From 2010 until 2016, WCIU has served as a local over-the-air broadcaster of NFL games involving the Chicago Bears that are televised by ESPN's "Monday Night Football". WLS-TV (channel 7), WCIU's news partner, is an owned-and-operated station of ABC (itself a sister network to ESPN through ABC parent The Walt Disney Company's majority ownership of the cable network), but has chosen to exercise its right of first refusal to carry "MNF" games, deferring most games aired since 2010 in order to air "Dancing with the Stars" (due to the program's popularity and the structure of its live voting requirements) during that program's fall season. It also carried a Cubs game in lieu of WLS-TV in mid-September 2019 (when The CW was still in its summer season), as ABC unexpectedly scheduled the sixth-season finale of "Bachelor in Paradise" for the same evening. This was no longer an issue to any Chicago broadcast station beginning in 2020 with the move of all Chicago professional sports locally to NBC Sports Chicago and Marquee Sports Network (outside network telecasts and the Bears).