Latest in Chicago Cubs

The diamond battle of Chicago will get some network airtime next month. ESPN said today that ABC will televise the August 8 White Sox-Cubs matchup from Wrigley Field — the first time the broadcast net has aired its Disney sibling’s Sunday Night Baseball game of the week. Matt Vasgersian will handle play-by-play for…

Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley declined to offer many new details about the company’s pursuit of Fox’s high-profile portfolio of regional sports networks during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. But anyone listening could tell the company remains very much in the mix. In order to obtain regulatory…

Sinclair Broadcast Group cruised past Wall Street estimates for the political advertising-rich fourth quarter. The company posted total revenue of $893.3 million, up more than 25% from the year-earlier quarter and better than the consensus outlook of analysts, which was a shade less than $880 million. Earnings per…

While it remains a suitor for the portfolio of regional sports networks Disney will soon be unloading as a condition of getting its Fox acquisition to close, Sinclair Broadcast Group is taking a more novel path into the sports cable business. The No. 1 owner of local TV stations, which already owns the Tennis Channel…

It’s the second year in a row pairing the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series, but audiences apparently can’t get enough. TBS reports audience increases across all of its platforms for the first game, which pits the two teams for the right to represent the National League in…

EXCLUSIVE: The movie about the Chicago Cubs World Series win is moving forward. Shane Abbess, an Australian director who is a major baseball fan, has been signed to direct Teammate, the movie about the Chicago Cubs winning its first World Series since 1908. Die-hard Cubbie fan Bill Murray has been in talks to join the…

The 2017 Major League Baseball season started last week, but a pair of defending World Series champions have moonlighting gigs. Chicago Cubs All-Stars Kris Bryant and Jake Arrieta are set to appear on the season finale of NBC’s Chicago Fire along with veteran sportscaster Mike Tirico, who joined NBC last year. In the…

UPDATE with new info: ESPN’s first game of the new baseball season Sunday night was in midseason form ratings-wise. The network’s coverage of the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs vs the St. Louis Cardinals was watched by 3.62 million viewers, up 25% over last year’s game. Its 2.3 overnight rating in the…

Ari Emanuel, who met with his former client Donald Trump soon after the election, was at the White House today with President Barack Obama as the WME | IMG boss helped commemorate his hometown Chicago Cubs’ World Series victory. The Cubs joined Obama in the White House celebration, which also included his brother…

UPDATED with video: John Oliver finally took responsibility for Donald Trump’s race to the White House two days before Election Day. “It is frankly hard to believe there ever was a time when people thought a Trump candidacy would be funny, but there was such a time,” Oliver said, in his own defense. “As you may…

Doctor Strange star Benedict Cumberbatch on last night’s Saturday Night Live did what any weirdly gorgeous reptilian sex god should do to get laughs (his description, by the way, at least the lizard part): He targeted himself as much as the day’s headlines. In a game show sketch that had the female cast members…

UPDATE with video Ex-Saturday Night Live man — and forever Cubs fan — Bill Murray made a surprise appearance on his old show tonight, appearing with three of the World Series winners in a Weekend Update bit. Singing a barbershop quartet style version of an old ditty (“Hey Chicago what do you say, the Cubs are going to…