2022-2023 Blues Multi-Purpose Thread

[mk80]

We don't have complete certainty that the Blues will even be airing on Bally Sports next season, so I'm not surprised that Pang is seeking other employment options.

The MLB got a big win with the judge ruling that Bally can't just miss payments (or only make partial payments) but continue to hold the exclusive broadcast rights while bankruptcy is pending. However, one potential response by Bally is to stop paying the teams of their least profitable contracts and simply forfeiting the rights.

We are still very much in limbo for next season. I think there is a good chance that Bally forfeits the rights to more than a couple NHL teams and that the NHL will have to step in with a plan to get games on TV. Depending on how many teams that is (and which teams it is), one possibility is that the NHL simply reaches deals to air the opponent broadcast in the local market and have a single 'league' crew to call games between two teams that each don't have a TV partner. That's far from ideal and I'd hope that the Blues are profitable enough that Bally wouldn't want to give up our rights.

But it isn't outside the realm of possibility that we just don't have a local broadcast crew next season.

In two examples from out west the Padres broadcasts have been taken over by the MLB directly after Bally's missed their payments. And just this week the LA Kings have shifted to a radio/tv simulcast with Bally's no longer having the rights, which resulted in their TV PbP man Alex Faust who is very good in my opinion not being renewed.

LA Kings Announce Changes To Broadcast Format - LA Kings Insider

Some Monday-morning news, Insiders. The LA Kings have made an announcement regarding their television and radio broadcasting moving forward, beginning with the 2023-24 season. The Kings announced today that the organization will transition to a singular, broadcast team across both television and...

lakingsinsider.com

There was an article not long ago that talked about Pang seeking to renew his contract that mentioned John Kelly's is up I think after this season. Bally's Midwest is one of the few RSN's in the black due to having the Cardinals, although with how their season is going I'm sure they're not pulling in as good of numbers they had hoped for right now.

But I wouldn't rule out the Blues among other teams shifting to a simulcast broadcast in the coming years as RSN's and local media deals are restructured.

 

[ort]

Blow up all the stupid regional deals and get us a streaming deal similar to what MLS has with Apple TV. (EVERY TEAM, EVERY GAME, REG SEASON & PLAYOFFS, NO BLACKOUTS, $99 PER YEAR)

I'm tired of how much of a **** show this is.

Also, losing Pang sucks.

All of these things are coming together to make me just not be a customer anymore for watching hockey at home. I guess the league doesn't give a **** and you know what, I don't much anymore either. They created this stupid mess and now they are alienating their customers.


**** EM.

 

[Sushiko]

I’m going to miss Panger so much.

 

[GoBluz24]

Blow up all the stupid regional deals and get us a streaming deal similar to what MLS has with Apple TV. (EVERY TEAM, EVERY GAME, REG SEASON & PLAYOFFS, NO BLACKOUTS, $99 PER YEAR)

I'm tired of how much of a **** show this is.

Also, losing Pang sucks.

All of these things are coming together to make me just not be a customer anymore for watching hockey at home. I guess the league doesn't give a **** and you know what, I don't much anymore either. They created this stupid mess and now they are alienating their customers.


**** EM.

f*** streaming. Streaming is jumping, more money, and you can't instantly change channels.

 

[shpongle falls]

The Hawks get Bedard then they steal Panger from us.

 

[STL fan in MN]

Say it ain’t so

Damn, that sucks.

Sometimes Pang can be a bit much but when watching other broadcasts, I am reminded that he’s truly among the best in the biz.

And it’d suck that much more to lose him to the Hawks.

 

[Stealth JD]

The Hawks get Bedard then they steal Panger from us.

Probably what makes the job interesting for Pang; because frankly, aside from the money (and I'm sure that's a huge part of the package) that Blackhawks gig would be a tough one to cheerfully boast for the next few seasons. They will be markedly better next year, but playoffs are a few years away.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Sucks, I liked Pang... even the Holy Jump'n stuff...

This just means IMO that Joey gets down to the ice and somebody new joins Kerber in the radio booth.

 

[BlueOil]

sucks to lose pang and to the blackhawks on top of that

they'll need to hire someone else, rivers and vitale would be quite a step down and more annoying than pang by miles

 

[Linkens Mastery]

I want Kerber

 

[Brian39]

Blow up all the stupid regional deals and get us a streaming deal similar to what MLS has with Apple TV. (EVERY TEAM, EVERY GAME, REG SEASON & PLAYOFFS, NO BLACKOUTS, $99 PER YEAR)

I'm tired of how much of a **** show this is.

Also, losing Pang sucks.

All of these things are coming together to make me just not be a customer anymore for watching hockey at home. I guess the league doesn't give a **** and you know what, I don't much anymore either. They created this stupid mess and now they are alienating their customers.


**** EM.

That deal pays the MLS $250M.

ESPN pays the league $400M a year and TNT pays the league $225M a year. Let's say that the average regiional deal in the US is for $10M (which I believe is low). That's another $250M. All those deals blow up in order to create the package you want. To break even, the league would need the provider of that service (likely ESPN) to pay $875M. That's 3.5 times what Apple is paying for those MLS rights.

A similar NHL package would cost much, much more than $99 a year.

 

[Brian39]

f*** streaming. Streaming is jumping, more money, and you can't instantly change channels.

A blackout-free NHL package streamed through the ESPN app is hockey heaven. You can stream up to 4 games at a time on ESPN+ and you can mix and match sports when you do that. Sitting in my basement and streaming 3 NHL games and an NCAA game on my TV is just about my favorite thing in the world.

 

[mk80]

Blow up all the stupid regional deals and get us a streaming deal similar to what MLS has with Apple TV. (EVERY TEAM, EVERY GAME, REG SEASON & PLAYOFFS, NO BLACKOUTS, $99 PER YEAR)

I'm tired of how much of a **** show this is.

Also, losing Pang sucks.

All of these things are coming together to make me just not be a customer anymore for watching hockey at home. I guess the league doesn't give a **** and you know what, I don't much anymore either. They created this stupid mess and now they are alienating their customers.


**** EM.

That deal pays the MLS $250M.

ESPN pays the league $400M a year and TNT pays the league $225M a year. Let's say that the average regiional deal in the US is for $10M (which I believe is low). That's another $250M. All those deals blow up in order to create the package you want. To break even, the league would need the provider of that service (likely ESPN) to pay $875M. That's 3.5 times what Apple is paying for those MLS rights.

A similar NHL package would cost much, much more than $99 a year.

Not to mention that the MLS deal with Apple did result in a lot of regional broadcasters losing jobs because the deal killed all local/regional telecasts. Many RSN PbP and color analysts covering MLS signed on with Apple but those who didn't lost jobs.

Edit: *Also all the behind the scenes crew of local MLS telecasts lost opportunities and jobs in the MLS Apple deal.

While the decline of RSN's is causing some of the same to happen anyway as in the case with Alex Faust for LA, etc. I prefer a league media deal that doesn't cut out the possibility of local TV broadcasts entirely like MLS did, and regardless of what happens with Bally's and other RSN's the NHL media deals with ESPN and TNT allow for teams to have a local/regional broadcast of their own.

 

[Brian39]

Not to mention that the MLS deal with Apple did result in a lot of regional broadcasters losing jobs because the deal killed all local/regional telecasts. Many RSN PbP and color analysts covering MLS signed on with Apple but those who didn't lost jobs.

Edit: *Also all the behind the scenes crew of local MLS telecasts lost opportunities and jobs in the MLS Apple deal.

While the decline of RSN's is causing some of the same to happen anyway as in the case with Alex Faust for LA, etc. I prefer a league media deal that doesn't cut out the possibility of local TV broadcasts entirely like MLS did, and regardless of what happens with Bally's and other RSN's the NHL media deals with ESPN and TNT allow for teams to have a local/regional broadcast of their own.

Yup. Any centralized league-wide service is going to cut costs by having 1 broadcast crew per game instead of having 1 broadcast per team. Anything but a team run direct-to-consumer streaming service is inevitably going to kill the local broadcast crew. And those team run services that sell a product to their home fans won't be eager for a blackout free league-wide service (just like the RSNs are right now).

The current model is not particularly consumer friendly and is almost certainly not sustainable at the price of current rights deals. But the local broadcast crew is a main advantage that they offer the consumer. Very, very few sports fans prefer neutral broadcasts over their own (generally less talented) local crew. Another advantage is the pre-and-post game shows.

Another downside to a centralized blackout-free streaming service is that they absolutely won't be paying for team-specific pre-and-post game shows. They will have 1 panel doing segments for all the night's games and it will be cut into essentially one identical show for every game. This will turn into what the pre-game, Halftime, and post-game coverage looks like in the NFL where you get a league-wide highlights package, but very little in depth coverage on your team.

A lot of jobs and (what I consider) valuable content will be lost if there aren't 32 companies/teams/crews all catering their product to their own local market.

 

[ort]

I'm fine paying much more. The bottom line is that it's too annoying and confusing and they need to fix it.

The current way they are doing it sucks for consumers. They can figure out how to make it work, then I can choose to give them money or not based on the product they are offering.

Right now, the product they are offering SUCKS and they get zero of my money. If they want money, they have to give us something people want to spend money on.

I've been an avid NHL watcher for like 20-30 years... Recently cancelled cable because it was getting harder and harder to justify the cost/value proposition and I was not fully prepared for the ****show that is trying to watch the NHL on streaming in 2023.

 

[wiscrev]

A blackout-free NHL package streamed through the ESPN app is hockey heaven. You can stream up to 4 games at a time on ESPN+ and you can mix and match sports when you do that. Sitting in my basement and streaming 3 NHL games and an NCAA game on my TV is just about my favorite thing in the world.

I have ESPN+ but I still get blacked out of any Blues/Wild games and I'm in northern Wisconsin. When you purhase a package ala Center Ice, there should be no blackouts.

 

[Brian39]

I have ESPN+ but I still get blacked out of any Blues/Wild games and I'm in northern Wisconsin. When you purhase a package ala Center Ice, there should be no blackouts.

I don't disagree, but I think that if (hopefully when) that day comes people are going to be very, very surprised and upset by how much more it costs than Center Ice, NHL.TV, and ESPN+.

 

[ort]

Why are the games spread across multiple services? Because the finals are on TNT, the only way to even watch is to subscribe to one of the faux cable live streaming services like Sling and those are like $70 per month.

ESPN+ only gets you the games that are actually on ESPN, which is like only 10% of the playoff games. If you want to watch the playoffs without cable, it's exceedingly annoying.

Even if I pay $20 for Bally Sports streaming to watch the Blues next year, I can't watch National games without an additional service and I'm pretty sure the playoffs just aren't available at all under the current setup. Not unless I get Sling or whatever and pay $70.

I don't want any of those other channels. I cancelled cable because I don't want to pay for 100 channels I never watch. Not interested in paying sling for the same deal.

I'll just not watch the NHL games anymore and they can go **** themselves. Problem solved.

It seems that's what the NHL actually wants based on the selection of options they are offering. They must not want us to be watching their product.

 

[wiscrev]

Why are the games spread across multiple services? Because the finals are on TNT, the only way to even watch is to subscribe to one of the faux cable live streaming services like Sling and those are like $70 per month.

ESPN+ only gets you the games that are actually on ESPN, which is like only 10% of the playoff games. If you want to watch the playoffs without cable, it's exceedingly annoying.

Even if I pay $20 for Bally Sports streaming to watch the Blues next year, I can't watch National games without an additional service and I'm pretty sure the playoffs just aren't available at all under the current setup. Not unless I get Sling or whatever and pay $70.

I don't want any of those other channels. I cancelled cable because I don't want to pay for 100 channels I never watch. Not interested in paying sling for the same deal.

I'll just not watch the NHL games anymore and they can go **** themselves. Problem solved.

It seems that's what the NHL actually wants based on the selection of options they are offering. They must not want us to be watching their product.

I got in oh HULU and ESPN+ and Disney for $60/month. They were running a special. ESPN+ is like Center Ice, but I still get blackouts with any Wild/Blues game. I get TNT & TBS but no NHL channel.

 

[Brian39]

Why are the games spread across multiple services? Because the finals are on TNT, the only way to even watch is to subscribe to one of the faux cable live streaming services like Sling and those are like $70 per month.

ESPN+ only gets you the games that are actually on ESPN, which is like only 10% of the playoff games. If you want to watch the playoffs without cable, it's exceedingly annoying.

Even if I pay $20 for Bally Sports streaming to watch the Blues next year, I can't watch National games without an additional service and I'm pretty sure the playoffs just aren't available at all under the current setup. Not unless I get Sling or whatever and pay $70.

I don't want any of those other channels. I cancelled cable because I don't want to pay for 100 channels I never watch. Not interested in paying sling for the same deal.

I'll just not watch the NHL games anymore and they can go **** themselves. Problem solved.

It seems that's what the NHL actually wants based on the selection of options they are offering. They must not want us to be watching their product.

Money.

ESPN gives the NHL $400M a year.

TNT gives the NHL $225M a year.

Sportsnet gives the NHL $433M a year.

Each regional network gives their local team an undisclosed amount of money a year.

The entire value of these deals is that the NHL sells these companies a monopoly on the games they air. It is very much not consumer friendly. I'm a dirty socialist who wants to see federal regulation against this shit, but there there are very fewer members of Congress who have any interest in that.

Price gauging sports fans is the business model and it accounts for about a third of the league's revenue. I think that it is a dying business model that needs to adapt. I think the teams and league need to take the collapse of this RSN as a warning that the bubble is about to really burst and be proactive in adapting. But before doing that, we need to acknowledge that it has been a great business model for the leagues. All the risks of losses are on the networks (and many of them have lost a ton of money) while the league has locked in enormous profits.

 

[Bye Bye Blueston]

Why are the games spread across multiple services? Because the finals are on TNT, the only way to even watch is to subscribe to one of the faux cable live streaming services like Sling and those are like $70 per month.

ESPN+ only gets you the games that are actually on ESPN, which is like only 10% of the playoff games. If you want to watch the playoffs without cable, it's exceedingly annoying.

Even if I pay $20 for Bally Sports streaming to watch the Blues next year, I can't watch National games without an additional service and I'm pretty sure the playoffs just aren't available at all under the current setup. Not unless I get Sling or whatever and pay $70.

I don't want any of those other channels. I cancelled cable because I don't want to pay for 100 channels I never watch. Not interested in paying sling for the same deal.

I'll just not watch the NHL games anymore and they can go **** themselves. Problem solved.

It seems that's what the NHL actually wants based on the selection of options they are offering. They must not want us to be watching their product.

How is this any different than any other pro league? Isn’t nba in exactly same channels? Nfl is on ESPN, abc, Fox, cbs, nbc, Amazon. Baseball on ESPN and tbs and I don’t even know what else. It’s easy to crap on nhl, but I fail to see how they are any worse than the other leagues.

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

Probably what makes the job interesting for Pang; because frankly, aside from the money (and I'm sure that's a huge part of the package) that Blackhawks gig would be a tough one to cheerfully boast for the next few seasons. They will be markedly better next year, but playoffs are a few years away.

He also played for them too so that was probably a draw as well

 

[Snubbed4Vezina]

I want Kerber

I agree. Give be Kerbs on play-by-play and see if Chaser will come out of retirement for a TV gig. If not put Vitale in the booth on the TV side.

 

[Xerloris]

I really just want to pay one f***ing service and get hockey. I would never stop watching hockey if they just made it f***ing convenient.

 

[shpongle falls]

I would love if Kerbs and Vitale did more tv broadcasts.