Marquee Leadership ‘Optimistic’ About Remaining on Comcast

Marquee Sports Network just celebrated its fifth anniversary, but the future for the Cubs’ TV broadcast home remains just as fraught as the last half-decade. The network launched at the worst possible time, just before COVID shut down spring training and several months of the regular season, then experienced myriad (preventable) carriage issues with multiple partners. The most important of those was with Comcast, which serves more homes in Chicagoland and throughout the Cubs’ broadcast territory than any other provider.

That relationship remains strained, though Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney told the Chicago Tribune’s Meghan Montemurro he’s “optimistic” Marquee and Comcast will reach a new agreement soon. They’d better, because the team’s domestic opener is less than three weeks away. Comcast holds the cards here and isn’t likely to keep the RSN at a basic tier, where its carriage fees are translated to more people who don’t want it.

Rather, it’s likely to be moved to a premium tier that will allow subscribers who want Marquee to pay for it (and other programming in said tier) if they so choose. The other option is to dump Comcast and pay for Marquee’s stand-alone app for $20/month, which isn’t a bad deal when you cancel during the offseason. The upgraded app is better now than in the past, though it’s got a glitch where the audio remains on unless you go back to the home screen.

If you don’t do that first, Marquee’s sound will continue even if you close the app and, yes, turn off your TV. It’s the weirdest thing and I still can’t remember to do it every time. And we’re not talking about just a 10-second lag or something, it’ll remain on in perpetuity.