Reading a bunch about the expected upcoming death of regional sports networks (RSN's), think the Bally sports thing is already bankrupt.

However, it does seem that gaming companies are the most logical people to support ongoing sports TV/online availability, they need betters to have access to the product, if no sports are available to watch they lose money.

This would seem to shift coverage, less SJW grab assing and more detailed injury coverage as people tune in more for who will produce numbers or purely to root for game over/under/wins.

Bernstein is dead. He just doesn't know it yet. He's a ghost rambling on.

CH has been all over this.

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

Isn't the difference in Chicago that the teams (Sox/Bull/Hawk on one hand and the Cub on the other) have an ownership interest in their RSN networks?

He only needs to hang on for four more years, seven if the kid goes to law school

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

It stems the tide, but it's a fundamentally broken model. Ever since NESN went basic around 2000-2001, the RSN model has relied on extracting an ever-higher fee out of each and every cable subscriber whether they watch every game or not a minute. Rent-seeking, basically. But when people stop subscribing to cable, in part because they realize they're paying for a channel they don't watch, the bottom drops out, and that's trouble no matter who owns the channel. The RSN ecosystem was probably a lot healthier when more of these channels were owned by their teams (PASS in Detroit, PRISM in Philadelphia, good old NESN) or by territorial cable companies (Cablevision, TCI).

The Disney-Fox merger that caused all this -- Disney couldn't own Fox's regional networks and ESPN at the same time -- shouldn't have been allowed to happen. No media company should be that big. In the case of Fox's RSNs, even that package was too big for anyone to buy and reasonably manage. Fox threw absurd rights fees at, off the top of my head, the Rangers, Angels, and Cardinals when it seemed like free money would be rolling in forever. Anyone who bought all those contracts was going to be doomed.

_________________

It's simply a matter of cord-cutters causing RSN's revenue to drop. They just don't have the same number of subscribers they had 20 years ago. The biggest question I have is how does this change the sports-viewing structure? Do leagues eventually acquire all of their broadcast rights, it is speculated that MLB is trying to do this, so they can offer one universal package (like MLS and Apple)? Do RSNs or team channels become a la carte add-ons to streaming packages or cable packages? This is something the RSNs have fought against. Does the loss of cable TV revenue trickle down to affect team payrolls and salary caps? The Athletic has been covering this topic pretty closely for the last few years. The death of Bally/Sinclair has been a glorious story I have enjoyed following!!

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Isn't the point the one that you made? The teams that are partners in the production of the games seem to be doing better than those just accepting rights fees. Looks like that is where this is headed, as we have seen with the Suns and MLB is not going to produce Padre games forever.

My understanding is that this is all about MLB refusing to bundle streaming rights for Diamond/Sinclair. Sinclair has retaliated by filing BK and rejected a few of the really bad deals it negotiated. It has not rejected all of its broadcast deals.

any chance things go retro in chicago and games go back to ch 9

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

It's something I thought about but I think MLB would grab it before it got that far. What I want to know is what is an average tuesday night in Kansas City viewership? 4000? 10,000? How many bounce after an inning or two and go back just to check the score? How many diehards just flip the channel between innings? Pretty much everybody, right? Seems to me baseball games in small markets are fucked, profit -wise. It's how the hell do we break even kind of situation. How many advertisers, other than gambling, finally wake up and go, "There's no bang for the buck here".

I think the broadcast rights are still valued by several companies. Sports are one of the few types of programming that people watch in real time. If memory serves me correctly (if I'm wrong here, please chime in), the issue here is that those rights are either not worth the amount Bally paid for them or are not generating enough revenue to service the broadcasters' debt. If you get that number right (and, yes that might mean some sort of casino network) sports broadcasting is a viable business, even in small markets.

The Rangers were getting $80MM/year from Fox. Without rent-seeking from people who don't care about Rangers games, those rights aren't worth that much money.

_________________

Given payrolls, that's not a ton of money. I see your point.

One thing that intrigues me is what the NFL is going to do with its broadcasts. It's the only one of the four major pro leagues that offers the vast majority of its content on free TV. However, I've heard speculation that CBS is going to move games to Paramount, NBC. Is going to move games to Peacock, and Fox is going to move games to their equivalent of those streaming services.

This isn't complicated....the networks pay based on what they think they'll get in ad revenue. The leagues squeeze as much as they can out of the networks. If the ad revenue isn't enough....someone's forecast was off. Neither give a shit about the fan / viewer / consumer.

All of the other non-game content on these networks is fluff and filler. I cannot imagine there's much there. I hope someday we'll get to a point where the local blackout crap goes away. I'd much rather just subscribe to the NFL or NHL or MLB directly and pay for a season's worth of games.

_________________

what happened to Marquee getting more than the cubs on their network? I guess the blackhawks never came over. any other teams on there even if it's college?

Without the RSN's, we might see the top of the bubble of sports team valuations.

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

I think so too. These teams won't be licenses to print money anymore. Shifting to TV on a PPV/a-la-carte basis is going to be a hard reality check -- if you're now only selling Padres games to people who want to watch Padres games, you're going to find that there aren't as many as you thought they were, they won't pay the non-subsidized price for those games, or both.


This would be very dangerous, but they may do it anyway. If the league gets too greedy, the affiliate groups are going to shit a brick, and then it's "nice antitrust exemption you got there, be a shame if someone revoked it."

_________________

I think we’re reaching that point. The escalating billions paid for assets like the phoenix suns or Washington football team seem insane. They’re going to run out of prospective buyers and end up in a LIV situation.

I saw a report today that the Qataris who own PSG dropped a few billion for small shares in some of the Washington teams. It’s only a matter of time until those shares become larger and those leagues are flush with foreign oil ownership.

_________________

The Ottawa Senators just sold for 950 M and reports are the next NHL expansion team will cost over 1 billion. Jordan just sold his share of the Hornets for 3B up from the 220 M he paid in 2010. While I agree with your premise, it hasn't happened yet.

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Read where MLB will lose up to 1 billion in revenue if they have to take over TV for the small market clubs.

Really is quite odd that the A's still supposedly made money last year because they low balled on payroll, but were carried by the league TV deal.

You also limit access to your product if you go to a streaming service, how many Cub fans grew up watching the games on WGN back in the day?

if you had smart people running things WGN type deal would come back. That was FREE TV for fans to see the Cubs. It generated generations of fans and billions of dollars of revenue.

The entire 1984 Cubs season on WGN generated 30+ years of Cubs baseball revenue and put them back on top as Chicago's preimer baseball attraction. People from the most remote places on earth would spend their life savings just to take in a game at Wrigley. All because of free WGN superstation.

But the people running things nowadays are too blind to realize the long term vision.

Kind of where I was trying to go with this, CH...but of course you stated it better.

They'd lose a shit ton of they went full a la cart by team. Packaging up by league / season would be their best option, but I wouldn't underestimate Amazon or one of these other streaming services overpaying to have the games. Won't be near the money we've seen from the RSN's or other networks.

Free NFL games is on the major networks is on life support....I don't see that lasting much longer.

_________________

The RSN's were hokey at times, but did provide a ton of team focused content which built interest in the players/team, that would seem to go away if MLB takes over the broadcasts.

There will certainly be a ton of unemployed RSN play by play and hosts joining the people from the Athletic on the unemployment line or joining the podcast world where revenues are iffy at best. Did enjoy the regional CSN parade of former beauty queens during the glory years, not Fox News level, but having an attractive young lass gabbing about why the Sox lost is much better aesthetic than Kap rambling on and on about whatever he rambles on about.

Still think the gambling entities could step in, they need people to be interested in the teams/players for their business model to work, if one spends 5 mins watching Scotty Pods and the hapless Ozzie Guillen pumping up Timmy Anderson they are more likely to pull the trigger on that tease hits over/under parlay.

The problem is Claw, live TV or 24x7 content is a waste. All that really matters is the games. Any money they put on pre and post game is waste. Other programming is waste. There is very little demand.

Gambling could very well be the savior. Sadly....there's more demand in gambling content than any of the other content offered by these RSNs. Even if this happens, the leagues aren't going to see the money they've gotten in the past. We've definitely eclipsed the top of the bubble.

_________________

Production costs undoubtedly will be slashed. Might have "The Leadoff Man" once a week on Sundays.

The system is bloated...live sports is still the solid player in the game, and advertisers realize that...a well executed buy of time could still reap benefits...keep in mind that there are natural breaks in a live sporting event (quarters, halftimes, timeouts) that lend themselves to some insertion of an advert as opposed to a movie or TV show...sporting events have moved quickly to the squeeze commercial (double-boxed with a Game feed) that you may not even notice

I always wondered who watched all that stuff.

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Baseball is the sport that seems to be the one that will begin to decline, slowly at first, and then a rapid downturn once the baby boomers pass away.

Was a huge baseball fan when I was a kid, would pour through the box scores, collected baseball cards, would play catch or baseball/whiffle ball every day during the summer. It does not seem that kids today have that level of interest, would fully expect that to manifest itself eventually in much lower game attendance and TV viewership.

Agree that the pre/post game RSN stuff is pointless, but it is a way to sell your product and help the fans connect with the players. The biggest problem with baseball is that if you grew up playing the game you can tell when a team/player sucks, it just sounds silly when the broadcasters try to make excuses for poor play.

It has been close to 20 years since I taught of group of kids who gave any attention to baseball. It Basketball, Football and Non American Soccer.

_________________

It is a big problem. I'll give you an example that only a true baseball fan can spot. Seby has an 11 pitch AB where he fouls off cookie after cookie before he finally bloops in a single. Both announcers talk over each other praising him...what a battler....ahh, he's the 9th hitter with 2 outs. Slow your roll.