The Academy announced on Wednesday:

Major changes are coming for Marquee Sports Network, per a report in the Chicago Sun-Times. The Regional Sports Network co-owned by the Chicago Cubs and Sinclair Broadcast Group is the TV and streaming home of the team’s games and associated content, and, going forward, it seems like things are scaling back considerably. The network’s GM, Diane Penny, is out, as are content director Tony Andracki and reporter Andy Martinez: Cubs' Marquee Sports Network eliminates GM position among cuts. trib.al/6HxvSSS— Jeff Agrest (@jeffagrest.bsky.social) 2025-12-02T02:02:38.571Z It really stings to see good people lose their jobs, especially when I enjoy their work so much. I hope Tony and Andy find new gigs promptly, as they are very good at what they do. Meanwhile, the report indicates that there will be a combination of other cost-saving moves, from other dismissals, to role changes, to Cubs and Sinclair employees directly stepping into positions at Marquee, to third-party outsourcing. We’ll see if the budget-trimming has a direct impact on the quality of Marquee’s product offerings. We’re a long ways off from the first Spring Training broadcast, so we’ll have to wait on that front. As for current programming, the focus has long shifted to being Cubs-game-centric, so that could mean the offseason programming – non-Cubs and Cubs-related scaffolding – continues to thin. Then there are the digital properties – the app, the website, the social channels, etc. – and we don’t yet know what is to become of them. I worry that I’ve seen this tale before, with a talent drain preceding a zombie turn, and once-compelling web properties become ghost towns. Keeping digital properties humming nowadays is hard enough, but without the talent or the support of higher-ups, it can become impossible. Huge cuts can be sold as necessary to stay afloat, but sometimes they just trigger a doom loop. That is all to say, I feel a little sick in my gut today, thinking about all the people this news is affecting. The people who were let go, the people whose jobs were transformed, and the people whose futures are now uncertain. Moreover, because Marquee is such an important appendage of the larger Chicago Cubs entity, we have to wonder what impacts flow therefrom. What Does This Mean for the Chicago Cubs? As the report indicates, one set of impacts will be the continued intermingling of roles and responsibilities that overlap between the Cubs as an organization and Marquee as an organization. Colin Faulkner, the team’s Chief Commercial Officer, is stepping in as the not-called-GM-but-functionally-GM of Marquee, overseeing game coverage and production. Faulkner is well-regarded and has done a very good job with the commercial aspects of Chicago Cubs games over a very long tenure, though it’s TBD whether that skill set ports over to TV/streaming production. Also, will he and his staff be stretched thin? It also did not escape my notice that Cubs Business President Crane Kenney was the one offering comments to the Sun-Times in the report, further suggesting that we could see an increase in Marquee being operated as an arm of the Cubs, rather than a distinct Regional Sports Network. As for any financial impact here on the things we see on the field, I think it’s safe to assume the news here is not good. When Marquee does well, the Cubs can theoretically net quite a bit more revenue to put on the field. When Marquee does poorly, the Cubs can theoretically net less. I say theoretically, as these are separate entities, with Marquee a 50/50 proposition between the Cubs and Sinclair. Technically, what happens to Marquee doesn’t have to be a direct hit to the Cubs’ books. But then, as you can see, with the channel’s two owners stepping in to do more of the work directly at Marquee, it becomes more difficult to talk about these things like they actually have financial independence. For all practical purposes, when Marquee has carriage issues or the streaming service doesn’t explode, the Cubs’ revenues take a hit. Which means baseball operations takes a hit. All that said, I can’t imagine any of this is a brand-new-surprise to the Cubs’ organization, whose own budgeting process would’ve been playing out in the early part of November. In other words, the direction of the Cubs’ offseason plan from a financial perspective should’ve been set a long time ago – it’s only that we’re just finding out. So, then, if you want to be hopeful about Marquee’s apparent challenges not having an impact on what the Cubs do or do not do this offseason, the story you tell yourself is something like this: all those reports about the Cubs going after a front-of-the-rotation type, even after Shota Imanaga accepted his Qualifying Offer, they came after the front office already knew what its budget would be for 2026+. And that budget figure came in full and complete contemplation of any changes coming at Marquee. Is that actually true? Was the budget actually as robust as the reports implied? Did people involved actually know the full scope of what was coming at Marquee? Are the Cubs actually going to be in on pricey starting pitchers or relievers from here? Is there actually enough money to add a quality bat if the right fit became available? These are questions I can’t answer. I can say only that, on the whole, the 2025 season had to have been a financially strong one for the Cubs. And that their broadcast/streaming rights are still extremely valuable in a relative sense going forward. To that end, one final thing that came to mind as I read the Sun-Times report. In truth, it was the first thing that came to mind: what does this mean for the long-term future of Cubs broadcast and streaming rights? Major League Baseball wants to centralize as many of its teams’ broadcast and streaming rights as possible over the next few years, and one of the major battles is expected to be how much of those rights – and at what revenue-sharing price – the big-market teams with their own RSNs would be willing to give up. Now we have to ask: are the Cubs not going to be a big fighter? That is to say, if Marquee is having to tighten belts like this, might the Cubs actually welcome the opportunity to have their rights wrapped up in a national way? Assuming they were properly compensated for the relatively (much) larger value of their rights? That’s the biggest long-term story coming out of any RSN disruptions, by far, and it ties very directly to next year’s Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations. Remember, that whole thing isn’t just a fight between the owners and the players; it’s also a fight between the large-market owners and the small-market owners, attempting to figure out the best way forward on, among other things, maximizing the value of streaming rights in the current era.

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