MAKING THE LINEUP
Cubs TV boss has 8 months to figure out what fans want — or don’t want
(Broadcast Group), it’s really a dream gig.”
There’s bound to be a lot of debate over the next year as to whether the switch to a Cubs-owned network will be worth it for the average viewer. The Tribune’s Robert Channick reports that typical Chicago-area cable and satellite subscribers could see another $4 per month added to their bills thanks to the Marquee Network, whether they want it or not.
Either way, it’s coming in February 2020, so what should Cubs fans expect to see when they click on the channel?
The same old Cubs, of course, but a lot more of them, including offseason coverage of the team’s dealings at the general managers meetings and winter meetings, the Cubs Convention, the entire slate of exhibition games and classic reruns from the WGN catalog.
McCarthy, who was named GM this week after serving as a consultant for the Cubs while they set up the network, grew up a baseball fan and began his career with an entry-level job at MSG Network after graduating from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
He spent 23 years at MSG, producing a lot of baseball games before moving up the ladder.
“I think it was called the Yankees,” he joked. “A pinstriped team. … And the Mets. We had them both for 12 years.”
Which team was his? McCarthy said he was not a fan of any particular team.
“It would be hard to deny where I’m from just from the accent alone,” he said. “I knew some groundskeepers on the Mets. My dad was one of them, so I grew up around the Mets.
“But I produced the Yankees for nine years. My day usually began with the Cubs on ’GN in New York because I’m a baseball person at heart.”
It doesn’t matter where he’s from but how he delivers the kind of content
Cubs fans want to consume. Asked if there’s any difference in appealing to Cubs fans’ tastes as opposed to Yankees fans, McCarthy said Cubs Nation is “more passionate and has been more battle-tested historically.”
“They probably haven’t been given the access to the team that Yankees fans have been given over the last 12 years (on YES Network), so that would be a difference,” he said. “But Cubs fans and their level of devotion have been the envy of all baseball around the country.
“There is only one fan base that stays and sings a three-minute song when the game is over.”
Marquee will be similar to the Yankees’ YES Network, which also telecasts Nets games.
“But it’s Yankee-centric,” he said. “You’ll see this channel be very Cubscentric ... and the fan base has every right to get that kind of coverage. They deserve it, frankly.”
The Cubs telecasts probably won’t look drastically different. They’ve already announced broadcasters Len Kasper and Jim Deshaies will return, and most baseball telecasts use the same basic camera angles.
With no time restrictions from other non-baseball programming, there will be much more extensive pregame and postgame coverage, so that means additional hosts and reporters will be hired, along with a producer/director, cameramen and technical people.
NBC Sports Chicago’s David Kaplan, who serves as the Cubs’ pregame and postgame host, took himself out of the running for a Marquee Network gig by recently re-upping with that network, which will continue to carry White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks games.
McCarthy may bring in a nationally known baseball personality to give the network some instant credibility.
“There’s only one Chicago Cubs and only one launch of it, and this might be the last one and people are excited about it,” he said. “I’m not shocked, but it’s overwhelming how many people want to be a big part of it. I’m not sure if we need (a big name), but it’s been very interesting for me to see how many folks have shown interest.”
Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Costas, who recently left NBC and was in town Monday doing play-by-play of the Cubs-Phillies game for MLB Network, was mentioned as a possibility.
“I’m not familiar with him,” McCarthy facetiously said. “But it’d be good to get someone like that if we could.”
Getting Cubs fans to watch Cubs games shouldn’t be difficult, especially if they continue to contend. But getting viewers to watch in the offseason won’t be as easy.
McCarthy says the Cubs “have virtually created kind of a non-offseason,” so he’s not worried they’ll be bored by the Marquee content from November until spring training. He figures there is only “about a month or two” of an offseason, assuming the Cubs Convention is the de facto start of the new season.
“There is so much content here for any baseball team but particularly the Cubs,” he said.
Some of that content will be old Cubs games from the WGN archives. The Cubs have the rights to all of their games, but WGN never saved many of the old favorites from the Jack Brickhouse era, so most of the collection is from the post-1980s Cubs teams.
That means very little Ernie Banks or the franchise-changing ’84 season to choose from.
“There’s more around than you think, and MLB has some treasure troves, too, that we’re sifting through now,” McCarthy said. “We’ve got a lot of nice surprises for people. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a particular angle taken just on the Harry Caray games alone.
“I grew up watching the Cubs on ’GN. That’s where your baseball day started around the country. … I have a lot of respect for the history WGN and the Cubs have together. They put a national slant on the Cubs brand, which is quite impactful to this day and duly noted.”
McCarthy has gone from job to job over the years, seldom settling down for long. But he expects this will be his final stop and believes Marquee will change the way Cubs fans follow their team.
“It’s sort of a lasting jewel for Cubs fans to enjoy,” he said. “I’m really proud to be a part of it.
(The job) is different in a lot of ways because every city is a little bit different. But I don’t know if I’ve ever seen fans that give as much of their emotional bandwidth to a baseball team than the Cubs fans do.”
With eight months left before the launch date, McCarthy has time to get inside the head of Cubs fans and find out exactly what they want from their baseball network.
And perhaps more importantly, what they don’t want.