AJG's wild idea to save MLB Broadcasting

[August J Gloop]

I hate being negative about stuff. My brain works best in a building way so let's talk about the problem MLB finds itself in how it can get eyeballs in front of games. 

Over in the thread on John's post about the Bally stuff I threw together a Q&D estimate on how much MLB needs to pull in per team per season to make the Twins Baseline revenue (which was considered one of the worst TV deals, bTW). It came to 370M. Considering that was a bad deal, we'll bump it to 400M in revenue. How the blazes can they get that money without selling their essence to some major media conglomerate? By remembering that MLB already is one of those. 

They need 30 local channels, each like 45 KSTC. The acquisition cost would be high, but not impossible. They would need someone to help them clear a bunch of existing deals. AMZN and Apple come to mind. We'll get back that. The Dodgers are probably paying Shohei more than it would cost to buy 45, so the league can get together and buy up these networks. These nets wouldn't be baseball 24/7 but generally stick with what they currently carry, even continue being affiliates to the networks like they are now. They would just have some additional programming around the year. Caribbean Series, Ausssie leagues, that kind of stuff from time to time. It would be totally free to air, and part of basic cable packages. No attempt to really turn a profit, but just to break even on the production side. 

Let's say that they needed some deep pockets to help front all that cash (even these billionaires probably would). We already know AMZN and Apple are very interested in having MLB as an exclusive on their service and I bet Peacock and Hulu (The mouse is angry) would get interested quick. In exchange for helping in that acquisition and buying out of all existing deals, they would get exclusive streaming rights to all games for 10 years. Each fan would pick a home market and they wold get those games for free, but to watch the out of market games and national games and MLB network or the library of old games, you'd have to be a subscriber to that service. No extra fees, just a base exclusive perk. 

These local broadcast channels could negotiate with other sports leagues, and such. Much like YES. YES would essentially be buying a tower to transmit from, really. They could run reruns of MASH. Doesn't really matter. Outside of the Baseball season, it would be drip income. Because they would be using all this as a way to grow the fan interest in attending games. There would be space for MiLB game of the week, the post season would be viewable OTA and they wouldn't have any more of these dum dum post season games at 2 in the afternoon on a weekday.  

All this is to say that the model is broken, so quit trying to glue it back together. Build something new that actually adds value to the consumer. I'm sure there are tons of roadblocks, starting with the fact that nobody but me wants to even try this. But I wanted to share my stupid idea. So if you read all the way to here, thanks. 

Edited January 18, 2024 by August J Gloop
misspelled my own fake name.

[DJL44]

I think the regional sports network is actually still a good idea. Fans tend to have regional loyalties. People need to be able to easily access the games in their homes.

Fragmented streaming would be the worst option - nobody wants to subscribe to every streaming network to piece together their favorite team's games.

[chpettit19]

Why would the 2 PM playoff games disappear?

[August J Gloop]

52 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

Why would the 2 PM playoff games disappear?

Because they only exist due to the foolish idea that people will watch them all. They don't. But the media deals require that no other game start at the same time. It would be trivial to have a superfan broadcast for the wild card round with 2 games at once and some actually charismatic (Trevor Plouffe comes to mind) in studio hosts keeping everyone up with the key plays. Otherwise the digital sub-channels would have each game on them and hopping would work easy.

Edited January 18, 2024 by August J Gloop
i'm so bad at spelling

[August J Gloop]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

I think the regional sports network is actually still a good idea. Fans tend to have regional loyalties. People need to be able to easily access the games in their homes.

Fragmented streaming would be the worst option - nobody wants to subscribe to every streaming network to piece together their favorite team's games.

I could definitely see 45 becoming the free to air RSN, now that we know RSNs really don't make much money. Probably turn more profit as a part time RSN than a 24 hour one that fights with every provider about per subscriber $$. 

[chpettit19]

25 minutes ago, August J Gloop said:

Because they only exist due to the foolish idea that people will watch them all. They don't. But the media deals require that no other game start at the same time. It would be trivial to have a superfan broadcast for the wild card round with 2 games at once and some actually charismatic (Trevor Plouffe comes to mind) in studio hosts keeping everyone up with the key plays. Otherwise the digital sub-channels would have each game on them and hopping would work easy.

I'd be pissed if they made it so I couldn't watch all the games, or had to watch some "superfan broadcast" and try to follow multiple games at once. Do you have the actual numbers for the playoffs? Are they higher or lower than the regular season games for each of the participants? I watch every single MLB playoff game. I may be the only one. Or in the small minority. But I don't know why any national entity would actively look to make it harder to get their product to the entire country.

[August J Gloop]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

I'd be pissed if they made it so I couldn't watch all the games, or had to watch some "superfan broadcast" and try to follow multiple games at once. Do you have the actual numbers for the playoffs? Are they higher or lower than the regular season games for each of the participants? I watch every single MLB playoff game. I may be the only one. Or in the small minority. But I don't know why any national entity would actively look to make it harder to get their product to the entire country.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/10/mlb-wild-card-viewership-declines-espn-sweeps/

All of it was down, particularly the day games. But its also not like the games don't end up overlapping anyway. One would have to start at 10 AM to have no overlap. 

The obvious other easy solution is to have that wild card stuff on the weekend (or not have it at all). I think it's fun and I'm sure the owners like the extra bucks.  

[chpettit19]

1 minute ago, August J Gloop said:

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/10/mlb-wild-card-viewership-declines-espn-sweeps/

All of it was down, particularly the day games. But its also not like the games don't end up overlapping anyway. One would have to start at 10 AM to have no overlap. 

The obvious other easy solution is to have that wild card stuff on the weekend (or not have it at all). I think it's fun and I'm sure the owners like the extra bucks.  

That's a look at year over year wild card viewing, not a look at whether fans are trying to watch multiple playoff games instead of just their team's. Those stats have nothing to do with whether or not games should start at the same time to ignore the national fan base in favor of just regional fan bases.

Some overlap is different than not starting any games early and playing the entire grouping at night. The wild card leads into the division series which is the same number of series so then you'd be putting division series games in the same spot as the wild card games were during the week. Doesn't really solve that problem.

[nicksaviking]

Why would Amazon want to limit people to picking only one team to watch and charging extra for any other games they have the rights to? I don't see how it would cost them more, and it would allow for them to advertise their products more often.

[August J Gloop]

8 minutes ago, nicksaviking said:

Why would Amazon want to limit people to picking only one team to watch and charging extra for any other games they have the rights to? I don't see how it would cost them more, and it would allow for them to advertise their products more often.

You make a solid point there. I just kinda assumed AMZN would want to charge. I'd push them not to. I mean considering it's all fantasy land anyway. 

58 minutes ago, chpettit19 said:

That's a look at year over year wild card viewing, not a look at whether fans are trying to watch multiple playoff games instead of just their team's. Those stats have nothing to do with whether or not games should start at the same time to ignore the national fan base in favor of just regional fan bases.

Some overlap is different than not starting any games early and playing the entire grouping at night. The wild card leads into the division series which is the same number of series so then you'd be putting division series games in the same spot as the wild card games were during the week. Doesn't really solve that problem.

If people were watching all the games, the numbers wouldn't be so wildly different between the day starts and the night starts. 

[chpettit19]

28 minutes ago, August J Gloop said:

You make a solid point there. I just kinda assumed AMZN would want to charge. I'd push them not to. I mean considering it's all fantasy land anyway. 

If people were watching all the games, the numbers wouldn't be so wildly different between the day starts and the night starts. 

Do you think the Phillies get more or less natural viewing than the Blue Jays and Twins? Part of it is that the night games included significantly larger fan bases. Of course that plays a role. 

This isn't some outlandish idea I'm throwing out there. It's not 100% of fans watching all games. It's probably a pretty small percentage. But why would they actively remove the option to increase overall viewership by taking out the option for someone to watch multiple games? One of MLB's biggest problems is how regionalized it is. Your argument is that they should actively push their product to be even more regionalized. Why would they want to cannibalize their own product by forcing their games to compete with each other for eyeballs? They have enough competition for viewership in the first place. Why would they make people choose who to watch when they could provide them with the opportunity to watch them all?