DEAR CHICAGO: NEVER PAY $30 A MONTH FOR THREE TEAMS THAT SHOULD PAY YOU

Reinsdorf ignores how it’s done responsibly in Dallas — free subscriptions for direct-to-consumer streaming — and asks fans to pay lofty monthly sums when the franchises are worth almost $10 billion

     If I ever return to Chicago — Ozzie Guillen misses my grit, reports the Washington Post in breaking news — the first question involves scuzzball rot. Why would the White Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks charge fans for direct-to-consumer streaming service when they should give it away for free? Why must you pay $19.99 for a one-team subscription and $29.99 for all three when, in fact, they should be paying you ungodly sums per month?

     Dallas is among markets offering the service at no cost. Why are Jerry Reinsdorf and Co. demanding money when the basketball team is valued at $5 billion, the hockey team is valued at $2.45 billion and the all-time baseball crasher — shrinkage on Shields Avenue — is worth $2.05 billion? They are worth almost TEN BILLION DOLLARS as they misfire in performances every season.

     They want your $30 anyway, in a swindler’s form of desperation.

     In the long history of sports broadcasting, which includes dignitaries such as Roone Arledge and Vin Scully and whoever got rid of the Fox robot, nothing is more revolting than watching teams unworthy of your time trying to gouge. Must I do this in another column? The Sox just lost 121 games and have won one World Series since 1917. The Bulls have left poop messes since Michael Jordan went away. The Blackhawks are in a holding pattern until Connor Bedard, at some point, might ponder Vancouver.

     Yet, Reinsdorf has gathered son Michael and Danny Wirtz and will impose fees for the Chicago Sports Network. Forget about education, clothing and saving for the grocery store. Never mind if shoplifters, ignored by cashiers, walk into Target and Walgreens and steal items with larger daily impact. These owners sell losing operations and somehow dare you to compensate them.

     Winter time is ghastly. Find something else to do. Please don’t reward them. Reinsdorf wants you to ante up for a historically inept team when the Sox might lose 110 more and move to Nashville. His son knows the Bulls will trade players and launch a tank period for Cooper Flagg, which will fail and prompt spending for more losses. Wirtz already sees attendance dropping for hockey despite the second season of Bedard, who might have Caleb Williams concerns for the long term.

     Couldn’t they have waited a few years, or decades, before sending out bills?

     “We are excited to offer Chicago sports fans a one-of-a-kind digital product enabling immediate access to live games and a complement of personalized, on-demand content,” CHSN president Jason Coyle said in a statement. “Today’s announcement is the next step in our long-term commitment to Chicago sports fans everywhere and is another new and compelling way for us to serve and connect with them.”

     Given their failures, in a city also occupied by the dysfunctional Bears, the franchises should have streamed games for free beyond one-team deals for season-ticket holders. Comcast remains a lost cause, with a whopping number of viewers. People are asked to purchase DTC, buy an old-school antenna for UHF or tune into U-Verse or DirecTV — when much of the action isn’t watchable.

     Imagine if Reinsdorf had the financial guts to accept the route of the NHL’s Dallas Stars, who have started a seven-year contract — gratis. The Stars are attractive to fans because they’ve performed in recent postseasons, making the Stanley Cup final in 2020 and reaching the Western Conference finals the last two seasons after a previous league title. They went freebie on streaming, as did the Anaheim Ducks.

     “After years of researching the right solution and careful planning with our partners, we’re proud to announce this pioneering streaming platform that will literally change the game for sports distribution,” Stars president and CEO Brad Alberts said in a statement. “Our first priority has always been our fan base, and … fans will be able to stream 100 percent of Stars content for free through this innovative and unique streaming platform for sports programming.”

     In his thought pattern, viewership increases will bolster the Stars via advertising. The Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks think the same way.

     They also want $30 a month.

     Find a better cause, fans.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.