In a development that will surprise no one who has followed the two-speed trajectory of Chicago baseball, the Cubs and White Sox have arrived at the 2026 season with broadcasting strategies separated by approximately $150 per month and thirty years of technological progress.

Marquee Sports Network announced last week that it has reached carriage agreements with Hulu + Live TV and Amazon Prime Video, ending a 5.5-year blackout that began when the network launched in February 2020 with distribution so limited that watching a Cubs game legally required either a cable subscription to a specific tier, a trip to a bar, or the kind of patience typically reserved for tracking a package from overseas. The deal means that Cubs fans can now access Marquee through at least five major streaming platforms, provided they are willing to navigate the subscription stacking required to assemble a complete sports package in 2026, which Crestline Analytics estimates averages $147 per month for a household that wants baseball, football, and the ability to watch one (1) documentary about baseball and football.

The White Sox, meanwhile, have responded to the streaming era by going in the opposite direction — specifically, backward. The team announced that 10 games this season, including all three Crosstown Series matchups, will be simulcast on WCIU-TV Channel 26, a free over-the-air broadcast station that can be received with a pair of rabbit ear antennas and a willingness to accept that the year is 2026 and this is how you’re watching professional sports.

“We want to make White Sox baseball as accessible as possible to fans across the Chicagoland area,” said a team spokesperson, in a statement that manages to be both entirely sincere and functionally an admission that the best way to reach your fan base is to remove every possible barrier, including the barrier of paying for anything.

The contrast has not been lost on the city’s baseball commentariat. “What you’re seeing is two organizations with fundamentally different theories about what their product is worth,” said media analyst Priya Chakrabarti of Northshore Media Group. “The Cubs believe their content commands a premium. The Sox believe their content commands an antenna. Both are correct.” Chakrabarti’s firm estimates that Marquee Sports Network has generated approximately $340 million in subscriber revenue since launch, a number that the Sox’s WCIU arrangement will not match, because the Sox’s WCIU arrangement generates zero subscriber revenue, because it is free, because it is television that you receive through the air, like weather.

The timing of the Marquee-Hulu deal is strategically precise: Cubs Opening Day is March 26, when the team hosts the Nationals at Wrigley Field, and the network has reportedly been hemorrhaging subscribers during the offseason as fans discovered they could cancel Marquee in November and use the $25 per month to buy things they actually needed, such as groceries or heat. Re-signing with Hulu and Amazon provides a frictionless re-entry point for lapsed viewers who might not bother calling their cable provider but will absolutely click a button during a commercial for something else they’re watching.

Sox fans, for their part, have taken the WCIU announcement in stride. “Honestly? I’m just glad I don’t have to figure out another streaming app,” said Mike Dzierzanowski, 61, a season ticket holder from Bridgeport who was reached by phone because he does not have a computer. “Channel 26. I know where that is. It’s between 25 and 27.” He added that his television, a 2009 Samsung, receives WCIU “perfectly fine” and that he has never once in his life paid for a streaming service, a statement he delivered with the quiet pride of a man who has won a war he didn’t know he was fighting.

The broader implication, according to Chakrabarti, is that Chicago’s baseball market has essentially bifurcated into two parallel economies: one that treats fandom as a subscription service with tiered access and premium content, and one that treats it as a public utility. “It’s the most Chicago thing possible,” she said. “Two teams, same sport, same city, completely different centuries.”

The Cubs open on Marquee — and now Hulu, Amazon, Fubo, YouTube TV, and DirecTV Stream — on March 26. The Sox open on NBC Sports Chicago and, for select games, on Channel 26, which you can access right now by plugging a wire into the back of your television and pointing it vaguely toward the Sears Tower. No password required.