Sinclair/Diamond Sports bankruptcy watch

[DCFan]

At least from a fan's perspective there is a reasonable option to get the games now.   Previously, most of the area had no option.   It seems the way this is playing out is that AT&T is positioning themselves to be a premium priced sports network with all the sports channels and most other carriers are deciding it's not worth it.   That's a positive direction in terms of consumer choice, but RSNs are going to be in trouble if they have to rely on the people willing to pay more for them.

All this legal jargon is great but the question remains - is the local SoCal cable company carrying the Dodgers RSN or not?

[Natsinpwc]

All this legal jargon is great but the question remains - is the local SoCal cable company carrying the Dodgers RSN or not?

I think mostly they do not. Have a friend out there in Santa Barbara and he doesn’t get them in cable. But MLB tv still blacks out the dodger games in his area.

[nfotiu]

All this legal jargon is great but the question remains - is the local SoCal cable company carrying the Dodgers RSN or not?

No.   But Directv wasn't either until last year.   So at least now there is one option when there was none for 7 years.

[HalfSmokes]

At least from a fan's perspective there is a reasonable option to get the games now.   Previously, most of the area had no option.   It seems the way this is playing out is that AT&T is positioning themselves to be a premium priced sports network with all the sports channels and most other carriers are deciding it's not worth it.   That's a positive direction in terms of consumer choice, but RSNs are going to be in trouble if they have to rely on the people willing to pay more for them.

That has to be something keeping owners up at night. RSN ratings are pretty universally dismal, but they make their money off of forced carriage fees. If people ever get the choice, they are in trouble

[DCFan]

That has to be something keeping owners up at night. RSN ratings are pretty universally dismal, but they make their money off of forced carriage fees. If people ever get the choice, they are in trouble

https://fortune.com/2020/09/21/cord-cutting-record-covid-19-pandemic/

Cord cutting has to be decimating the RSN monies coming in. I don't know if MLB.tv is making up the difference?

[imref]

https://fortune.com/2020/09/21/cord-cutting-record-covid-19-pandemic/

Cord cutting has to be decimating the RSN monies coming in. I don't know if MLB.tv is making up the difference?

It really seems baseball is heading for a pretty massive financial crash / restructuring in the coming years.  The fanbase just isn't there to justify these high fees.

[nfotiu]

https://fortune.com/2020/09/21/cord-cutting-record-covid-19-pandemic/

Cord cutting has to be decimating the RSN monies coming in. I don't know if MLB.tv is making up the difference?

mlb.tv is at most about $200 million in revenue.  But probably quite a bit less than that as the estimate in this article is based on app downloads.  https://awfulannouncing.com/mlb/refunds-for-mlb-tv-will-reportedly-exceed-200-million-this-year.html

That's only 2/3s of the Dodgers TV deal alone.

There's a day of reckoning coming for sure.   If Sinclair doesn't make a lot of moves in carriage agreements, I doubt they'll last two months into the baseball season.    They may scrape their way through another year or two, but there is no path forward for these RSNs to continue to pay these contracts while losing subscribers.

[GburgNatsFan]

How much do you think MLB could make if they showed in-region games?

Gonna be listening to Charlie and Dave a lot this year.

mlb.tv is at most about $200 million in revenue.  But probably quite a bit less than that as the estimate in this article is based on app downloads.  https://awfulannouncing.com/mlb/refunds-for-mlb-tv-will-reportedly-exceed-200-million-this-year.html

That's only 2/3s of the Dodgers TV deal alone.

There's a day of reckoning coming for sure.   If Sinclair doesn't make a lot of moves in carriage agreements, I doubt they'll last two months into the baseball season.    They may scrape their way through another year or two, but there is no path forward for these RSNs to continue to pay these contracts while losing subscribers.

[Natsinpwc]

As best I can tell the Marlins still don’t have a TV deal for this season less than two weeks before opening day.

[imref]

As best I can tell the Marlins still don’t have a TV deal for this season less than two weeks before opening day.

Will anyone in Miami notice?

[Natsinpwc]

Will anyone in Miami notice?

Maybe. We had the games last year on local tv in Orlando so I will notice.

[Natsinpwc]

The Marlins game is on Fox Sports south today so they just have a deal.

[imref]

I'm really starting to wonder if MLB is trying to tank this season to boost its position in the upcoming CBA.

[Slateman]

The Marlins game is on Fox Sports south today so they just have a deal.

https://mobile.twitter.com/CraigMish/status/1374720099903488006

Sources indicate the Marlins new multi-year TV deal is more than doubles their previous one annually from a financial perspective. Substantially more than double. In addition the deal is more than 5 years in length.

[Natsinpwc]

https://mobile.twitter.com/CraigMish/status/1374720099903488006

Amazing.

[DCFan]

FBN - Amazon Prime will stream 21 Yankee games this season.

[OldChelsea]

I'm really starting to wonder if MLB is trying to tank this season to boost its position in the upcoming CBA.

Wouldn't be surprising, especially if Covid situations like the Nats are having occur at significantly more franchises.

[nfotiu]

https://awfulannouncing.com/sinclair/everyone-seems-to-agree-that-rsns-and-particularly-sinclair-are-in-deep-crap.html

Pretty interesting article.  Manfred pretty much saying the Sinclair direct to consumer will not happen.    Sinclair's bankruptcy seems more imminent than ever.   

The MLB is going to head into the CBA negotiations with a very real possibility that 16 of their teams won't have RSN money coming in next year.   This article has a list of where all the team's local TV contracts are:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2021/08/06/mlb-seeing-local-tv-households-decline-dramatically-compared-to-last-full-season/?sh=788cb61e56f7

16 on Sinclair, and 7 are on AT&T or NBC who are actively trying to get rid of their sports networks.   The independents will continue to bring in declining revenue for now, but have to wonder what our MASN cut looks like if half the teams lose their TV contracts.

Baseball is going to have a huge challenge to navigate CBA turmoil and loss of local TV money while still reeling from pandemic losses.   Thinks might not look so different than Brockmire's dystopian final season in just a couple years.

[UMDNats]

man it would be so awesome if sinclair went bankrupt

[nfotiu]

man it would be so awesome if sinclair went bankrupt

Unfortunately, it would just be Diamond Sports they'd bankrupt, which is the entity they set up to contain the RSNs and insulate themselves from taking down the whole company as they go further and further under water.

[varoadking]

man it would be so awesome if sinclair went bankrupt

I don't get it...why is that? 

[Mattionals]

I don't get it...why is that? 

I can't speak for UMD, but Sinclair has a history of forcing it's regional stations to push non-factual information. This isn't the politics subsection, so no need to get into it, but they are very strongly pushing a conservative bias.

[nfotiu]

I can't speak for UMD, but Sinclair has a history of forcing it's regional stations to push non-factual information. This isn't the politics subsection, so no need to get into it, but they are very strongly pushing a conservative bias.

Even ignoring their political stance, they are a rather painful company to deal with when they own your local stations.   They are probably the most aggressive of the station owners in terms of getting their channels blacked out on cable/sat/etc by trying to push for every last cent of carriage fees they can get passed on to their customers.  They thought they could leverage owning both RSNs and networks to get even more money from these carriage fees, but the cable/sat/streaming operators mostly called their bluff.   They are also usually the last stations to go with new tech like HDTV, tv anywhere logins, and pack their feeds with subchannels that kill the picture quality of their main feeds.   

[Mattionals]

Even ignoring their political stance, they are a rather painful company to deal with when they own your local stations.   They are probably the most aggressive of the station owners in terms of getting their channels blacked out on cable/sat/etc by trying to push for every last cent of carriage fees they can get passed on to their customers.  They thought they could leverage owning both RSNs and networks to get even more money from these carriage fees, but the cable/sat/streaming operators mostly called their bluff.   They are also usually the last stations to go with new tech like HDTV, tv anywhere logins, and pack their feeds with subchannels that kill the picture quality of their main feeds.

Sounds like a great company run by great people. 

[JCA-CrystalCity]

I think the big independents like YES and NESN more or less rise and fall on the strength of their teams.  FWIW, NESN double its viewership from 2020 this year.  As for MASN, wouldn't it be hysterical if the Nats ended up with one of the better deals (relative to the 16 teams getting nothing).