WGN to Simulcast Monday Night’s Bears Game

By Kevin Eck 

Thanks to WGN‘s plans to simulcast ESPN’s “Monday Night Football”, Chicago Bears fans without cable or satellite, who live in the Chicago market, will be able to watch the Bears take on the Dallas Cowboys.

The Chicago CW affiliate plans to begin the football broadcast with their own pregame show called “Monday Night Pregame”.  The show airs live from Dallas starting at 7 p.m.   The simulcast of ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” begins at 7:30 p.m.

The Chicago pregame show will feature WGN’s sports anchor Dan Roan and former NFL player Matt Bowen, with David Haugh from the Chicago Tribune and ESPN’s game announcer, Mike Tirico, giving fans a preview of the game.

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According to ChicagoLandMedia.com, the simulcast was initially offered to ABC affiliate WLS,

ESPN and ABC share the same principal owner, The Walt Disney Corporation. For that reason, the local simulcast was offered to ABC-owned WLS-TV/ABC 7 Chicago. Even though every Chicago Bears game broadcast for the last few years is by far the #1 rated broadcast of that particular week, WLS-TV chose to reject the ESPN simulcast, so as to air the reality show “Dancing With The Stars” without a delay. The simulcast then became available for any local Chicago outlet, and Tribune Broadcasting grabbed the rights to air it locally.

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