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

[Kirk Van Houten]

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/16/diamond-fanduel-naming-rights-regional-sports-networks.html

The company said in court papers filed Tuesday that it reached a naming rights deal with Flutter-owned FanDuel, which will rebrand the Bally Sports channels just as the National Hockey League season has started and the National Basketball Association’s 2024-2025 season is less than a week away. Diamond Sports said in the filing that if it is able to emerge from bankruptcy protection, FanDuel will be a “long-term naming rights partner.” The new naming rights agreement would also give FanDuel the right to buy up to 5% of equity in the reorganized company and get performance warrants for up to 5% of equity. The agreement is subject to court approval.

In Tuesday’s court papers, Diamond said that while discussions with FanDuel began in February, it waited until it finalized agreements with the NBA and NHL to negotiate the final terms of the naming rights deal. A FanDuel representative declined to comment beyond the filings, and the specific financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1846625537286197524

 

[No Fun Shogun]

CHSN's big plan to get on Xfinity.... crowdsourcing.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1846933833750319527

Unreal.

 

[Scomerica]

Kraken moving over to Prime/Over the air channel feels like a game changer. They were on the Mariners RSN Root sports until this season which is an awkward channel to get. Guessing viewership should increase quite a bit due to that.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1847307218862977117

 

[zooperdooper]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1846933833750319527

Unreal.

You never hear how well timed Fox's exit from the RSN business was.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

You never hear how well timed Fox's exit from the RSN business was.

4D chess lmao

 

[wildthing202]

You never hear how well timed Fox's exit from the RSN business was.

Well that was mostly because Disney had to sell them immediately after buying the movie & TV studios due to antitrust issues with ESPN and without Fox there wasn't really anyone else who wanted the RSNs, so their value pretty much tanked from there.

 

[KevFu]

The entire TV industry did an unbelievably terrible job keeping up with ESPN in terms of sports on TV. CBS, Fox and NBC didn't launch their own sports channels until 10 to 15 years after ESPN had launched ESPN2 and successfully built an empire!

And the first one -- CBS -- wasn't even their own competing channel, they bought "College Sports TV" and just rebranded it as CBS Sports.

And NBC wasn't a competing channel either; they noticed OLN went from a channel people watched twice a year because they were flipping and saw either the Tour de France or "is that guy fighting a grizzly bear!?!??" to having like a million people watching playoff hockey and rebranded THAT into NBC Sports.

(FYI, I know the natural follow up is "yeah, but they dumped NBC Sports!" They really didn't "dump" NBC Sports. USA Network carried shows/movies produced by other studios, and with everyone launching their own streaming services and keeping their studio's output for themselves, USA went from having four studios to shop from to one. Putting sports on USA covered that loss of programming).

Also, I'm really curious as to why Diamond would keep the Marlins of all teams.

 

[patnyrnyg]

I find the move to OTA that several teams have done to be interesting. Are these stations paying as much as the RSN were paying? Do they get a cut of the commercial sales. I always thought it was odd why the teams played on cable when I was younger. Where I lived as a kid in Staten Island, they were not able to get cable until around 1988 (we moved summer of 86). At the time, Mets games were on WOR, Yanks on WPIX. Rangers, Knicks were on WOR on occasion beginning around 84 until 89 as the overflow channel for MSG. After 89, Family Channel became the overflow. Do not recall ever watching Isles, Devils, or Nets on WOR. Just never understood why the teams wanted to set it up so 1/2 (in some cases more) of the fanbase could not watch the games. Or, (doubtful) was it the OTA networks werent all that interested?

 

[IU Hawks fan]

I find the move to OTA that several teams have done to be interesting. Are these stations paying as much as the RSN were paying?

Absolutely not.

Do they get a cut of the commercial sales.

It probably varies but I wouldn't be surprised if these are mostly time buys (IE: The team pays the station for air time and sells the ad time themselves)

In CHSN's case here in Chicago, as far as I understand it the small station they are on allows anyone to buy air time and has 10 different subchannels, so they were able to buy the ability to use 2 of them.

I always thought it was odd why the teams played on cable when I was younger. Where I lived as a kid in Staten Island, they were not able to get cable until around 1988 (we moved summer of 86). At the time, Mets games were on WOR, Yanks on WPIX. Rangers, Knicks were on WOR on occasion beginning around 84 until 89 as the overflow channel for MSG. After 89, Family Channel became the overflow. Do not recall ever watching Isles, Devils, or Nets on WOR. Just never understood why the teams wanted to set it up so 1/2 (in some cases more) of the fanbase could not watch the games. Or, (doubtful) was it the OTA networks werent all that interested?

Because cable was more lucrative. The teams could profit from everyone who subscribed whether they watch or not, it's not fully ad dependent like OTA.

We've come full circle, as that model has dried up and now teams are scrambling to figure out how to match those revenue streams.

 

[jkrdevil]

The entire TV industry did an unbelievably terrible job keeping up with ESPN in terms of sports on TV. CBS, Fox and NBC didn't launch their own sports channels until 10 to 15 years after ESPN had launched ESPN2 and successfully built an empire!

And the first one -- CBS -- wasn't even their own competing channel, they bought "College Sports TV" and just rebranded it as CBS Sports.

And NBC wasn't a competing channel either; they noticed OLN went from a channel people watched twice a year because they were flipping and saw either the Tour de France or "is that guy fighting a grizzly bear!?!??" to having like a million people watching playoff hockey and rebranded THAT into NBC Sports.

(FYI, I know the natural follow up is "yeah, but they dumped NBC Sports!" They really didn't "dump" NBC Sports. USA Network carried shows/movies produced by other studios, and with everyone launching their own streaming services and keeping their studio's output for themselves, USA went from having four studios to shop from to one. Putting sports on USA covered that loss of programming).

Also, I'm really curious as to why Diamond would keep the Marlins of all teams.

NBC didn’t launch their own sports channel, as much as they were acquired by a cable giant who previously tried to buy Disney almost solely to try and reduce/capture ESPN’s affiliate fees.

None of the leaders of these networks were exactly forward thinking and visionaries. The traditional 3 networks were focused on entertainment programming and fine with just special events for sports. To buy the larger packages in bulk was expensive and they didn’t get the affiliate fees like ESPN was getting.

The only network that prioritized Sports was Fox because it was built on the NFL rights. They tried to compete with ESPN through the regionals, but it work nationally. FS1 didn’t come about until Comcast bought NBC threatening their sports rights if they didn’t have a full network. Remember Fox and ESPN teams up for a time to protect losing their fees to Comcast.

 

[patnyrnyg]

Absolutely not.



It probably varies but I wouldn't be surprised if these are mostly time buys (IE: The team pays the station for air time and sells the ad time themselves)

In CHSN's case here in Chicago, as far as I understand it the small station they are on allows anyone to buy air time and has 10 different subchannels, so they were able to buy the ability to use 2 of them.


Because cable was more lucrative. The teams could profit from everyone who subscribed whether they watch or not, it's not fully ad dependent like OTA.

We've come full circle, as that model has dried up and now teams are scrambling to figure out how to match those revenue streams.

Not sure about anywhere else, but for a LONG time, until early 2000s, on Long Island, MSG and what was Sportschannel which later became FSNY was not part of "basic" cable. They were add-ons.

 

[Scomerica]

I find the move to OTA that several teams have done to be interesting. Are these stations paying as much as the RSN were paying? Do they get a cut of the commercial sales. I always thought it was odd why the teams played on cable when I was younger. Where I lived as a kid in Staten Island, they were not able to get cable until around 1988 (we moved summer of 86). At the time, Mets games were on WOR, Yanks on WPIX. Rangers, Knicks were on WOR on occasion beginning around 84 until 89 as the overflow channel for MSG. After 89, Family Channel became the overflow. Do not recall ever watching Isles, Devils, or Nets on WOR. Just never understood why the teams wanted to set it up so 1/2 (in some cases more) of the fanbase could not watch the games. Or, (doubtful) was it the OTA networks werent all that interested?

Probably not. In the Krakens case though it makes sense to have more eye on the product and try crack into the market who'll become fans then hopefully attend games.

On the reverse, the Sounders used to be on OTA and their attendance drops are getting partly blamed on it moving to Apple TV (there are other factors but it is one)

 

[Golden_Jet]

Ya that will affect the cap

 

[No Fun Shogun]

The Hawks/Bulls/Sox channel is allegedly considering this pricing scheme for their app.

Absolutely laughably expensive.