It's great. He's taking it from all sides here.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Sox fans all over the Cubs thread. Mid season form !

I'm just here for the RPB/pittmike slap fight

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Just searching Twitter, which is always correct, it seems the prevailing thought is Comcast WILL carry the channel and the cord cutters will be getting screwed.


Also, Jerry Reinsdorf is also a partner of Sinclair, so no more White Sox fandom for Hatchetman

Let’s cut right to the chase here. John Ourand, a well-respected sports business journalist, came out with a number of predictions for the industry he covers Thursday, and one of them involves the Cubs:

Comcast is going to play hardball with the Cubs’ RSN, which is going to come to market with a price of at least $6 per subscriber per month. To gain leverage, the Cubs will not put any games on WGN or any other over-the-air station. And Sinclair will use the leverage it has from its national network of around 150 local broadcast stations to work out a deal. Comcast will hate it but the popularity of the Cubs, combined with the leverage from Sinclair, will force it to carry the channel when it launches in 2020.

$6 per subscriber per month for a channel that has a single purpose (Cubs coverage) is... a lot. When the Dodgers originally proposed SportsNetLA, Time Warner asked $4.90 per subscriber. The result: only about 30 percent coverage in the L.A. market. The Yankees’ YES Network was charging $6.50 per subscriber as of the end of 2017, which is probably where the Cubs came up with their $6 figure (a TV market about half the size of the New York market).

At Bleacher Nation, Brett Taylor sums up the issue this way, presuming the Cubs do in fact partner with Sinclair, as has been rumored:

The Cubs do have an ace in the hole, though. Because Sinclair is the largest operator of local networks in the country, they could wield significant leverage against any provider that doesn’t want to pay the Cubs’ RSN price: either you carry the Cubs channel at $6 per month in the greater Chicago area, or we cut off your access to your local ABC/FOX/NBC/CBS stations owned by Sinclair. It’s a cudgel Sinclair used before in getting the carriage it wanted for the Tennis Channel after it purchased that network in 2016. (Notably, Sinclair does not currently own any local providers in Chicago – they tried to buy WGN-9 recently, but were blocked – but they do own stations in downstate Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Indiana. Plus, there’s nothing to say they couldn’t leverage stations in other markets if they wanted to be really aggressive.)

UH OH !

https://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/b ... story.html

Folding in Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group’s American Sports Network, Stadium was born last summer. Other partners include Major League Baseball, the NHL and the PGA Tour.

RPB with the piledriver !

#ThatsCub

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Using leverage in negotiations to achieve the desired result?

Is that a bad thing to you?

it's hard not to laugh at cocky cubs fans when this stuff is thrown in their face.

Really easy for the nerd writer in Ohio watching the Cubs on MLB.tv to root for the Sinclair to fuck over Chicago cable subscribers.

definitely not paying $6/month for a stupid Cubs channel. gonna drop comcast ASAP if that happens. and i'm a cubs fan, ffs.

When its tax dollars as leverage for a stadium, MANY say its bad.

But forcing hundrds of thousands of non Cubs/MLB fans to pay an extra $6 a month for a channel they will never watch, its ok.

Is that what you are saying?

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What are Sox fans reaction to their owner being in business with Sinclair?

The Cub is a pretty big fish for Sinclair to land.

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MLB streams on Reddit !

Sox are not on Sinclair. I dunno what this "partnership" is. maybe for those video screens at gas stations, for all I know. I will boycott those.

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

Yep, The owners business and or political affiliations and views are a direct reflection on your character if you support the team they own

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

It all depends on what a "subscriber" is for that $6. If it is people who have the sports package then it should be pretty easy. If it's every Comcast subscriber in the Chicago area then Comcast will tell them no chance.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Yeah, that's the way this goes. The cable company says sure, we'd be happy to carry The All Kansas City Royals All The Time Channel, we'll just place it on our super-mega-expanded sports tier, right next to The Weird Afghan Goat Head Polo Network, Cricket TV, and Fox Sports Northern Maine. Then the team freaks out and demands to be put on the basic tier.

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84% of the seats at Dodger Stadium would be thousands per game higher than Wrigley's standing room capacity.

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“When I walked in this morning, and saw the flag was at half mast, I thought 'alright another bureaucrat ate it.'" - Ron Swanson

I was going to say to your earlier post, did you notice the sports fee going up incrementally throughout the years? Maybe you do because you seem to pay attention to the breakdown. I think most people dont.

Are you coming up from zero percent chance Comcast carries it?

Before this gets twisted, my argument has been the games will be available to most Cub fans on cable. I have not said it's good for Cub fans or antying close to that, only that it wont go down like sportsvision or Hawks blackouts.

If the new channel is an additional $6, shouldn't the NBC/Comcast sports channel come down since they won't be paying the Cubs any more?

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It's very simple. Cubs fans buy up 94% of available tickets. Dodgers fans buy 84% of available tickets.

Draw whatever conclusions you want.

Why do you guys assume that these guys are idiots and havent looked into this and parsed the numbers to the nth degree to where they think they will make money on this ? That they're just gonna throw a billion dollars at the Cubs and hope and pray that they can make it back?

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Right. But we all know they'll want it on basic with the argument it's equivalent to NBC Sports Chicago.

The difference in revenue is enormous.

The mood in this thread is shifting.

Cant blame you. If it ends up that im wrong, I will not only take my lumps, Ill encourage it and open a new thread just for the mocking.

I'm sure Comcast will counter it should then be charged similar to the BTN.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'm specifically shopping for diamonds that ARE a product of conflict when shopping for valentine's gifts.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

crane Kenny has gotten smarter in the last five years

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.