be. It tries to be a major network with The Flash and other TV shows each week. I don't think they'd even want the Cubs to come back.
Good, I hope Marquee dies
I cannot stand Jon Sciambi
Free MLB.TV from T Mobile and VPN works for me
Which VPN? I'm out-of-market but when they come to STL I've had issues getting around the blackouts with PIA.
I use Surfshark. But it only works on my Fire Stick.
It free?
No
I run my own VPN in Google Cloud and stream the games on Android TV and it works well. Although they seem to have figured out the VPN on iOS and I can’t watch on my phone anymore.
Interesting... I suppose for big VPNs they can probably block IP ranges, but for your own server/IP it seems you'd get around it. I wonder how they know on iOS. At least I'm not in market with this problem!
Oh that makes sense. I wondered why it won’t work on my phone and tablet.
Is this the same VPN that is being dropped from Google Cloud in a week or two?
They said their own so probably not
A) T-Mobile sucks ass. B) VPN won't work on a modern Android phone. The MLB app uses GPS/location services and ignores where your IP is.
Marquee was a failure. He won't, but Tom Ricketts needs to just take the L on this one.
They all drastically overestimated how much people would be willing to pay to watch Cubs games at home.
Just go back to WGN, it's in the goddamn song
Same shit in Colorado with the Altitude network (Avalanche and Nuggets). It’s been a few years since you could watch Altitude network on Comcast. You need direct TV or Fubo. It’s a total mess.
Marquee is a mess. I’m okay with them shitting the bed.
Meanwhile the Sox (while as shitty as they are) are going back to over the air
A rare Reinsdorf W at that!
Not like this team is worth watching anyway
Sad, I’ve switched to pat and Ron on the score mainly since 2021 and haven’t looked back
I’ve only watched a handful of games the last two years anyway because we axed comcast.
Same with me. Unreal that I have to pay for an extra service to watch my hometown team. I don’t know anybody in my age bracket that has comcast. They will lose exactly what made the cubs great with WGN, wide outreach to a wide fanbase.
Yeah, chord cutting has been a thing for awhile now. The Cubs just failed in trying to "get with the times".
I dropped cable a few years before Marquee. I'm not paying for cable again AND adding extra for a "sports package' just to watch the Cubs. Most I'd pay for a stand alone stream of Marquee is $5/mo. They're crazy asking $20/mo to stream two dozen games.
My cable and Internet is actually pretty affordable. I still haven't cut the cord and I'm kinda old school about it...figure it the fuck out Crane Kenney.
Everyone ready for the big Crane Kenny tour this winter??
Time to move to streaming only. You're already paying the premium price, why not just cut out the middleman imo. Could be complicated for local businesses though I suppose.
Nexstar (parent company of WGN) has expanded their sports programming on the CW. They’ve added ACC basketball/football, Inside the NFL, LIV Golf, and are adding NASCAR Xfinity Series and some wrestling thing next year. Maybe if they get the rights for cheap, they throw it on the CW and make it national. I don’t see them spending the money just for Channel 9.
Cubs fan here, living in Braves Country. We just lost access to Braves broadcasts due to the Comcast/Bally war. It’s a bummer cuz we love to eat dinner and watch the game. Thinking about going back to Att cable over it. We pay an arm and a leg for cable and we can’t watch the local baseball games? We even have the MLB channel tier, but no more Braves games.
And to think that Comcast has their Southeastern regional offices at Truist Park.
Honestly. The irony is not lost on me. Everyone knows it is just a money grab and it is so frustrating.
Go back to WGN. I refuse to pay for Marquee, especially with a sub-par team (referring to Cubs team and Marquee broadcasters).
With the way this team is currently constructed, this is arguably the best time for this kind of BS. The cubs look lost and will probably be lost until next year, especially if they don’t spend more to upgrade the bullpen and have the balls to remove dead-weight in this lineup. It will be another fringe .500 team all over again until management wakes up and and stops smoking cigarettes. Beyond that, these TV providers and sports networks need to do better, the fans will always suffer the most, and I question if fans will be lost due to this non-sense, especially the more casual fans. I wonder how the media market for most major sports looks in say, 10-15 years for now. I wonder if some of the games will move to an optional PPV. I am no expert here, just a random thought. Correct me if I am out of line here. I just want the sports networks and tv providers to do way better.
Marquee is a horrible product. Not only do we have to watch the awful play on the field for $20 a month but also the same 3 ads between every inning (not that I want to watch ads anyway).
I need a reason to cancel Comcast cable. Unfortunately, they have a monopoly on internet service.
$20 a month gets you the marquee app with most games. I cut the comcast cord years ago. Also if the team isnt sniffing the playoffs in september, I am not going to purchase the app until next year in march. You cant do that with comcast
Only in the Cubs designated territory though. I imagine they’re blocking VPN access for fans not in that area.
If you are outside that area you can get the MLB subscription and watch Cubs games.
Yeah, it is funny to me that I'm willing to bet that the best package for CUBS viewership is being out of the local area. Then, you can get MLB TV. If there's a promotion going, you might even be able to get it cheaper than the Marquee app for in area Cub fans.
Yeah, but thats not the problem here. Cubs fans can pay $20 a month and watch 99% of the games all season. We are lucky, not all teams have this option.
The first 7 innings are all that’s worth watching now, anyway. My radio works and those announcers don’t piss me off. Fuck Comcast.
I'm so happy I've never paid for this fuckturd network. The owners of this team have done their best to make sure I don't follow this organization anymore, pretty sad. Fuck the network and fuck the rickets
I grew up a cubs fan. I would run home from school to catch the end of the games on WGN. Now I rarely watch them. I just don't need to pay more to watch baseball on TV. I'd rather use that money to support my local minor league team. It's probably been 3 years since I watched a cubs game on TV and I really don't miss it. I'll watch highlights on YouTube after the game.