Bally Sports Networks Preparing for bankruptcy

[howeda7]

Figured this is worthy of a thread. Has significant impact on the Twins. Personally I'm glad. Not a fan of Sinclaire/Bally's. Whatever replaces it should be better.

 

Back in 2019, Sinclair Broadcast Group completed a deal with Fox Regional Sports Networks. Sinclair’s sports channels are referred to as Bally Sports Regional Sports Networks (RSN). Bally Sports RSN is the service that several fan bases need to have in order to watch their local MLB, NBA and NHL teams. Today, it was announced that Sinclair’s sports channels, including the RSNs, are preparing to file for bankruptcy.

 

Diamond Sports Group LLC, which runs Sinclair’s sports channels, is reportedly $8.6 billion in debt. On top of that, Sinclair owes $55 billion in sports-media rights to MLB, NBA, and NHL teams across the country. Sinclair is reportedly hoping to strike a deal to help them keep the channels operating during bankruptcy.

How might Bally Sports Regional Sports Networks preparing for bankruptcy affect fans who want to watch their local teams?  

A big contributing factor that has led to this has been companies refusing to pay the high price Sinclair wants for its Bally Sports RSNs. This is why RSNs are no longer available on DISH networks and streaming services such as YouTube TV, sling, and others.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nhl/bally-sports-regional-sports-networks-preparing-for-bankruptcy/ar-AA16Kvlz?li=BBnb7Kz

[Unwinder]

Gonna need to drink a lot of water before I visit the gravesite of Bally Sports.

[FanSince1961]

Sinclair has acted irresponsibly and unethically in acquiring these rights.  Hope the bankruptcy court sticks it to them and the rights go to a much more responsible broadcaster soon.  Bally's coverage is ugly.

[DJL44]

I hope this is the catalyst that ends local blackouts.

[Brad.dahlen]

Just hope that MLB is able to get their product available to everyone. 

[Dave The Dastardly]

Your basic house of cards collapse?

[strumdatjag]

Didn’t the Twins try their own TV network a while back?   My memory is that it didn’t work out so well. 

[Parfigliano]

22 minutes ago, Dave The Dastardly said:

Your basic house of cards collapse?

Little over 2 months to opening day.  What a clusterf...

[Muppet]

Maybe one day my kids will be able to watch a Twins game on TV without going out to the bar. 

[Vanimal46]

40 minutes ago, strumdatjag said:

Didn’t the Twins try their own TV network a while back?   My memory is that it didn’t work out so well. 

They did. Victory Sports One. Perhaps they were ahead of their time with that idea. In this current landscape it will likely do better than the early 2000s. 

[DJL44]

40 minutes ago, strumdatjag said:

Didn’t the Twins try their own TV network a while back?   My memory is that it didn’t work out so well. 

TV distribution was a lot different in 2001. That's 6 years before Netflix started streaming. 

[Vanimal46]

My hope is once Sinclair goes under, MLB, as well as NBA and NHL, buys the broadcast rights for pennies on the dollar. Then incorporate them into their existing apps to end local blackouts. 

Currently whoever wants to buy the broadcast rights has to take on Sinclair’s massive debts. Which no one is going to do. So it’s going to be a little while until it’s all squared away. 

[Vanimal46]

It takes a truly incompetent organization to have an asset as valuable as live sports, and lead themselves into bankruptcy. Congrats Sinclair! 

[lecroy24fan]

13 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

It takes a truly incompetent organization to have an asset as valuable as live sports, and lead themselves into bankruptcy. Congrats Sinclair! 

Incompetent is Sinclair's middle name.

[Parfigliano]

22 minutes ago, lecroy24fan said:

Incompetent is Sinclair's middle name.

Know a guy that works for a Sinclair station.  The stories...

[Cris E]

The trouble with buying out Sinclair for pennies on the dollar is selling the games for enough money to replace the promised revenue to the teams.  We're talking the Braves, Angels, Rangers, Padres and a bunch of others, so you'd need to make enough on, say,  the Angels games to cover the $131m that was coming in before. There are only weeks until Opening Day to get this fixed. Otherwise if you think that fixing the blackout problem would be enough to increase MLB.TV sales by billions of dollars I'm just going to flat out disagree with you. This is a mess.

[Vanimal46]

Good read on the topic. 

[Reptevia]

 Not sure buying rights for untold Billions of dollars and then using those rights to broadcast games to a small percentage of fans was a good business plan. I said it then, and it’s turning out to be true. Some serious mismanagement going on with Bally’s. 

[Riverbrian]

1 hour ago, Cris E said:

The trouble with buying out Sinclair for pennies on the dollar is selling the games for enough money to replace the promised revenue to the teams.  We're talking the Braves, Angels, Rangers, Padres and a bunch of others, so you'd need to make enough on, say,  the Angels games to cover the $131m that was coming in before. There are only weeks until Opening Day to get this fixed. Otherwise if you think that fixing the blackout problem would be enough to increase MLB.TV sales by billions of dollars I'm just going to flat out disagree with you. This is a mess.

You are correct. It will be a mess for awhile. but in the end a much better modern product will emerge from the rubble. 

It will be hard for an old guy like me who can easily turn on channel 623 for the Twins and Wild. I expect a new fee or 7 coming my way to watch my teams from my couch.  

but yeah, this will be messy im the meantime.

[Mike Sixel]

1 hour ago, Vanimal46 said:

Good read on the topic. 

Everyone interested in different aspects of baseball should follow him. 

[Mike Sixel]

80 dollars a year for every game. No blackouts. Minor league games too, if they broadcast. They should be able to get a few million people to sign up for that. Teams are also allowed to broadcast locally or even nationally. 

[NotAboutWinning]

21 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

80 dollars a year for every game. No blackouts. Minor league games too, if they broadcast. They should be able to get a few million people to sign up for that. Teams are also allowed to broadcast locally or even nationally. 

In order to replace the team contract revenue (which funds most MLB payrolls), that would require north of 25 million subscribers. Most recent information I can find indicates MLB.tv has 3.5 million. And that doesn't cover operating costs for broadcasts. The subscription price would need to be much higher. The Diamond/Sinclair model only worked because they were able to extort a subscription for virtually every cable subscriber in the country.

[Parfigliano]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

You are correct. It will be a mess for awhile. but in the end a much better modern product will emerge from the rubble. 

It will be hard for an old guy like me who can easily turn on channel 623 for the Twins and Wild. I expect a new fee or 7 coming my way to watch my teams from my couch.  

but yeah, this will be messy im the meantime.

Im in NM.  May be back to sat radio.  As far as the business plan...promising future billions for hundreds of millions now for Sinclair works out great for Sinclair.

[Parfigliano]

41 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

80 dollars a year for every game. No blackouts. Minor league games too, if they broadcast. They should be able to get a few million people to sign up for that. Teams are also allowed to broadcast locally or even nationally. 

Math says more like many multiples of $80/yr to cover this nut.

[Vanimal46]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

80 dollars a year for every game. No blackouts. Minor league games too, if they broadcast. They should be able to get a few million people to sign up for that. Teams are also allowed to broadcast locally or even nationally. 

That’s not even the current cost of MLB.tv. Let alone having full access to every game in MLB/MiLB. 

[Vanimal46]

30 minutes ago, NotAboutWinning said:

In order to replace the team contract revenue (which funds most MLB payrolls), that would require north of 25 million subscribers. Most recent information I can find indicates MLB.tv has 3.5 million. And that doesn't cover operating costs for broadcasts. The subscription price would need to be much higher. The Diamond/Sinclair model only worked because they were able to extort a subscription for virtually every cable subscriber in the country.

If MLB purchases the broadcast rights, I think we can say goodbye to local broadcasters like Bremer and Morneau. They’ll have a rotating National crew like they do in NFL. 

[mnfireman]

27 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

If MLB purchases the broadcast rights, I think we can say goodbye to local broadcasters like Bremer and Morneau. They’ll have a rotating National crew like they do in NFL. 

I think they'll review the local teams and keep/replace as they deem necessary. Bremer has done national games with FS1 and maybe Fox.

[Beast]

The big problem that seems to be missed by the analysis here:  Nobody wants to watch baseball anymore.

Maybe if Manfred wasn’t the most hatable man on the planet, quit doing stupid crap like tweaking the baseball every year and lying about it, running cover for cheaters, cramming identity politics down everyone’s throat when they’re trying to escape it by watching sports, and was good at his job, they wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Things like installing nets down the baseline are the big news items of the sport. I can hardly contain my excitement.

You want more people to watch?  Do something to create some parity.  Nobody cares about baseball because there’s a handful of big market teams and everyone else is a developmental program for them.  3/4 of the markets have been completely alienated.  Places like Oakland, Kansas City, Baltimore, etc. - even Minneapolis, could be great baseball towns.  You could contract them all out of the league right now and nobody would notice.

They’re the only sport on the planet that does such a high volume of day games during week.  It doesn’t take a genius to realize that if you want people to pay to watch, play a damn game when someone between 22-65 years old can watch it.

Change the idiotic system that incentives teams to keep potential star players stashed away at some bandbox in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa to save some money and maximize their service time.

Quit making all of these stupid half-added rules and address real problems.  Is there anything worse to watch in sports than a play at the plate after the rule changes?  Umps don’t know how to call it and are getting it wrong.  Base runners are pulling up early, catchers are scared to touch anyone, etc.  It used to be one of the most exciting moments/plays in sports.

The league is a poorly run disaster.  They literally.couldn’t be a doing a worse job.  How can you not go bankrupt?

[snellman]

1 hour ago, Beast said:

 

You want more people to watch?  Do something to create some parity.  Nobody cares about baseball because there’s a handful of big market teams and everyone else is a developmental program for them.  3/4 of the markets have been completely alienated.  Places like Oakland, Kansas City, Baltimore, etc. - even Minneapolis, could be great baseball towns.  You could contract them all out of the league right now and nobody would notice.

 

This is an excellent post.  One of the biggest fails of the last CBA was not getting a salary cap with minimum salary in place and I blame that on the players.  They can say all they want about looking out for the minor leaguers and lower salary players but when It comes down to it The Stars are looking out for themselves and themselves only.  If they truly wanted to help the little guys they would have been accepting of a salary cap instead of the "luxury Tax" that doesn't stop a billionaire from spending whatever he wants.  If they would have accepted the cap, they could have gotten a minimum salary implemented as well so teams would have had to spend money on the roster.  Until that happens things will not change in Baseball.

[Squirrel]

1 hour ago, snellman said:

I blame that on the players. 

The owners don’t want it either and they certainly don’t want a minimum that is acceptable