From November 8, 1978 until December 31, 1989, Tulsa, Oklahoma-based satellite uplink firm United Video Inc. distributed the WGN-TV Chicago signal nationwide, which allowed viewers outside Chicago to watch the station's sports telecasts as they would be seen locally – with local advertising and station promotions intact – except where league rules applying to superstations (such as the WGN–Bulls–NBA dispute and restrictions on national superstation telecasts based on time periods where broadcast and cable partners held national exclusivity) as mentioned above or requests from local stations that held the exclusive local rights to opponents of the Chicago teams resulted in blackout restrictions applying to the game broadcasts. After syndication exclusivity rules were re-implemented on January 1, 1990, the major sports leagues began to impose some partial restrictions on the national carriage of WGN-televised sports broadcasts due to concerns over impacts to revenues from game attendance and national television rights. From 1996 until 2014, the national channel aired all Cubs and White Sox games and about 10 to 20 Chicago Bulls NBA games that WGN-TV televised locally in the Chicago market. As part of Tribune's conversion of the network from a superstation into a general entertainment cable channel, the company announced that WGN America would no longer broadcast Chicago Cubs, Bulls and White Sox games originated on WGN-TV in the Chicago market to a national audience. Peter Liguori, then the president and chief executive officer of Tribune Media, cited the limited revenue and viewership accrued from the national simulcasts relative to their contractual expense – revenue was reportedly only covering 20% of the rights fees – behind the decision to drop the national telecasts. Several seasons of sub-par play by the Cubs after Tribune's sale of the team to Thomas S. Ricketts in late 2009 also played a factor, as the team's television package cost five times as much for rights fees alone as the revenue it brought in for the national broadcasts. (Ironically, two seasons later, the Cubs underwent a major turnaround and had its strongest season in decades, going on to win its first World Series championship since 1908; WGN America would air the Cubs' 2016 World Series victory parade on November 4 of that year.) Even prior to the decision, WGN America had chosen not to air certain sports-related programming carried on the Chicago signal such as the Blackhawks' victory parade following its 2010 Stanley Cup championship win and a half-hour special paying tribute to the late Cubs player and broadcaster Ron Santo in 2011. (In the respective cases, WGN-TV's coverage of Santo's funeral aired on the digital subchannels of selected stations owned by Tribune and its partner group Local TV, while the NHL Network provided a simulcast of the Chicago signal's feed of the Blackhawks' victory parade.)