"Chicago Bulls" renewed for another (final?) season on television
obscure network, shrinking budget, not looking good for the venerable TV franchise
Listen: it behooves all of you to subscribe so that you don’t have to re-check the site (or even worse: Twxtter) for anything interesting with the Bulls team. I can’t think of anything beyond my latest post to even discuss. Luckily it was a great post!
The Bulls made an announcement earlier today (via), in conjunction with the White Sox and the Blackhawks that they are changing their broadcast partner for the upcoming NBA season.
Gone is NBC Sports Chicago, and arriving shortly is “CHSN”, an incomplete-acronym meaning Chicago Sports Network1.
Ultimately what matters to us is how we can see the games, and to a lesser extent the quality of the broadcast. To the former, the release claims that the network will have agreements in place with cable and streaming providers, AND offer over-the-air viewing in the Chicago area. That’d be cool, if true.
I’m even more skeptical that this will be an improved product. I’m far from an expert on “media” or “business”, but from what I understand the regional sports network bubble has burst and going a do-it-yourself route (NBC Sports Network was also co-owned by the teams, but with a significant equity stake from NBC parent company Comcast) will be at reduced expenditures. From what the blog Sox Machine has found this summer, this new company barely even exists.
Speaking of The Sox, we know ‘dorf has mettled with even their broadcast to bring in cheaper ass-kissers. Luckily for us (in this respect, anyway), he doesn’t care about the Bulls enough to bother with such a minor detail. It probably means the team of Adam Amin and Stacey King will stay, and while I find them insufferable it’s more that I find any excitement surrounding the AKME Bulls as disingenuous and they’re ultimately better than many other home broadcasts.
Less certain is what it means for the shoulder programming and website. I’d have to imagine they’ll still have a post-game show of some kind, but do they need both Kendall Gill2 and Will Perdue3? Do they want to pay an “Insider” (currently: KC Johnson) at all?
This whole thing will almost certainly look cheap, at least at the start. Maybe it’s meant to be temporary until the NBA can figure out what to do with local broadcasting rights for all their teams.
So not much changing and it doesn’t affect the on-court team. It just struck me as a reminder of how small-time the Chicago Bulls are when it should be a juggernaut given their market and brand.
The Sox have to share with another baseball team. The Blackhawks are in a second-tier sports league4. The Bulls are lumped in here with this news that sounds eerily similar to a long-running procedural series that reduces budget and switches networks for a final season.
Luckily for us, previous seasons remain available for streaming under “The Last Dance” banner.
Please do not confuse with independent fan-driven site CHGO (meaning “Chuggo”).
has offered repeated analysis stating that the Bulls are just unlucky and need more time to show what they can do.
his offerings can be timed with a sundial
harsh, but maybe not harsh enough to baseball? Then again, even the NBA is a tier or two below the NFL.
I wonder at what point the Bulls brand stops being worth any more than the mere size of the media market. Honestly, in my person experience talking to basketball fans who are under the age of like 35, they don't really give a shit about MJ. Now that still leaves a lot of people alive who do, but still. I wonder at what point Uncle Jerry brings this thing full circle and we're basically so post-MJ that we become pre-MJ again.
I'll second Matt's view that we are lucky that we don't have to feel obligated to look at the bright side of this team. I listen to podcasts of guys (not gonna name names where they're just, you know, trying to act like there's something fun about the Bulls from an internet basketball nerd perspective.
I say internet basketball nerd, because the organization does have a point that the average ticket buying fan isn't made very happy about the prospect of three or eight years of missing the playoffs and winning 20ish games.
And the average internet basketball nerd isn't very excited about a 40ish win team with no discernible upside, financial restrictions, and a massive pick deficit hanging over them. Eventually, both types of fans will be unhappy, because although a good GM leading a good organization might be able to thread this needle and entertain everyone, we do not have those things. So at some point it will come crashing down.
In the meantime, what can you do? Well, I'll enjoy (occasionally) watching a 40ish win team that has guys I mostly like (DeMar, Coby, Ayo) rather than watching a 20ish win team that's a placeholder for a team that in 5 years will be composed of guys currently just getting their pubes in middle school.
If we can maintain a 40ish win team while getting younger, cheaper, and collecting some assets, that'd be good too.