O'Donnell: Bears break with WBBM/WCFS could trigger major Chicago radio sports revamp

THE FAULT LINES BELOW sports radio in Chicago are rumbling.

Actually, the phrasing should be "sports audio."

Is it multiple earthquakes dead ahead - for both sports talk and the market's major play-by-play rights package?

The quivers are in place.

ALL INDICATIONS ARE THAT the Bears will be leaving WBBM-AM (780) and simulcast WCFS-FM (105.9) after the 2022 NFL season.

As recently as four or five years ago, the move would be considered seismic.

Now, in the rapidly evolving hypersonic age of entertainment delivery, it might be best categorized as "strategically interim."

The team's games must be heard on assorted platforms from some audio base.

The Bears are said to be overestimating their radio value even in the era's inflationary economic climate.

No one at Halas Hall or at the Audacy-owned AM-780 / FM-105.9 will speak about any impending change informatively on the record.

But all signs point to a divorce after 23 seasons of happy together.

MONEY, OF COURSE, IS AT the root of the breakup.

Thirty years ago, the Mike Ditka Bears - even in their twilight - commanded an annual rights fee of $6 million-per from WGN-AM (720).

That's approximately $12.6M in 2022 dollars, or more than $600,000 per-regular season game.

That is a ton of advertising to move, even if part of it may be also recouped from weekly shows, marketing co-ops and other profitable Bear waves to surf.

The best the Bears can hope for to max out their audio income, according to industry experts, is a revenue share with a hungry, imaginative partner.

A CONCURRENT REALITY WITH AUDACY is that the corporation appears to be moving toward a rendezvous with some form of bankruptcy.

Shares of the national radio giant are selling for approximately 60 cents.

Earlier this month, Audacy was placed in a six-month "cure period" by regulators of the New York Stock Exchange.

That means before February 1, 2023, Audacy must have 30 consecutive trading days with a closing price of $1 or higher to remain listed on the NYSE.

The ripple effect from such dire straits is already being felt in the company's seven-station Chicago cluster. That group includes struggling WSCR-AM (670), WBBM-AM / WCFS-FM and four FM music stations - WXRT (93.1), WBBM (96.3), WUSN (99.5) and WBMX (104.3).

MOST SIGNIFICANTLY TO THE CHICAGO SPORTS LISTENER, it's not at all implausible that Audacy may elect to pull the plug on all or almost all local sports talkers at "The Score."

That would leave prime AM-670 parts dominated by suffocating national sports programming, much of it from CBS Sports Radio.

Such operational pragmatism would also provide an enormous gap for a fresh sports station in Chicago, especially with Bears play-by-play and associated programming as anchors.

Most likely candidate is iHeart's WCHI-FM (95.5), a pedestrian rocker slightly better known for past turns as album-oriented WMET and smooth jazz WNUA.

Parent iHeart is the country's largest radio combine. Close to 10% of its 800+ stations are sports talk.

Chicago FM remains fertile, unplowed ground for a sports talk station.

BEST NEWS FOR BEARS FAN may be that Jeff Joniak and Tom Thayer are expected to travel with the package.

To get the wagon train rolling, morning-line odds and comments follow with possible landing signals for the next era of Bears radiocasts:

WCHI 95.5-FM (iHeart, 1-1) - If they can get the Bears, iHeart would be foolish not to premiere Chicago's first major FM all-sports station ... The only competition would be the two upstreaming AM also-rans ... The format flip should be quick and the only working talent of any coherent interest to the new operators would be the properly pedigreed Tom Waddle.

WMVP 1000-AM (Good Karma, 7-2) - An astounding loss for George McCaskey and Co. if the team winds up on this underfinanced loser ... The NFL-wide perception would be that desperation met desperation ... WMVP was No. 26 in the most recent Nielsen Audios and it is to successful radio what J-Lo is to lasting marriage ... G-Karma lost the Packers last winter off WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee, the only radio base Green Bay had known since 1929.

WBBM AM-780 (Audacy, 20-1) - Must be listed primarily because of the McCaskey family's long-running fascination with excessive sentimentality ... Game-day wraparound programming has generally been crisply droning, like a whirling floor fan.

WGN AM-720 (Nexstar, 72-1) - Dat's right, Jack ... This elderberry-stained relic has to do something in the 21st century to show that it cares about listeners 65-and-under, doesn't it? ... Absolutely ironic that the cobwebbed cocoon still boasts Ed O'Bradovich and the best postgame Bears show in town.

WSCR 670-AM AM-670 (Audacy, 100-1) - Might Audacy be audacious enough to flip "The Score" to AM-780 and WBBM to the more powerful signal of AM-670? ... Arced-out programming poo' bah Mitch Rosen has long shown an arrogant contempt for professional broadcasting talent and his chickens have been coming home to roost.

Bears buy their own radio station (100,000-1) - Just a kooky fantasy - right? ... But here's a brutal trifecta for the faithful to consider: What if in the next six months, Justin Fields sustains a serious injury, the team finishes 4-13 and the Arlington Park deal blows up?

That would make some really feel the fault lines quiver.

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com.