Nexstar to Sell Chicago Property to a Casino

In an effort to raise money to help pay down The CW debt, Nexstar is looking to sell a property they own in Chicago to Bally’s Casino.

Nexstar closed its acquisition of 75% of The CW last month, paying nothing up front but agreeing to take on the network’s debt and absorb its losses.

“From a funding perspective, we’re in the process of selling one of the remaining properties we had in Chicago for $155 million of net cash,” Nexstar CFO Lee Ann Gliha noted. “That goes a long way to funding the investment that we’re going to have in the CW.”

The 30-acre site along the Chicago River near the city’s signature downtown Loop is due to become a $1.74 billion casino built by Bally’s, the gaming company confirmed earlier this month. It had mainly functioned as a printing and distribution facility for the Chicago Tribune and other print publications. The parcel was in the real estate portfolio that Texas-based Nexstar acquired in its $4.1 billion purchase of Tribune Media in 2019.

Nexstar is looking to program The CW to a much older audience.

“Right now we’ve got some content on the network that is geared toward the 18-to-34-year-old audience, and we know that the average age of the linear network viewer is 58 years old,” Gliha said. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to align that a bit … and improve the ratings. Right now, the ratings are very low. We think there’s quite a bit of upside that can be beneficial.”

H/T Deadline