Bally Sports Breaks Bad
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While not surprising, it is unfortunate that Sinclair's eyes are much bigger than its stomach.
I am beginning to think Fox is the best run company in the business. Sells the RSNs just at the right time, and sells it library to Disney for a streaming venture. Sinclair is on the verge of bankruptcy, and the streaming bubble is about to pop, with Disney pouring one and a half billion down that rathole in just one quarter.
The RSNs are in real trouble. As with other sports channels “everybody” paid, and paid a lot, for the local RSN, whether they wanted it or not. Now there are two problems. If you don’t want it, you can get good packages of linear TV without it. And the ultra low priced out of market packages let people follow any team they want, except for their own.
They simply, HAVE to include the local teams in the season packages, and price them accordingly. There is no other solution.
The RSNs are in real trouble. As with other sports channels “everybody” paid, and paid a lot, for the local RSN, whether they wanted it or not. Now there are two problems. If you don’t want it, you can get good packages of linear TV without it. And the ultra low priced out of market packages let people follow any team they want, except for their own.
They simply, HAVE to include the local teams in the season packages, and price them accordingly. There is no other solution.
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or just let the teams sell there own games to any one and then have an for just an BIT more get all the games from all the teams.
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And who produces the games? Bankrupt RSNs?
The league?
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RSNs exist for a reason: economies of scale. If every team had to produce their own content, it could get expensive real fast. What happens with all of the production facilities in the off-season?
What about the teams that couldn't support TV coverage on their own?
Who is going to bundle these games "for just a bit more" and how will they divide the revenue?
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well the thing is lets say they make the out of market package in to an ALL games one at the league level? and say I think do to the anit trust thing they must offer an lower cost 1 team choice as well.
some teams may be like we want to be able to sell and market our own 1 team choice to any one. And in some cases some teams may want more vs other teams that can do with less.
If the league takes over for RSN’s…as asked before who is going to produce those games? You think the league or individual teams would want it to be something they would have to do? Right now the MLB-TV service just uses the RSN produced games.
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That doesn't address the issue of the seasonality of most popular sports.
If the solution is sharing of facilities between sports that have different seasons, then you often run into overlap of the seasons.
Other than some of the very largest markets, I don't think a one-league RSN is feasible.
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So how do the multi-team RSN handle overlaps between their sports? They have multiple production units and share equipment between RSNs (especially the large RSN groups such as Sinclair). It is interesting to watch games in split screen from two different RSNs. The same action on the court, field or floor with different graphics on the cutaways. Occasionally a cutaway will be to the coach or bench for the "home" team of an RSN while the other RSN covering the same event shows something else. Which basically means one crew with two final production centers per game. Most cameras and primary editing shared. (I have seen this on events where the RSNs were not owned by the same company.)
If every game can be covered NOW using overlaping crews moving from venue to venue why would that change? The equipment exists and the people exist. All one has to do is pay for the production.
The challenge is finding someone to pay. The "old model" had RSNs collecting fees from most MVPD subscribers (only the most basic packages not including the local RSN). That has broken over recent years with DISH and other MVPDs choosing not to pay RSNs at all. RSNs took their "guaranteed" income and paid their local sports teams for the rights to carry the games. The RSNs also paid the production costs and in good years made a nice profit.
So what happens when the "guaranteed" income dwindles, the local sports teams still want the same or more for rights and RSNs are still responsible for producing the games? The RSN runs out of money.
The teams are accustomed to receiving big checks for the in market rights to their games. Few are involved on the production side of their games (owning a stake in their RSN). The leagues are also accustomed to receiving big checks from national broadcasters - not writing checks for production costs. The financial failure of RSNs will have a major effect on how games are produced and sold.
If every game can be covered NOW using overlaping crews moving from venue to venue why would that change? The equipment exists and the people exist. All one has to do is pay for the production.
The challenge is finding someone to pay. The "old model" had RSNs collecting fees from most MVPD subscribers (only the most basic packages not including the local RSN). That has broken over recent years with DISH and other MVPDs choosing not to pay RSNs at all. RSNs took their "guaranteed" income and paid their local sports teams for the rights to carry the games. The RSNs also paid the production costs and in good years made a nice profit.
So what happens when the "guaranteed" income dwindles, the local sports teams still want the same or more for rights and RSNs are still responsible for producing the games? The RSN runs out of money.
The teams are accustomed to receiving big checks for the in market rights to their games. Few are involved on the production side of their games (owning a stake in their RSN). The leagues are also accustomed to receiving big checks from national broadcasters - not writing checks for production costs. The financial failure of RSNs will have a major effect on how games are produced and sold.
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If the RSN delivered multiple sports using a pool of rigs used year round, they could more easily justify spares.
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I'm sorry to say that sports as a whole are ruined, big money and greedy socialized politics have destroyed what used to be good. I loved all sports growing up and played all except soccer but to include cricket, but I'm sad to say good bye to sports as I can't stomach the greed and politics that have taken the sports away. The best thing that could happen to sports is for everyone to wise up and stop supporting the nonsense. If this happened the sports God's would be forced to go back to the way we had sports some 50 years ago, without the double-dipping and pigeon-hole approach they now invoke. But sadly there are too many out there that will continue watch their favorite sport(s) at any cost, hence will will continue to be stuck with a mediocre product at best at a increasingly expensive price.
National sports covered by national talking heads is horrible, it's much better to have the local teams own hometown talking heads cover their team. When we have local teams on local broadcasts with commercial funds, free sports TV to the local viewers, things were much better and they were still making profits, good profits! Now we pay way too much for in some cases criminals to play our beloved sports. Great model we've morphed too.
National sports covered by national talking heads is horrible, it's much better to have the local teams own hometown talking heads cover their team. When we have local teams on local broadcasts with commercial funds, free sports TV to the local viewers, things were much better and they were still making profits, good profits! Now we pay way too much for in some cases criminals to play our beloved sports. Great model we've morphed too.
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Struggling regional sports network operator Diamond Sports Group is set to name a CEO Monday, making it more independent from Sinclair Broadcast Group, which has been running the chain of Bally Sports Networks.
UPDATE: David Preschlack Named CEO At Diamond Sports Group
Having separate management may make it easier to spin off.
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And as I predicted months ago nobody is going to pay $20 for Bally Sports Plus when people already gripe about what was $6.99 now $9.99 for ESPN+ that offers far more. DSG needed to price BSP to where it's both affordable for people and could drive enough subscribers to still be profitable for them. $20 just wasn't it. I said $5 maybe a max of $10 tops a month. That easily could have brought fare more subscribers which in turn more profit (more revenue from ads, more subscribers, etc). But hey I'm just a random nobody on a tiny message forum commenting on this. What do I know, right?
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maybe $15 on it's own with say $10-$13 when you buy the full year. And say $8-$13 on cable as an add on channel.
MLB, NBA and NHL unlikely to save struggling TV regional sports networks: sources
The nation’s dominant owner of regional sports networks may be headed toward a bankruptcy filing that could hasten a nationwide migration of sports fans away from cable TV, The Post has learn…
nypost.com
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That's sometimes what you get when you try to corner the market on something. Sometimes the result is a failure on a much grander scale.
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