Moving Down the Dial

Both being owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, the Bulls and White Sox have often gone hand-in-hand.  The Training Academy in Lisle immediately comes to mind.  They once shared a TV program on Fox Sports Net Chicago that talked about the organizations.  During Reinsdorf's ownership, they have both had their games broadcast at the same time on WMAQ and later, ESPN 1000.

The radio partnership is back in the picture with the announcement that the teams are leaving their respective radio homes for WLS AM 890.  The White Sox will ditch 670 The Score next spring while the Bulls will remain on ESPN 1000 for the coming season before leaving.  The Bulls' deal goes for five years and the Sox' for six, both running through 2021.  If the two teams' schedules ever conflict with each other, the Bulls will likely play on WLUP FM 97.9.

Since I've started followed the Bulls in earnest, they've almost always been on ESPN 1000.  That means they'll have been on there for almost 20 years once they leave.  It's a shame to have another piece of my childhood changing long-term and an even greater shame for one of Chicago's sports stations to be left without a team right now.  Personalities and writers like Nick Friedell, Jonathan Hood, Marc Silverman, Carmen DeFalco and Steve Kashul have been instrumental in promoting and discussing the team, so their jobs might change.

No word on the broadcast team has come down yet, but I would hope Chuck Swirsky and Bill Wennington aren't going anywhere.  Swirsky is a born play-by-play announcer and Wennington is as good a Bulls ambassador as he is a broadcaster.  I know some people who don't like the Mickey Mouse voice he often drops going into breaks, but I look past that.  If you're going to replace either of those guys, they better be proven in their respective areas.

The Bulls will get a greater reach with WLS.  ESPN 100 doesn't go very far beyond Chicagoland, Northwest Indiana and southeast Wisconsin.  WLS covers the vast majority of Illinois and Indiana.  Its signal can be faintly heard as far north as Green Bay, just east of Cedar Rapids, as far southwest as St. Louis and as far east as northwest Ohio.

As far as sports programming, WLS is known in Chicago for only carrying Notre Dame football and basketball.  The rest of the time, it operates with a news/talk format that includes Rush Limbaugh, Steve Dahl and Jonathon Brandmeier.  Most recently, it was ranked 29th in Chicago's Nielsen Audio survey.  Gaining the Bulls and White Sox could attract a new, younger demographic the station doesn't really attract right now.

Aside from the two stations losing their teams and maybe some of the teams' on-air personnel, everybody stands to benefit from this.  The station earns more revenue as well as better ratings.  The teams enter lucrative deals with a new partner.  And we Bulls fans get to listen to our team on the radio further from Chicago than we had before.