Amazon and Twins baseball anyone?

[nicksaviking]

4 hours ago, DJL44 said:

That's still an option. MLB could broadcast games on MLB Network and MLB.tv. They can probably still get more money as a tent pole program as the major streamers fight for audience. The streamer in that case isn't looking to turn a profit on baseball games but instead use that audience to market their other offerings. I would imagine MLB games on Amazon Prime would feature a lot of ads for other Amazon products.

This point could be what saves the sport.

Amazon is going to want as many eyes as possible on these games, which is different than all the other broadcasters of the past that have wanted as many PAYING eyes as possible on the games. Unlike the RSNs, they can promote the hell out of the games to every corner of the planet on every device that has an Amazon app or web page or pop up ads. If the initial results for Amazon pay off, they will push to expand and expand even further. If this works for them, it will work for the MLB, and the owners are going to be more than eager to lap up more lucrative deals that Amazon offers in exchange for broadcasting concessions. Why would Amazon want to stop at giving us only reginal games? They want to sell stuff to Pirate fans who live in Utah. And then why stop here in America? No doubt broadcasting games to a consumer happy Japan sounds like a great idea to them. 

If this goes through and works well for the all powerful Jeff Bezos, this is could be a bigger game changer than expected.

[Craig Arko]

And maybe we could have a game played in orbit. Think of the tape-measure shots.

[Eris]

1 hour ago, nicksaviking said:

other broadcasters of the past that have wanted as many PAYING eyes as possible on the games.
 

I think broadcasters were the drivers of the bundled cable packages which has driven the cost of premium packages mostly around sports. The goal was to socialize the cost of sports programming over as large of a cable population as possible.   Customers who wanted to watch the Twins also needed to pay for ESPN, Fox Sports, etc. This led to exorbitant $100+/month cable bills which ushered in the current era of cable cutting. 
 

I believe the capability has existed for local cable companies to “stream” the Twins to only the customers who wanted this. I don’t know of cable markets where that has happened.  In New York some years ago,  the Yankee network was very opposed to this idea when our local cable company offered that as a solution to a cost dispute. 

[howeda7]

6 hours ago, BK432 said:

You answered your own question, I think. Just because Diamond was paying $50M doesn't mean it was worth $50M. There's a reason they're bankrupt now.

They're mainly bankrupt because Sinclaire massively overpaid Fox for the networks. Some of their contracts were probably money losers, but the Twins was one of the smallest and likely was profitable.

[howeda7]

4 hours ago, Cris E said:

“It will use its Prime Video platform to offer direct-to-consumer access to MLB, NBA and NHL games, including pre-game and post-game content of its various RSNs on a local basis.”

So that Local Basis weaselry could mean just about anything. Are they keeping blackouts, selling this to fill in the blackouts in MLB.TV, only selling it locally or what? And for how long? Is this a new model or a one year bridge to a new MLB plan?  The dollars don't indicate that this will replace the cable money, so it's can't be forever, but the equity stake by Amazon says they think there will be a longer term for this deal.  

This is a mess, but at least the Twins are in a spot to negotiate their own road out of it with a clear eye to what is coming from MLB next year. They may be the bellweather of that plan, so we'll have to wait to see what they sign for this season. Time's a wasting with only a month to spring training, so expect something in the next six weeks so they can show the ST games.

I would be surprised if Amazon would pay that much for only local streaming rights, and even Manfred has indicated they wanto get rid of all blackouts. For the teams Bally's had streaming rights for, there were no blackouts and I assume that would remain the same for Amazon. Ultimately if Amazon becomes the streaming home for all of MLB, MLB.TV becomes irrelevant.

[howeda7]

3 hours ago, DJL44 said:

DirectTV doesn't have any Twins games at the moment. If the games aren't exclusive, they will pay Diamond Sports less to air them.

How much is that exclusivity worth? $10M? The Twins could take the Brewers TV deal, subtract $10M and call it done for this season.

This. Whatever deal DirecTV has with Bally's (let's say $4/subscriber) they likely have language that they get $2 of that back once Bally lost the Twins games. If Bally's gets the Twins games back, they probably have to renegotiate how much of that $2 they get back and if Amazon has streaming rights, it won't be the full amount.

[clone52]

4 hours ago, BK432 said:

While I agree it's not entirely clear, I read this as an end to local blackouts. If you're in "Twins Territory" and are a Prime subscriber, you can stream the team's games there. It will not give you access to all MLB games, only those available to you locally.

If I'm right, and if the Twins can get included in this plan, this is a big win for most of us. For me personally, I already pay for Prime and MLB.tv, so it will allow me to FINALLY cancel DirecTV.

As for the cable money, that ship has sailed. They won't get all that back. As for what the future holds, we shall see.

What is local?  Would Iowa get Twins games (if they were in on this deal)?  Is that considered local blackouts?

[Cris E]

14 minutes ago, howeda7 said:

I would be surprised if Amazon would pay that much for only local streaming rights, and even Manfred has indicated they wanto get rid of all blackouts. For the teams Bally's had streaming rights for, there were no blackouts and I assume that would remain the same for Amazon. Ultimately if Amazon becomes the streaming home for all of MLB, MLB.TV becomes irrelevant.

That's right at the center of this, mostly in a bad way. The reason Bally didn't have streaming blackouts is because they were collecting on both ends, cable and online. The value of the cable rights was plummeting before due to cable-cutters, but if you try to sell them while someone else can offer streaming without blackouts it'll only be worth ad revenue. Letting streaming go to Amazon without strings guts cable revenue so you need Amazon to pay enough to cover that damage, or you need to sell the content to multiple outlets, which also diminishes its value.  This is not simple, which is why I keep repeating that this is a smaller deal than they're implying and that it'll take another generation of streaming deals to actually step beyond the RSN money model.

The real problem is the mess of old contracts and slapdash rights arrangements. Consolidating as many of those as possible and rebundling them to a more thoughtful set of channels might replace much of the cable money. But dumping things on Prime piecemeal stands no chance of making that money back, and the opportunity to sell and resell and package and repackage goes down to that single deal.  There's no way Amazon pays top dollar without including the rights to NYY, LAD and the other top teams running their own networks, which is to say there's no way the have-nots trying to live on Amazon broadcast money will be on an even playing field. Lots will have to change to account for that before the next CBA and this deal is not it.

[Parfigliano]

1 hour ago, Craig Arko said:

And maybe we could have a game played in orbit. Think of the tape-measure shots.

Real moon shots.  The mind reels.😉

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, howeda7 said:

This. Whatever deal DirecTV has with Bally's (let's say $4/subscriber) they likely have language that they get $2 of that back once Bally lost the Twins games. If Bally's gets the Twins games back, they probably have to renegotiate how much of that $2 they get back and if Amazon has streaming rights, it won't be the full amount.

Here are the options for DirectTV and the Twins

1) Don't pay Diamond Sports, lose all of your subscribers to streaming

2) Pay Diamond Sports a little less than before because games are available on Amazon Prime. Lose some of your subscribers to streaming.

There is no option available where they get exclusive rights and keep all of their current subscribers. That business model is dead. The bundlers are only going to survive if they can bundle everything for less than it costs a la carte. Bundled packages will become a niche market for hotels and people with bad internet connections.