The White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks' decision to partner with Standard Media for their new regional sports network was confusing from the start.

Here was a small media company based in Nashville, Tennessee, representing the hopes and dreams of the teams. His job would be to spread the network as widely as possible.

To do this, Standard would have to agree to a broadcast agreement with Comcast, the largest TV provider in the Chicago market. More than three weeks into the Chicago Sports Network's existence, no deal is in sight, confirming fears that Standard wasn't equipped for the job.

Standard Media only has four channels. It is a subsidiary of Standard General, a hedge fund that failed last year in its attempt to merge with television station operator Tegna, which owns 64. Standard General also controls Bally's Casinos, which until recently branded the bankrupt Diamond Sports Group RSNs.

How's that for a resume?

Standard Media did not respond to requests for comment.

With four stations and only one in a Comcast area, Standard Media has no influence on promotion discussions. When Comcast didn't air the Yankees' YES Network for an entire season in 2016, Fox, which owned the network at the time, faced pulling Fox News as soon as its contract expired to get YES back on the air. Standard Media has no such card to play with.

The Sox, Bulls and Hawks find out how well they did on NBC Sports Chicago. For 20 years they worked with Comcast to broadcast their games. They didn't have to worry about carriage because NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, handled all negotiations on NBCSCH's behalf.

Standard Media has contracts with 12 distributors, including DirecTV, Astound/RCN and six smaller Illinois providers, and also provides the CHSN signal over-the-air. Standard is also closing a deal with streaming service Fubo, which will be its second streamer after DirecTV Stream.

But Standard Media, whose negotiating team is led by Standard General founder Soohyung Kim and Standard Media chief operating officer Stan Knott, has not come to terms with the fact that CHSN will appear at a higher programming level when (if) ?) Comcast's Xfinity systems appear.

Comcast has clearly stated its plan to move RSNs to the Ultimate TV tier once their contracts expire. Comcast has no reason to negotiate until Standard agrees to a sliding scale. This has already happened with MASN in Baltimore-Washington, Root Sports in Seattle and SportsNet Pittsburgh.

And that's what will happen to the Cubs' Marquee Sports Network, whose contract with Comcast expired on Sept. 30 but which has continued to air through several short-term extensions. When the current version expires, Marquee will be moved up from the middle tier, Popular TV.

At this point, Standard Media will no longer have a foothold. But it's a shame that this could settle the dispute.

Carriage disputes with Comcast continue in Denver, where Altitude has been off the air for five years, and in New York, where MSG has been off the air for three years. These stations also lack leverage while refusing to be ranked. It didn't matter that the Avalanche and Nuggets won championships and the Knicks and Rangers were on the rise.

As always in such situations, the fans pay the price. Right now, Comcast customers are either missing the Bulls and Hawk games or having to align their antenna with a window frame to get a clear picture. Soon they'll have to spend another $20 a month or so to watch the games they've been following for years.

Such is life when cable subscriptions are drastically cut and sports programming prices skyrocket. But the least teams can do is give all fans the option to pay. By stubbornly clinging to a fruitless stance, Substandard Media denies fans this.