Comcast has agreed to carry the Marquee Sports Network, the new TV home of the Chicago Cubs, the Chicago Tribune reports this morning.
The agreement comes just several hours before the Cubs’ first game of the 2020 season. Chicago tonight plays the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field.
“We finished our negotiations with Comcast to carry Marquee and it will be available in all Xfinity homes,” Crane Kenney, Cubs president of business operations told the newspaper.
The deal means that Chicago’s largest pay TV operator will carry the Cubs games in the Chicago market.
DIRECTV, U-verse, AT&T TV (and Now), Hulu Live, Mediacom and Charter have also agreed to carry it (as well as many smaller pay TV outfits). Comcast had been the new channel’s biggest holdout, but the Tribune says today’s deal is for multiple years.
The Marquee Sports Network will be available in High Definition on channel 202 in Xfinity lineups in the Chicago area.
The Marquee pact is part of a larger carriage agreement between Comcast and Sinclair, the co-owner of the regional sports channel. Comcast has also agreed to continue carrying Sinclair’s local network affiliates, its 18 Fox-named regional sports networks and the Yes Network.
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— Phillip Swann
@swanniontv
