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

[Coyotedroppings]

So Yotes fans options to watch are in person, over the air via antenna in SD, or on COX (I'm assuming a cable provider?)

Sounds like a crappy situation for people who want to watch.

Crappy is an understatement. It is now HD, but coverage is dismal.

It sounds like they are going to launch a streaming package similar to Vegas (who also did a similar deal with Scripps).

Steaming sucks, when you’re on the road in the middle of nowhere, satellite doesn’t.

 

[Coyotedroppings]

The reach will actually be much larger. Word is the OTA channel will get an HD upgrade. Up until now it hasn’t been necessary because virtually all it’s content was from the analog days.

Before, Bally’s was only available through Cox or streaming via their app (if you had a Cox account). That was inherited from Fox Sports when both Direct and Dish dropped them.

I’ve always watched Bally’s on DTV.

 

[Coyotedroppings]

More from the Phoenix Business Journal...

Arizona Coyotes switch broadcast partners due to Bally Sports Arizona bankruptcy

To quote:

"In a court filing, Diamond Sports Group said they paid the team “tens of millions of dollars annually,” for the exclusive rights to broadcast its games. While over-the-air TV partners do not typically pay as much as cable networks for local broadcast rights, Gutierrez said he sees a way it will be financially beneficial to the team.

The Coyotes did not disclose the financial terms of the deal but said that they signed a multi-year agreement to televise all locally broadcast Coyotes games over the air to residents of Arizona and surrounding states within the team's broadcast territory.

The deal between the Coyotes and Scripps will have Coyotes games broadcast not just in the Valley, but also on Scripps stations in Tucson and in Salt Lake City, Utah. Gutierrez said negotiations are ongoing to broadcast Coyotes games in New Mexico as well, but that part has not been finalized yet."

Source (Paywall): www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2023/10/05/arizona-coyotes-partners-scripps-tv-rights.html

Really have to laugh at “all over Arizona.”
XG is a liar.

 

[TheLegend]

Really have to laugh at “all over Arizona.”
XG is a liar.

It's a subjective term.

Feeling bitter today??

 

[Coyotedroppings]

It's a subjective term.

Feeling bitter today??

HAHA, always bitter with the asshats!

 

[Shwan]

I’ve always watched Bally’s on DTV.

Not sure what the exact situation is but it it looks like the Kings and Blues games are slated to be on CW61 which means it'll be on DTV etc.

Also looks like CW will be getting a rebrand to "Arizona61" which could preclude the Yotes being put there on a more permanent basis.

Arizona 61

Arizona 61 is your new one-stop shop for local and national news, TV entertainment, and sports in Phoenix.

www.abc15.com

These are things that should be communicated by Xavier and/or Scripps though so why Coyotes fans are still in the dark is pretty amazing.

 

[Coyotedroppings]

The wife and I have always traveled within state when Yotes are on the road and it’s never been an issue with DTV. It’s pathetic that we can’t see games, but I’d have to agree that the lack of communication is the worst part. We’ve been sth’s for 27 years, they have my email…. not they should even need it with todays technology.

 

[brentashton]

The wife and I have always traveled within state when Yotes are on the road and it’s never been an issue with DTV. It’s pathetic that we can’t see games, but I’d have to agree that the lack of communication is the worst part. We’ve been sth’s for 27 years, they have my email…. not they should even need it with todays technology.

Unless you are an advertiser, I don’t think they care about you. The fact that you are a consumer of said advertising is lost on them.

Oh, and don’t expect proactive (or even reactive for that matter) communication from the Coyotes. You can email pretty much any NHL team and receive a response, sometimes a very thoughtful one. The Yotes, sad to say, I have mailed including some very complimentary thoughts over the years and nary a response. It’s been that way through many ownership regimes. They run a thin org and it shows (except in seat and suite sales), those folks are very good good at calling and emailing!!

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Court approves Diamond Sports ending existing deals after '24

Diamond Sports (operator of the Bally Sports RSNs) can move forward with plans to relinquish all of its existing contracts by the end of the 2024 Major League Baseball season, pending the resolution of motions by MLB and Sinclair, a bankruptcy judge ruled Wednesday. Diamond entered into a “cooperation agreement” with its debtors last week under which it plans to offload existing rights after the current and coming seasons but continue carrying games in the meantime.

As part of the cooperation agreement, Diamond struck a deal with the NBA guaranteeing that it will fulfill all of its contractual obligations this season in exchange for a 16 percent reduction in rights fees. That was also approved by the court Wednesday. Diamond is widely expected to reach a similar deal with the NHL in the coming days. MLB has no such deal and thus no way to prevent Diamond from dropping teams midseason, as was the case with the Diamondbacks and Padres last year.

Diamond has said that the cooperation agreement fulfills that need by requiring a final decision for the 2024 season by December 31, which it says is enough time for MLB to prepare alternative plans by the time play begins in March. MLB said last month that it wants an immediate deadline.

As for Sinclair, which originally purchased the formerly Fox-branded RSNs from Disney in 2019, the issue is $250 million in management services fees that it says the cooperation agreement does not take into account. Depending on how those motions are ruled, the cooperation agreement could — in the words of the judge Wednesday — “blow up.” The court plans to hear arguments on both December 8.

 

[GKJ]

 

[varsaku]

The future of live sports TV reaches a tipping point

This reckoning has been on the horizon for a while: 2024 is setting up to be the year the decades-old models of delivering sports broadcasts to people's homes undergo a stark change.Sinclair Broadcast Group announced in a Texas court in mid-November its intent to shut down its bankrupt...

www.thescore.com

 

[joelef]

Nhl official sport drink is bankrupted, signs a deal with fanatics , created a joke of a “World Cup” and now ballys is most likely going under. The nhl an absolute crap show

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Nhl official sport drink is bankrupted, signs a deal with fanatics , created a joke of a “World Cup” and now ballys is most likely going under. The nhl an absolute crap show

If making billions of dollars every year is crap show then sure.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Something to read from the topic:

In June the Utah Jazz announced that they were quitting cable. In the final year, the network known as AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain was paying about $25 million per season.

Beginning this season, the team is broadcasting its games on the free-to-air station KJZZ (pronounced “K-Jazz”) as well as through a paid streaming service called Jazz+. In September the team began offering Jazz+ subscriptions to the more than 3.3 million people who live within the team’s league-designated market: the state of Utah, plus parts of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming that fall within a 150-mile radius around the Delta Center, the team’s arena in Salt Lake. For $125.50 annually, $15.50 per month or $5 and up per game, fans can watch any game that’s not carried exclusively on national TV, as well as get behind-the-scenes footage and other programming.

Terms of the deal with KJZZ’s owner, Sinclair Broadcast Group, weren’t disclosed, but S&P Global Market Intelligence estimates that this season the Jazz will bring in 50% to 70% of the revenue they were getting from AT&T SportsNet, depending on their ratings and how many streaming subscriptions they sell. It’s a significant setback, Smith acknowledges, though he’s confident it’s temporary—and comes with a big upside for Jazz fans.

Although Salt Lake did jump two spots—from 29th to 27th—from 2022 to 2023 in Nielsen Co.’s ranking of US TV markets, the Jazz are still in the bottom quintile of NBA franchises.

In the short term, raising rates for their ads will be the fastest way for the Jazz to make up the shortfall from losing the fees paid by AT&T SportsNet. So far this season, an average of nearly 44,000 households are tuning in to Jazz games on KJZZ in the Salt Lake market, according to Nielsen, an increase of more than 40% over the same period last season on AT&T SportsNet. Jazz chief communications officer Caroline Klein says she expects that audience to grow as the sports calendar gets less crowded over the winter. More than 650,000 households in Utah already get KJZZ either as part of a pay-TV package or over-the-air, a boost of more than 220% over AT&T SportsNet’s reach in the market, according to S&P, which estimates the Jazz’s ad inventory for the current season to be worth $10 million to $15 million. If more fans decide to put up antennas, KJZZ would reach more than a million households, covering a population of almost 3.5 million. In October the Jazz announced they had expanded their broadcast territory farther into Idaho and Wyoming, as well as parts of Montana, Oregon and Washington—areas that don’t conflict with the markets of other NBA teams—by striking deals with pay-TV distributors who operate beyond the reach of KJZZ’s signal. That expansion brings their potential reach to more than 6 million people.

So far more than 16,000 people have signed up for Jazz+, and almost 12,000 of those subscribers have opted for the annual package, says Klein, who led the introduction of the service. Season ticket holders, who get the service included with their seats, make up a small portion of that total. (To encourage sign-ups for annual subscriptions, the Jazz offered a pair of free tickets, a hat and a T-shirt.) More than 65% of subscribers, Klein says, are logging in to watch games, a level of engagement that’s exceeding expectations.

The Jazz say they don’t expect the dip in rights revenue to affect payroll spending, in large part because the rest of the balance sheet is strong. Over the past seven years, ticket sales have doubled, from $45 million to $90 million, while, over the past three, sponsorship deals have almost tripled, from $16 million to $45 million.

 

[wildthing202]

The future of live sports TV reaches a tipping point

This reckoning has been on the horizon for a while: 2024 is setting up to be the year the decades-old models of delivering sports broadcasts to people's homes undergo a stark change.Sinclair Broadcast Group announced in a Texas court in mid-November its intent to shut down its bankrupt...

www.thescore.com

With all the RSNs imploding and all of the cord cutting going on the NBA must be insane to think they'll get 3x their current TV deal.

 

[AmabileCassarole]

If making billions of dollars every year is crap show then sure.

Keep in mind the person you're replying to has no financial stake in the league to begin with, so why do they care so much? The leagues have survived this long, they'll find a way.

 

[Spydey629]

With all the RSNs imploding and all of the cord cutting going on the NBA must be insane to think they'll get 3x their current TV deal.

On the other hand, Amazon is reportedly interested. How much to do they have to (over) pay to get a package of games to a streaming service?

 

[SJSharksfan39]

With all the RSNs imploding and all of the cord cutting going on the NBA must be insane to think they'll get 3x their current TV deal.

I hear nothing about the NBC Sports stuff, yet the Bay Area is all NBC Sports, and I Think Bay Area owns a little bit of the SF Giants. I always feel like Comcast/NBC Universal is the last to come up with a regional streaming package. I'm surprised they don't have the games on Peacock yet. I thought that was a possibility.

 

[IU Hawks fan]

I hear nothing about the NBC Sports stuff, yet the Bay Area is all NBC Sports, and I Think Bay Area owns a little bit of the SF Giants. I always feel like Comcast/NBC Universal is the last to come up with a regional streaming package. I'm surprised they don't have the games on Peacock yet. I thought that was a possibility.

NBCU will be out of the RSN business before you know it.

• Sold DC to Monumental (Caps/Wiz).
• Chicago deals end after this coming baseball season: The Blackhawks, Bulls, & White Sox are likely to start a new network under the Reinsdorf owned Stadium brand

Baseball's direction is going to be the most interesting thing to watch in sports media over the next 2-3 years. There's a lot of speculation that MLB wants to recoup all the local rights and sell them altogether (IE: MLB.TV but more expensive with local teams), but there will be a big fight from NYY/BOS/LAD/CHC to keep theirs and their team owned cash cow networks alive.

 

[Spydey629]

NBCU will be out of the RSN business before you know it.

• Sold DC to Monumental (Caps/Wiz).
• Chicago deals end after this coming baseball season: The Blackhawks, Bulls, & White Sox are likely to start a new network under the Reinsdorf owned Stadium brand

Baseball's direction is going to be the most interesting thing to watch in sports media over the next 2-3 years. There's a lot of speculation that MLB wants to recoup all the local rights and sell them altogether (IE: MLB.TV but more expensive with local teams), but there will be a big fight from NYY/BOS/LAD/CHC to keep theirs and their team owned cash cow networks alive.

Latest word in Pittsburgh is to keep an eye on what comes from the Winter Meetings. The Pirates will likely make their intentions known there, or shortly thereafter.

They can partner with FSG and join the Pens on SportsNet Pittsburgh, or go with MLB. Rumor has it they are being pushed to take the latter.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

The Bally exodus continues.

 

[joelef]

Watch the same people who are rubbing their hands about rsn falling and crying about blackouts are going to be the same people complaining about Jersey sponsers so they make up the revenue. Be careful what you wish for.

 

[Big Z Man 1990]

Paramount Global should step in and buy what's left of DSG and integrate it into CBS Sports.

 

[mouser]

Paramount Global should step in and buy what's left of DSG and integrate it into CBS Sports.

What does DSG have left of value without the local team broadcast contracts? CBS isn’t going to operate the failing RSNs.

 

[TheOrganist]

Is it too early to evaluate how the implosion of rights deals will impact sports valuations over the next 5-10 years? Mark Cuban said the next national TV contract for the NBA will probably be OK (but not the historical windfall) and he specifically said he’s very worried how the revenue would shake out after the next deal 5-7 years from now. I wonder if that impacted his decision to sell.