Suburban fans, bars caught in dispute between Tribune, DirecTVBy Anna Marie Kukec - Daily Herald - rticle posted: 4/2/2012 7:29 PMChampps Americana sports bar in Lincolnshire prides itself on offering major league sports for guests while they enjoy a burger and a beer. But when customers arrived on Sunday and Monday, even a cold one didn’t soothe those fans or the bar’s management.
Bar Manager Mike Runyan discovered that WGN programming, which included those sought-after sports programs, was pulled from its provider, DirecTV.
“When DirecTV had negotiation issues in the past with various channels, we were able to plan ahead and we used Dish Network to provide the games to our guests,” Runyan said. “But this time, it was a last-minute issue and we didn’t have Dish. ... This could get very expensive.”
Despite the one-year contract, Champps, like other sports bars and individual subscribers, will need to rely on other means to get those games, including the Chicago Cubs opener and the Blackhawks’ playoffs, until the dispute is settled between DirecTV and Chicago-based Tribune Broadcasting Co.
This is the second time in the past six months that DirecTV subscribers have lost their favorite sports and other programming because negotiations with content providers have failed. Besides the Tribune, Comcast Sports Network (CSN), which carries the Bulls and Blackhawks as well as the Cubs and Sox, was lost last fall.
read more: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20120402/business/704029663/For those of you with DirecTV, WGN's first regular season telecast of the White Sox will be on Saturday night at Texas.