Collapse of Regional Sports Networks (Diamond Sports Group files bankruptcy, Warner-Discovery looking to leave business, Xfinity drops Bally)

[joelef]

The whole model was based on cable once that started dying it was it for the rsns

 

[Brodie]

The whole model was based on cable once that started dying it was it for the rsns

Yeah, people are sleeping on what is happening here with Diamond and Iger's comments about ESPN going direct to consumer with a new equity partner yesterday. We are in a MASSIVE put or shut up period for sports on TV, if there is an insufficient market for sports on streaming services the entire economy of major sports will collapse until there's a market correction.

 

[DaBadGuy7]

 

[TheLegend]

Judge had put originally put that deal on hold and Diamond was given time to come up with a similar offer but the deadline has now passed.

 

[mouser]

Without knowing what the deal financials are I find it interesting a over the air company effectively ”outbid” Diamond Sports RSN. Diamond Sports had the rights to match the Gray Television deal.

Diamond Sports is in bankruptcy, but their intention is to exit it and continue on with most of their RSN content.

 

[Brodie]

I wonder if there will be medium term trend to OTA channels everywhere as cord cutting continues, there simply cannot be the revenue on cable anymore to sustain the RSN as we knew it

 

[KevFu]

The easy solution there is just let each time decide whether to sell an in-market DTC service or not.

That's not really a "solution." That's the status quo. The RSNs that bought local rights realized that with cord-cutting, they needed to offer the games in-market via streaming, so that cord-cutters could still buy (OR those with subscriptions could watch anywhere to keep ad revenue high).

The RSNs added "streaming" into the same contracts as before, and teams said either "okay" or "wait, you're getting more, we need to get more" or however it played out team-by-team, case by case.

It's not that different than the website thing: Each team had their own site, but the league wanted consistency and a shared network. Both for branding and also to prevent teams from gaining massive financial advantages over other teams. There's like 12 different ways to stream MLB games, different systems, different prices, different quality of service.

And one of those ways is MLBTV, where no matter which team you watch, the system, price and quality of service is the same. They've spent decades mastering it (which turned into a multi-billion dollar enterprise of its own! MLBAM is a founding father of streaming tech! Disney paid them so much money for help that they ended up just buying MLBAM!).

If the league can consolidate the streaming rights, they can just put DTC streaming on MLBtv, and offer a fantastic product that's interconnected and related... So when a fan is done watching the a baseball stream they get MLB Draft, MLB Trade Deadline, west coast games, etc... instead of local RSN programming talking about the local NBA, NFL and college teams.

 

[KevFu]

Yeah, people are sleeping on what is happening here with Diamond and Iger's comments about ESPN going direct to consumer with a new equity partner yesterday. We are in a MASSIVE put or shut up period for sports on TV, if there is an insufficient market for sports on streaming services the entire economy of major sports will collapse until there's a market correction.

I think people look at "value" in an incorrect way. "How much is this really WORTH?" is the question that's being asked. And what people frequently miss is how it's really a two-way street.

The easiest way to sum it up is how ESPN operates with league sports contracts compared to how teams operate with player salaries. The elite stuff gets elite dollars: NFL, NBA, College Football Playoff, and college football's best conferences.

But being "half as good" doesn't necessarily mean you're worth "half as much." What ESPN realized a long time ago is that if they MAKE the CFP conversation about their properties, and present a reality where 6 of the 10 conferences are just totally irrelevant, they can pay 3 of the 4 that are relevant and a pittance to 3 others just to fill time.

Instead of paying the Pac-12 HALF of what the SEC is worth, they can just pay the Sun Belt like a replacement player.... and more people will watch the Sun Belt than ever before because they get status from BEING on ESPN instead of the Pac-12.


Sports is going to be a valuable property because there's more fans of sports teams than any one individual thing that can sustain itself as an entertainment property for a century. As big of a hit as a show is... shows END. Shows can't churn out season-after-season with the same ratings -- not even the Simpsons, or the MCU. But sports CAN.


Vegas Golden Knights, the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz are looking at OTA TV partners because if the MONEY isn't there like before because of the bubble-burst.... ACCESSIBILITY to the fans creates more fans. So that's more valuable than making their content harder and harder to get to try and hold on to dollars.

What baseball is dealing with is that for generations, the summer was a TV wasteland of re-runs, so their ratings in the summer were pretty good. But now with streaming, anyone can fire up any content they want at any time.

Instead of competing first with 3 broadcast networks summer re-runs and 30 cable channels (of which they were one) for ratings, it grew to 300 cable channels, and now it's that AND "any media content that exists.

 

[Nstar to Wild]

First of all, I plead ignorance to the financial implications. However, I see how many posters state the cap is going to rise in the future (some say substantially). Does this whole RSN this year and possibly next year put any doubt on the cap rise (next year or the years after).

Thanks

 

[jkrdevil]

First of all, I plead ignorance to the financial implications. However, I see how many posters state the cap is going to rise in the future (some say substantially). Does this whole RSN this year and possibly next year put any doubt on the cap rise (next year or the years after).

Thanks

It is going to rise because the players debt from overages they got from the Covid years will be paid off next year and thus the cap will be Re-linked with revenue.

Now all this stuff may put a drag on revenues and how much the cap rises in future years as current deals expire. However, I don’t think any of Diamonds deals with NHL teams have been rejected yet so there is no loss of any revenue right now. The league also has an in market streaming deal with Diamond for those teams, so it doesn’t seem like their deals will be rejected as that seems to be diamond’s objective to get.

So far the only teams impacted are the WBD team (Golden Knights and Penguins). The Knights have a new deal in place already and the Penguins owners own an RSN which the can probably expand into Pittsburgh. The Kraken aren’t as impacted as Root Sports there is primarily owned by the Mariners.

So most deals are still in place, but that good change as deals expire. Especially for teams in markets where there isn’t RSN competition.

 

[Golden_Jet]

First of all, I plead ignorance to the financial implications. However, I see how many posters state the cap is going to rise in the future (some say substantially). Does this whole RSN this year and possibly next year put any doubt on the cap rise (next year or the years after).

Thanks

Maximum increase in 2020 MOU, states 5% a year, in the cap, when revenues are paid off.

 

[powerstuck]

Maximum increase in 2020 MOU, states 5% a year, in the cap, when revenues are paid off.

Which is 4M for the current cap. I personnally do not see as high of an increase. 2M maybe...but IIRC the league already announced an increase of only 1M from 2022 au 2023 seasons.

 

[TheLegend]

(paywalled)

Diamondbacks say games could be on new TV channel within days

The Diamondbacks put a statement that sounded like a heads up to fans about their relationship with Bally Sports Arizona.

www.azcentral.com

Diamondbacks are informing their fans that they may be switching TV outlets within the next few days.

“Diamondbacks play-by-play broadcaster Steve Berthiaume told viewers during Sunday's game against the Toronto Blue Jays that a court hearing scheduled for Tuesday “may result in new channels for the games to be seen.” Interestingly, the statement was made on Bally Sports Arizona's own airwaves.”

 

[rsteen]

Which is 4M for the current cap. I personnally do not see as high of an increase. 2M maybe...but IIRC the league already announced an increase of only 1M from 2022 au 2023 seasons.

Revenue in 2018-19 was around 5B. Bettman reported "almost 6B" for 2022-23. That's a 20% increase in revenue while the cap has only increased by 2.5%. There's about 70M of covid escrow remaining. Once that's paid off early next season, the cap will go back to being tied to revenues (albeit with a more complex way of working it out).
Even if the RSN issues mean that revenue stays at 6B or even slightly decreases, revenues are far enough ahead of the cap that it should get the 5% increase.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Anyone know the maximum that could be lost in the RSN’s deals per year.
What might be the minimum lost.

 

[DaBadGuy7]

Coyotes are likely to be looking for new TV home, can’t see Bally Sports Arizona existing with just them

 

[KevFu]

On the plus side, not having to pay the Dbacks $75 million every year means they can make their payments to the Coyotes.

The downside of course is, that Ballys PHX will probably get the axe.

But what MLB does will probably determine what the NHL does. The DTC model locally on cable and just removing the geo-block restriction on the streaming package MAKES SENSE.

I hope the NHL and MLB are talking about this all the time, because there's room for a win with MLBtv's tech.

The non-football Big Five Leagues running a DTC streaming service coast-to-coast would make a TON OF SENSE.

 

[TheLegend]

Official... Diamond drops the Diamondbacks.




MLB to take over broadcasts beginning today. No word yet on retention of the current broadcast talent lineup.

 

[TheLegend]

MLB announcement.

- Primary broadcast team retained. All local blackouts removed.

MLB producing, distributing D-backs games

Major League Baseball will take over production and distribution of all Arizona Diamondbacks locally distributed games starting today, July 18 when the Diamondbacks face the Atlanta Braves at 7:20 p.m. EDT /4:20 p.m. MST. The new arrangement, which gives fans the option to watch on television or...

www.mlb.com

 

[TheLegend]

Coyotes brief statement regarding Bally's Sports Arizona.

 

[Tom ServoMST3K]

What baseball is dealing with is that for generations, the summer was a TV wasteland of re-runs, so their ratings in the summer were pretty good. But now with streaming, anyone can fire up any content they want at any time.

Not to go full on media theory, but there's an interesting case to be made that the most popular sports in America have been driven by the primary means of consuming them - as they say, the media is the message - in this case the most popular sports.

Baseball, Horse Racing, and Boxing, all leant themselves to being recapped in newspapers, especially baseball with dailies, and with the rise of more popular media, those sports were replaced.

With broadcast TV, hockey saw it's most popular time, and we saw the dominance of the NFL - Now we have youtube, and streaming, and that's tailor-made for the star-power and individuality of the NBA - The NFL should be given credit for stuff like fantasy and packaging highlights allowing themselves to dominate in this new space. Also, top-flight soccer is easily accessible thanks to streaming for the first time ever.

The NHL has really lagged behind digitally, and I think that's why we're seeing stagnation in popularity.

Obviously this theory has flaws, but it's interesting to think about, and probably has enough truth to shape league policy moving forward for the big american sports.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Not to go full on media theory, but there's an interesting case to be made that the most popular sports in America have been driven by the primary means of consuming them - as they say, the media is the message - in this case the most popular sports.

Baseball, Horse Racing, and Boxing, all leant themselves to being recapped in newspapers, especially baseball with dailies, and with the rise of more popular media, those sports were replaced.

With broadcast TV, hockey saw it's most popular time, and we saw the dominance of the NFL - Now we have youtube, and streaming, and that's tailor-made for the star-power and individuality of the NBA - The NFL should be given credit for stuff like fantasy and packaging highlights allowing themselves to dominate in this new space. Also, top-flight soccer is easily accessible thanks to streaming for the first time ever.

The NHL has really lagged behind digitally, and I think that's why we're seeing stagnation in popularity.

Obviously this theory has flaws, but it's interesting to think about, and probably has enough truth to shape league policy moving forward for the big american sports.

Until streaming catches up to broadcast TV in quality of picture and reliability, I’ll have to stick with broadcast TV for my hockey viewing.

 

[Headshot77]

Have we heard anything about AT&T Sportsnet and wether they will exist for next season?

 

[KevFu]

Not to go full on media theory, but there's an interesting case to be made that the most popular sports in America have been driven by the primary means of consuming them - as they say, the media is the message - in this case the most popular sports.

I don't mind media theory at all! I actually have my own on soccer in the US and why it took us til the 1990s for anyone to notice it existed here...

Because before 1950, no one had a TV, and then once everyone got TVs... the US didn't make the World Cup for FORTY YEARS. So all the other sports got bigger because of TV, but soccer never really on TV, certainly not something that would draw people in like a World Cup.

And that's why you have a "split" of US soccer fans...
There's people who got into it because we made the World Cup in 1990 and hosted it in 1994 (like me).

But the next World Cup, we were eliminated in our second game (after game one was a weekday day game) and finished DMFL. And 2002 was played in the middle of the night. So not many "new fans" were added. But In 2006, 2010 and 2014, they picked up a ton of new fans.

2026 will be off the charts. We set attendance records in 1994 (with a 24-team tourney!) that we still hold to this day vs all the 32-team tourneys. And that was when hardly anyone in the US actually cared about soccer.

But I'll shut up and get back on topic.

Until streaming catches up to broadcast TV in quality of picture and reliability, I’ll have to stick with broadcast TV for my hockey viewing.

Sounds like you need a better ISP.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I don't mind media theory at all! I actually have my own on soccer in the US and why it took us til the 1990s for anyone to notice it existed here...

Because before 1950, no one had a TV, and then once everyone got TVs... the US didn't make the World Cup for FORTY YEARS. So all the other sports got bigger because of TV, but soccer never really on TV, certainly not something that would draw people in like a World Cup.

And that's why you have a "split" of US soccer fans...
There's people who got into it because we made the World Cup in 1990 and hosted it in 1994 (like me).

But the next World Cup, we were eliminated in our second game (after game one was a weekday day game) and finished DMFL. And 2002 was played in the middle of the night. So not many "new fans" were added. But In 2006, 2010 and 2014, they picked up a ton of new fans.

2026 will be off the charts. We set attendance records in 1994 (with a 24-team tourney!) that we still hold to this day vs all the 32-team tourneys. And that was when hardly anyone in the US actually cared about soccer.

But I'll shut up and get back on topic.



Sounds like you need a better ISP.

ISP is great, it’s the apps that the games run on suck. Laggy, reset, freezes sometimes.
Plus I get a couple 4K games each night, which streaming can’t come close too.