and "SoxNet" banners until 2010, when they were rebranded under the umbrella title WGN Sports on The U. In 2011, all White Sox, Blackhawks, Bulls and Cubs games televised on WCIU began to be syndicated to local stations in central Illinois and Iowa through the "WGN Sports Network" service. Prior to this, select Bulls games aired by WCIU and WGN had been simulcast to many of these same stations. In April 2006, WCIU began broadcasting White Sox, Cubs and Bulls home games in high definition, with away games following suit in April 2008. In February 2015, Weigel Broadcasting discontinued its agreement with Tribune Broadcasting to carry Cubs and White Sox telecasts produced by WGN, so as to not have the game broadcasts conflict with the WLS-TV-produced prime time newscast on WCIU (with WPWR-TV taking over as an overflow feed for WGN). From 2010 until 2016, WCIU has served as a local over-the-air broadcaster of NFL games involving the Chicago Bears that are televised by ESPN's Monday Night Football. WLS-TV (channel 7), WCIU's news partner, is an owned-and-operated station of ABC (itself a sister network to ESPN through ABC parent The Walt Disney Company's majority ownership of the cable network), but has chosen to exercise its right of first refusal to carry MNF games, deferring most games aired since 2010 in order to air Dancing with the Stars (due to the program's popularity and the structure of its live voting requirements) during that program's fall season. It also carried a Cubs game in lieu of WLS-TV in mid-September 2019 (when The CW was still in its summer season), as ABC unexpectedly scheduled the sixth-season finale of Bachelor in Paradise for the same evening. This was no longer an issue to any Chicago broadcast station beginning in 2020 with the move of all Chicago professional sports locally to NBC Sports Chicago and Marquee Sports Network (outside network telecasts and the Bears). The station refused carriage of the 2023 LIV Golf season after the controversial golf league contracted with The CW (now majority-owned by Nexstar Media Group) to carry their tournaments; in Chicago, it airs on Nexstar's WGN-TV instead, though Weigel does carry it on WCWW-LD in South Bend, making it likely that existing programming commitments (including to the Illinois High School Association) and a strong weekend syndication schedule led Weigel to decline the coverage. Newscasts Alongside the Stock Market Observer, WCIU's first