The Death of the Regional Sports Network

[TMC]

In the shadows of the sports world, a seismic change is taking place. The way you will be viewing sports won't be the same. The Regional Sports Network has long been the only game in town if you wanted to watch your local teams play live (at least for MLB, NBA and NHL). However, over the past few years, a combination of factors have led to the acceleration of the inevitable forces of upheaval. The RSN is dying, and the NBA, NHL, and MLB are devising plans to make sure live broadcasts of local games can still go on (especially in the Colorado/Utah/Las Vegas, Houston, and Pittsburgh markets).

This is a topic where a lot of people may not know what it takes to broadcast a game on the air (from equipment to personnel to the dreaded rights fees the RSN's have to pay), so consider this video as a lesson on the situation at hand, and what may become of these broadcasts in the future.

The hint is that they aren't going away. The leagues will do everything in their power to make sure you can watch their games.

[Dianne3]

FINALLY, a thread on this topic.

The league's don't give a *** if fans can't see their games, what they care about is the loss of revenue.

The NHL is the sport that I follow. I recently read something that I was not aware of and that is that last year, the NHL fans in Denver could not see their games because of some dispute. The NHL commissioner did nothing.

In the short term it is the MLB that is in the most trouble, since in about 6 weeks both the NHL and the NBA regular season ends.

[GentlemanJim]

Major League Baseball picking up the pieces of the failed networks.

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/diamond-...-revenue-boat/

[Duster76]

Good Riddance! Hapless cable subscribers who want nothing more than some entertainment/news channels have been subsidizing teams and leagues for decades paying for these albatrosses. All the programming on the networks should be carried on premium channels similar to Showtime and HBO, you want it, you pay for it.

[Duster76]

For some cable subscribers looking to be liberated from the burdensome requirement of subsidizing sports teams the Calvary is coming and not a moment too soon. Spectrum will now be offering a program tier which does not include regional sports networks. I'm hoping this will spread and become an industry standard. No longer requiring cable subscribers to pay for costly programming they have no interest in may stem the cordcutting tide. It disgusts me to no end that the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL monopolies are allowed to tax the public constantly asking for and getting new stadiums built at taxpayers expense and then requiring cable subscribers to further subsidize their product by paying for networks that broadcast games many have no interest in.

[TMC]

Timeline of Teams either left Bally Sports for a full time OTA deal or a part time OTA deal

• April 28, 2023: The Phoenix Suns were becoming the first major sports team to sign a 5-year deal with Gray Television to carried 70+ non-nationally televise games on 2 Gray stations in the Phoenix area (The deal were put on hold days later after they received the Bally Sports bankruptcy violation; the deal made an official on July 14 of that same year) and launched their own DTC Streaming Service called Suns Live.
  
• May 30: San Diego Padres missed their 2nd payment and Bally Sports San Diego has lost it TV rights and reverted back to the MLB for the remainder of the 2023 season.
  
• July 17: Bally Sports has lost another major Arizona sports team, the Arizona Diamondbacks after the missing 2 payments. So the Diamondbacks were reverted back to the MLB for the remainder of the 2023 MLB season.
  
• September 14: The Los Angeles Kings renewed by Bally Sports SoCal and signing a 6-game deal with CBS/Paramount Global.
  
• October 1: The Arizona Coyotes, the last major Arizona sports team to lost it TV rights after they missed their payment during the 2022-23 NHL season; A few days later, their signed with Scripps Sports days before the start of the 2023-2024 NHL season begins. Later that same season, they launched their own DTC Streaming Service called Coyotes Central (Note: The Coyotes will be relocating to Salt Lake City, Utah for the 2024-2025 NHL season and team is currently inactive)
  
• December 13: The Dallas Stars has sign a 1-game deal with CBS/Paramount Global due to the alternate channel's scheduling conflict.
  
• December 30: Both Atlanta Hawks and New Orleans Pelicans were sign a 10-game deal with Gray Television to carried Friday night games.
  
• January 9: The Oklahoma City Thunder has sign a 10-game with Griffin Media.
  
• January 23: The Dallas Mavericks sign a 10-game deal with TEGNA to carried the game on a major network affiliate.
  
• February 12: The Cleveland Cavaliers sign a 5-game deal with Gray Television.
  
• February 23: The Milwaukee Bucks sign a 10-game deal with Weigal Broadcasting with 1 game being simulcast on the CBS affiliate and the another in Spanish.
  
• March 28: The Detroit Pistons sign a 5-game deal with Scripps Sports and carried a CW affiliate. (Note: That station is set to drop the CW later on this year)
  
• April 10: The Detroit Red Wings sign a 3-game deal with Scripps Sports and simulcast via Bally Sports Detroit Extra and air also on the CW affiliate. (Note: see it above)