Diamond Sports Group (Bally Sports) won't carry 11 MLB teams in 2025

Started by ZLoth, October 02, 2024, 01:44:10 PM

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ZLoth

From ESPN:

Diamond Sports Group won't carry 11 MLB teams in 2025
QuoteDiamond Sports Group, the bankrupt operator of Bally Sports channels, said it will stop broadcasting games in 2025 for 11 of the 12 Major League Baseball teams it currently televises.

Diamond announced the decision Wednesday in court, saying it would continue carrying Atlanta Braves games next season.
FULL ARTICLE HERE
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SP Cook

The Reds, at least, and I think it applies to the other four teams that are in joint ventures with Diamond (the rest simply have a contract with Diamond), argue that while Diamond is bankrupt, which triggers the rule that Diamond can just walk away from any contract, the joint venture is not bankrupt and thus Diamond (Sinclair) is still on the hook. 

Anyway, if you noticed, NBC Sports Chicago (White Sox, Bulls, Black Hawks) shut down it was immediately replaced with Chicago Sports Network, which is the same people covering the same games.  The big difference is this channel is available free as an over-the-air channel.  DirecTV also just replaced NBCSC with CSN. 

This brings up two issues.  One is over-the-air TV is F R E E.  People with linear TV packages pay a substantial amount for the local RSN, whether they watch it or not. Which gets funneled to the players eventually.  Not my problem.

The other is that all the teams, in all the sports, have huge, often overlapping, claims to what is their home markets.  (Parts of Nevada and Iowa are claimed by six baseball teams as being their home market, in the most extreme example.)  Any team that is the "home team" is not in the out-of-town packages like MLB.TV.  Getting a station in Chicago to carry the games is no big deal.  However the White Sox claim to be the "home team" in 13 more TV markets.  Getting a station in all of them to carry this network is a much harder deal.  This will leave some fans blacked of the "home team" games on MLB.TV, et al, but with no local affiliate of the network, and no way to get the games.

Another part of this is the teams' claims and TV broadcast areas don't overlap.  For example, the White Sox claim all of Illinois (except for the immediate St. Louis suburbs).  Southern Illinois gets TV from the Paducah TV market, which is receivable in KY, and MO, as well as IL, and the White Sox don't have a right to show local games in Cardinals and Reds territory.

In my area, I'm in Reds country, I'm sure one of the local stations would add an OTA Reds channel if they launch one. 

SectorZ

What a mess. The RSN system used to work until everyone involved got too greedy. All for a sport where the minimum wage is 3/4 of a million dollars per year.

I-55

As someone who lives in an area where CHC, CHW, CIN, CLE, DET, STL (maybe) could all be considered "home" markets, I never have any idea what broadcasts will be available where I live.
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SEWIGuy

Quote from: SectorZ on October 02, 2024, 03:18:10 PMWhat a mess. The RSN system used to work until everyone involved got too greedy. All for a sport where the minimum wage is 3/4 of a million dollars per year.

I'm not sure what greed had to do with it. Less cable subscriptions means that the money just stopped working for everyone. The best solution for both the NBA and MLB is to further develop their steam-able product like Sunday Ticket. But allow people to buy games only for their teams.

NWI_Irish96

Quote from: SP Cook on October 02, 2024, 02:58:36 PMAnyway, if you noticed, NBC Sports Chicago (White Sox, Bulls, Black Hawks) shut down it was immediately replaced with Chicago Sports Network, which is the same people covering the same games.  The big difference is this channel is available free as an over-the-air channel.  DirecTV also just replaced NBCSC with CSN. 


I have YouTube TV and apparently they are not interested in any deal to carry the new Chicago Sports Network. The OTA channel (62.2) that is carrying the network in the Chicago area is transmitted from the western suburbs and not very strongly. I'm either gonna have to get a strong antenna or switch providers in order to get it. I rarely watch Bulls or Hawks games, so it won't really impact me much until baseball season rolls around again.
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TheHighwayMan3561

Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Minnesota have now upped with MLB to produce their games going forward (joining teams like Colorado, Arizona, and San Diego).
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SP Cook

Quote from: SectorZ on October 02, 2024, 03:18:10 PMWhat a mess. The RSN system used to work until everyone involved got too greedy. All for a sport where the minimum wage is 3/4 of a million dollars per year.

To get this, you have to accept two seemingly contradictory facts.

- The local baseball game is, in most places, the single most watched thing on TV on any given summer weeknight. 
- The local baseball game is, in most places, watched by a tiny minority of people, generally from 3 to 6% of people.

So, in the "triopoly" that existed before (cable, DirecTV, DISH) it was very important to have the RSN, because of its popularity.  So the RSNs demanded VERY LARGE payments to carry the channel and insisted that it be in the very bottom package.

Thus, "everybody" paid for the local games, including the vast majority of people who really had no interest in these. 

Then came linear streaming.  Things like YouTubeTV, Hulu Plus Live TV, etc.  (I'm not getting into a discussion of non-linear streaming, which is a different thing and everyone who wants to live on just that, already has it and the first dollar the non-linear streaming industry as a whole makes will be its first).  So instead of three quite similar providers, people can find a TV package that excludes things like the RSNs.  Which is what collapsed the RSN industry and led to the bankruptcy.

DirecTV's response, if you remember the "dispute" with Disney a couple months back, is to rework the contracts to sell TV channels by "genres".  No kids?  Don't buy the package with Nick, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, etc.  Don't like sports?  Don't by, not only the RSN, but ESPN, FS1, etc.  And so on. 

This is, IMHO, a good and bad thing for consumers.  Yes, you can save money in the short term by only paying for what you want.  But, in the long run, a lot of these channels' business plans were predicated on "everybody" paying for the channel, and many will go dark when limited to only those that really want them pay for them.  Which means less choice and variety for everyone.

Back to baseball, (hockey and basketball are less, and this doesn't apply to the NFL at all) about 1/4th of team revenue is from the RSN money.  That is a chunk, and might be the difference between some smaller markets continuing to have teams or not.

NWI_Irish96

Quote from: SP Cook on October 09, 2024, 01:46:24 PM
Quote from: SectorZ on October 02, 2024, 03:18:10 PMWhat a mess. The RSN system used to work until everyone involved got too greedy. All for a sport where the minimum wage is 3/4 of a million dollars per year.

To get this, you have to accept two seemingly contradictory facts.

- The local baseball game is, in most places, the single most watched thing on TV on any given summer weeknight. 
- The local baseball game is, in most places, watched by a tiny minority of people, generally from 3 to 6% of people.

So, in the "triopoly" that existed before (cable, DirecTV, DISH) it was very important to have the RSN, because of its popularity.  So the RSNs demanded VERY LARGE payments to carry the channel and insisted that it be in the very bottom package.

Thus, "everybody" paid for the local games, including the vast majority of people who really had no interest in these. 

Then came linear streaming.  Things like YouTubeTV, Hulu Plus Live TV, etc.  (I'm not getting into a discussion of non-linear streaming, which is a different thing and everyone who wants to live on just that, already has it and the first dollar the non-linear streaming industry as a whole makes will be its first).  So instead of three quite similar providers, people can find a TV package that excludes things like the RSNs.  Which is what collapsed the RSN industry and led to the bankruptcy.

DirecTV's response, if you remember the "dispute" with Disney a couple months back, is to rework the contracts to sell TV channels by "genres".  No kids?  Don't buy the package with Nick, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, etc.  Don't like sports?  Don't by, not only the RSN, but ESPN, FS1, etc.  And so on. 

This is, IMHO, a good and bad thing for consumers.  Yes, you can save money in the short term by only paying for what you want.  But, in the long run, a lot of these channels' business plans were predicated on "everybody" paying for the channel, and many will go dark when limited to only those that really want them pay for them.  Which means less choice and variety for everyone.

Back to baseball, (hockey and basketball are less, and this doesn't apply to the NFL at all) about 1/4th of team revenue is from the RSN money.  That is a chunk, and might be the difference between some smaller markets continuing to have teams or not.

RSNs, more so than any other genre of channels, made lots of money off getting distributed to people who never or rarely watched it. Companies that owned them, like Bally or NBC/Comcast, either went bankrupt or just shuttered as customers who didn't want them started opting for providers who didn't carry them (and thus didn't charge for them).

The one thing that will help reverse that trend is that streaming and DVRs have all but eliminated the live watching of serial programming (since it isn't actually happening live), and advertisers are flocking to live sports and news as a result. So RSNs are getting fewer viewers, but they are getting more per viewer for their advertising.

I've said for a long time that MLB needs to take control over all TV deals, and make MLBN into its own group of RSNs. If you live in Milwaukee, you get MLBN Milwaukee, which will have all Brewers games, and on nights the Brewers don't play, they can pick up a Cubs or Yankees game produced by one of their sister stations. Chicago and NY would need two feeds each to cover when both teams are playing at the same time. This would get baseball out to more fans, and eliminate the third parties profiting off their product.
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ZLoth

There is one important piece that is missing... the Regional $ports Networks and E$PN are the most expensive channels (outside of the premiums) on a per subscriber basis. Per this article, the cost is $9.42 per subscriber whether they are watching or not.  RSNs are slightly less.

It has not been until the past few years that the multi-channel providers have told the RSNs "No". Spectrum SportsNet LA is a pricy RSN for the Dodgers, yet many of the cable systems just said "no, too expensive." In the past year or so, Dish Network dropped all of their RSNs.
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SectorZ

Quote from: ZLoth on October 09, 2024, 02:55:17 PMThere is one important piece that is missing... the Regional $ports Networks and E$PN are the most expensive channels (outside of the premiums) on a per subscriber basis. Per this article, the cost is $9.42 per subscriber whether they are watching or not.  RSNs are slightly less.

It has not been until the past few years that the multi-channel providers have told the RSNs "No". Spectrum SportsNet LA is a pricy RSN for the Dodgers, yet many of the cable systems just said "no, too expensive." In the past year or so, Dish Network dropped all of their RSNs.

My VZ Fios bill contains a $7.69 RSN fee, up from $2.42 ten years ago. I have 2 RSNs in greater Boston (NESN and NBC Sports Boston).

I also have a $14.49 broadcast TV fee which covers the local stations to build giant news rooms and employ six meteorologists to air 10-12 hours of news per day, and I have to pay for all that nonsense too. That fee didn't even exist ten years ago.

epzik8

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ZLoth

Quote from: SectorZ on October 09, 2024, 03:23:53 PMI also have a $14.49 broadcast TV fee which covers the local stations to build giant news rooms and employ six meteorologists to air 10-12 hours of news per day, and I have to pay for all that nonsense too. That fee didn't even exist ten years ago.

Let's see here... last I looked, Boston was the #10 television market. Checking the stations:
  • WCVB (ABC) - Owned by Hearst
  • WBX (CBS)/WSBK (Ind) - Owned by CBS
  • WBTS (NBC) - Owned by NBC
  • WFTX (Fox) - Owned by Cox Media
Because of declining ad revenues, the stations have been turning to the carriage fees to make up the shortfall.
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gonealookin

Quote from: epzik8 on October 09, 2024, 08:51:30 PMThis is bogus. What was wrong with Fox's RSNs?

They were a pawn in some corporate horsetrading.  In 100 words or so:

Disney acquired 21st Century Fox, which owned the Fox Sports RSNs.

Because Disney owns ESPN, DOJ required Disney to almost immediately sell the Fox RSNs.  (Political note:  this happened during the Trump administration, maybe not the DOJ you'd expect much antitrust enforcement from, but they did act in this situation).

Sinclair Broadcasting was eventually the buyer of the RSNs.  They spun them off as "Diamond Sports Group".

Diamond Sports Group almost immediately ran into severe financial issues, partly due to cordcutting with the cancellation of so many events due to COVID-19 also contributing.  The situation has steadily deteriorated further to the present state.

Road Hog

Quote from: gonealookin on October 09, 2024, 10:03:13 PM(Political note:  this happened during the Trump administration, maybe not the DOJ you'd expect much antitrust enforcement from, but they did act in this situation).

Sinclair Broadcasting was eventually the buyer of the RSNs. 
There is your answer to that question.



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