million; because Sinclair's rate had been previously set, it significantly underpaid compared to an estimated value of $60 million for the station. The station continued to carry the Royals through 1996; however, due to UPN commitments, its game inventory dropped from 65 games in the first year of the contract to 53 games, the second-lowest exposure of any major-league franchise. In 1997, the Royals moved to an 80-game package, with 30 cable telecasts on Fox Sports Rocky Mountain and 50 games broadcast over-the-air. The broadcast rights to the package were won by KMBC-TV and KCWB (channel 29), an affiliate of The WB which KMBC-TV managed. On July 21, 1997, Sinclair signed a long-term affiliation agreement with Time Warner, under which the group committed five of its UPN-affiliated stations to that network in 1998, with a sixth independent station to join in 1999. KSMO-TV was not among the defecting stations and was one of six Sinclair-controlled outlets that would remain with UPN; in Kansas City, The WB had not had a broadcast affiliate until KCWB began broadcasting in 1996. However, the high-profile move by Sinclair to move five stations from UPN to The WB, its direct competitor, led to a legal dispute between the companies. UPN sued Sinclair, alleging it had breached its affiliation contract by exiting it early. At the end of December, Sinclair announced that KSMO—which had been at one point the top UPN affiliate in the country—would exit the network when its affiliation agreement ended on January 16, 1998. The station then became an independent again, even as reports surfaced of renewed talks between Sinclair and UPN. The network was left without a Kansas City affiliate for more than a month, but by late February, all signs pointed to KCWB taking on the UPN affiliation as KSMO negotiated with The WB. This occurred on March 30, 1998; Kids' WB did not immediately move from channel 29 because of the Fox Kids program commitment at channel 62, with those blocks instead swapping stations later in the year. In the early 2000s, Sinclair laid the groundwork to introduce what would have been KSMO-TV's first local newscast, utilizing its News Central hybrid format. The station was approved to hire a news staff of two dozen; the newscast would feature local stories read by an anchor in Kansas City mixed with national segments from News Central's facility at Sinclair headquarters in Hunt