of breaking news and severe weather coverage necessitating such situations, the station has had to reschedule ABC network programs pre-empted by the telecasts. The preseason and MNF telecasts mark the only NFL games to have aired on WLS-TV since ABC lost the rights to NFL games in 2006; during the regular season, Bears games are rotated between WBBM-TV (through the NFL on CBS), WMAQ-TV (through NBC Sunday Night Football) and especially WFLD (through the NFL on Fox and select telecasts via the NFL Network's Thursday Night Football). Since 2010, however, it has deferred the right of first refusal due to the popularity and live voting requirements of ABC's Dancing with the Stars, with WCIU-TV carrying the MNF games when the former program's fall season is ongoing (an exception being WLS' carriage of an MNF Bears game against the Dallas Cowboys on December 9, 2013, when the team honored former head coach Mike Ditka, after the DWTS fall season had already ended). On December 12, 2014, WLS-TV signed a new five-year broadcast agreement with the Chicago Cubs, in which WLS televised 25 of the Major League Baseball team's games per year, starting with the 2015 season. The arrangement partially replaced one with WGN-TV (which has broadcast Cubs games since its inception in April 1948), which voluntarily pulled out of its existing broadcast deal with the team for the 2015 season and subsequently agreed to carry a reduced slate of 45 games. The WLS broadcasts were seen on DirecTV's version of MLB Extra Innings, and the feed provided is the WLS signal seen in the Chicago market (unlike with the feeds of WGN broadcasts, where public service announcements are seen in place of local commercials and station promos). As ABC has a limited sports programming schedule during the Major League Baseball season prior to September (when the MLB regular season and college football season overlap). The station mainly carried the team's weekend daytime games in order to limit pre-emption of the network's prime time programming. The deal (along with all of the Cubs' broadcast television deals) ended after the 2019 season, when the team launched the cable-only Marquee Sports Network to carry their game telecasts. WLS-TV also carries select Chicago Bulls games as part of their NBA on ABC telecasts. From 1999 to 2004 and again since 2021, WLS-TV carries select Chicago Blackhawks games as part of their NHL on ABC telecasts.