Via this FanPost on Windy City Gridiron, we learn that the Bears/Dolphins game this fall, to be carried on the NFL Network on November 18, will be broadcast over-the-air on WGN (locally in Chicago only, not on the national feed) for those who either don’t have cable or don’t have the NFL Network.
↵This is standard practice for the NFL for cable games, but it will not be the first time the Bears will appear on WGN-TV. It also happened on October 21, 1973. NBC, who carried AFC teams' games in those days, was committed to televising the seventh game of the World Series that afternoon — in an era when most WS games were still day games — and so they farmed the telecast out to local stations in Chicago and Boston, including the pre-national-cable WGN.
↵There were few protests, if any, of that move. The 1-4 Bears, who finished the ’73 season 3-11, lost to the 1-4 Patriots 13-10.
↵It was a different era.