The bubble has burst?

[paulrichjr]

This appears to me to be a problem that will turn even bigger next year when the new contract is negotiated. The TV money is going to start to go down not up. Baseball needs to adapt and make use of streaming. I would gladly pay a fee each year to watch the Reds but apparently being almost 400 miles away isn’t enough to be considered out of the local market. Just stupid.


https://theathletic.com/2309573/2021...shared_article

For most of the past decade, the trends showed no signs of abating. Major League Baseball’s contracts with its national television partners spiked in value. So did its clubs’ deals with regional sports networks.

The media landscape, however, is changing, and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are contributing to the impact on professional sports leagues. On both the national and local levels, the latest developments for baseball are troubling.

The league, after negotiating significant increases in its most recent contracts with Fox Sports and Turner, is bracing for a reduction on a deal it is nearing with ESPN, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.

The Miami Marlins and Milwaukee Brewers, meanwhile, are still without regional television contracts for the 2021 season, which is scheduled to begin in less than three months, on April 1.

MLB’s previous deal with ESPN was an eight-year, $5.6 billion contract worth $700 million per year. The agreement under discussion would be for seven years and approximately $3.85 billion, reducing the average annual value to about $550 million per year, sources said.

[bm1475]

Sports rights fees have been in a bubble in large part because everyone and their brother decided to launch a new national sports network within the last decade or so. ESPN is cutting back on everything, Disney is bleeding money everywhere, NBCSN is rumored to be going away next year, and Fox just sold off everything except FS1, their broadcast network and Fox News. It's going to be an interesting new reality for a lot of leagues and sports coming up soon. Only the NFL seems to be somewhat safe in terms of viewership.

[TNRED]

I for one am frustrated in my inability to watch Reds games from 300 miles away unless i choose to sign up for Direct tv. I am considered in market and Dish network dropped regional networks so I dont have a choice.
I think the events of the last year with the disruptions and cancellations and lack of fans in the stands has also sapped the energy and appetite of some fans. The use of sports as a political and social forum isnt helping things either.

[SunDeck]

I for one am frustrated in my inability to watch Reds games from 300 miles away unless i choose to sign up for Direct tv. I am considered in market and Dish network dropped regional networks so I dont have a choice.
I think the events of the last year with the disruptions and cancellations and lack of fans in the stands has also sapped the energy and appetite of some fans. The use of sports as a political and social forum isnt helping things either.

I'm in Bloomington Indiana, effectively blacked out for every Reds home game and away against the Cubs, Cards and White Sox. It's absurd; I attend exactly zero games more whether I can watch at home or not. I travel to Cincinnati to see a few games a year because I like attending in person and there is no way being blacked out does anything other than piss me off.

[Strikes Out Looking]

Sports rights fees have been in a bubble in large part because everyone and their brother decided to launch a new national sports network within the last decade or so. ESPN is cutting back on everything, Disney is bleeding money everywhere, NBCSN is rumored to be going away next year, and Fox just sold off everything except FS1, their broadcast network and Fox News. It's going to be an interesting new reality for a lot of leagues and sports coming up soon. Only the NFL seems to be somewhat safe in terms of viewership.

The NFL is giving network's additional commercial times this post season because of declining viewership - its all sports that are having an issue. Baseball is just at the forefront.

[paulrichjr]

I'm in Bloomington Indiana, effectively blacked out for every Reds home game and away against the Cubs, Cards and White Sox. It's absurd; I attend exactly zero games more whether I can watch at home or not. I travel to Cincinnati to see a few games a year because I like attending in person and there is no way being blacked out does anything other than piss me off.

What’s crazy is that I would gladly pay FoxSportsGo a fee each year to watch the Reds....give me the commercials also. I would gladly do it. I already pay for cable and a small portion of the Reds games are on there. I would literally pay more.

Baseball is beyond stupid. This has gone on for far too long and now their cash cow is starting to shrink. Who knows if they will learn anything from this or not.

[cr_redsfan]

I live in Iowa, and we are blacked out for the Cubs (4 hrs), White Sox (4 hrs), Brewers (4 hrs), Twins (4 hrs), Royals (5+ hrs), and Cardinals (5 hrs). Which one of those am I going to pick at a spur-of-the-moment and drive to a game? It really is ridiculous.

[bm1475]

I live in Iowa, and we are blacked out for the Cubs (4 hrs), White Sox (4 hrs), Brewers (4 hrs), Twins (4 hrs), Royals (5+ hrs), and Cardinals (5 hrs). Which one of those am I going to pick at a spur-of-the-moment and drive to a game? It really is ridiculous.

Which regional sports network is on your basic cable plan?

[GAC]

I grew up listening to them on the radio ... and I may leave this earth listening to them on the radio, and that's fine with me! I'm just fed up with MLB and their inability, in this techonological day and age, of not being able to develop a better avenue of access to baseball fans across this country.... other then MLB.TV, which I think stinks. This is the best you can come up with? And even then, due to blackout rules/locality, I'm paying monthly and still can't watch my local team. So why am I subscribing again? How can you call regions "local", subject to blackout, that are several hundred miles/hours away? That's a pretty broad definition of local (lol).

[Plus Plus]

If MLB.TV worked the same way that other sport streaming platforms work (Willow.tv, ESPN+, Hotstar, Peacock) and just cost whatever they cost and you could watch the games on them, I would immediately pay for it, almost regardless of what it would cost. I don't think I'm alone in this view. It's amazing that MLB can't get out of their own way with this.

[CarolinaRedleg]

I live in Iowa, and we are blacked out for the Cubs (4 hrs), White Sox (4 hrs), Brewers (4 hrs), Twins (4 hrs), Royals (5+ hrs), and Cardinals (5 hrs). Which one of those am I going to pick at a spur-of-the-moment and drive to a game? It really is ridiculous.

I'm right there with you on the Reds blackout, except in North Carolina, which is a different level of absurd.

[SidneySlicker]

I'm right there with you on the Reds blackout, except in North Carolina, which is a different level of absurd.

Baseball is just so archaic in so many different ways.

[oregonred]

The NFL Blackout rules are pretty bad too, but MLB is absurd

[Edskin]

I live in OKC... no pro team in state for NFL or MLB. I have Sunday Ticket and MLB Extra Innings. For the NFL, zero teams are blacked out. The only blackouts I experience are the games broadcast locally are blacked out from the Sunday Ticket channels. But they are available over the air, so it’s not a problem at all. In other words, I am able to 100% of NFL games all season long.

For MLB, the following teams are blacked out: Cardinals, Royals, Astros, Rangers. Majority of Cardinals games are available locally IF you have Cox Cable; NOT if you have DirectV like me. There is no partner for the other three teams except for occasions on FSW. It’s crazy. If you are a Royals fan here, you are literally barred from watching games— there is no legal way to watch Royals games in OKC. How insanely stupid is that?

There are also no blackouts for NBA games— I’m a Thunder fan, so all games are on locally anyway, but all the other teams are available if you get the NBA package. This blackout situation is unique to MLB.

Beyond those silly rules, I do believe that Theo Epstein is right— so much of the beauty/fun of baseball has been sucked out by analytics and the game being so data-driven. It’s probably the best way to operate an organization, but there are atheistic issues there and it’s interesting that he’s outright acknowledging it. I love baseball and I’ll never stop watching. The sport “has” me— and likely most of RZ. But we are pretty rare. And even someone like me probably doesn’t enjoy it quite like I used to and I do find myself getting frustrated watching the 3-outcome ABs. I mean we saw it in Game 1 vs Braves— an MLB team literally incapable of adapting to a situation and getting a run home from third with less than ours. Literally no clue how to do it. So frustrating.

[GAC]

If MLB.TV worked the same way that other sport streaming platforms work (Willow.tv, ESPN+, Hotstar, Peacock) and just cost whatever they cost and you could watch the games on them, I would immediately pay for it, almost regardless of what it would cost. I don't think I'm alone in this view. It's amazing that MLB can't get out of their own way with this.

For some reason I don't think they like the consumer having choice. I think it's either ignorance or arrogance - This is what we're giving you, take it or leave it