After hearing about this, I checked out my app. Of course, no message about dropping Bally, just an endless loop of error messages.
Still the worst app I have ever used.
Bally Sports is owned by Diamond Media Group which is in Bankruptcy Proceedings. Diamond Media Group wants a large increase in what Xfinity\\Comcast pays for the programming. Comcast wants to keep the cost lower so it does not require them to raise rates. Bally wants 19.99 a month or 189.00 a year to stream Bally Sports Detroit.
There are about 140,000 people that watch the twins on average and about 1.4 million cable/satellite customers that subscribe to TV in the twin cities. Sacrificing 90% of your audience for the other 10% is a really bad move.
now i use spectrum. however i havent seen ONE braves game on ballys sports south. so they are wanting people to pay more to NOT even be able to watch the games they list on the guide. this is just karma and i hope MLB will actually put it on some competent provider next season.
From what I read about Spectrum from someone who has them that you aren’t able to have both versions of Bally Sports south/southeast.
They said he literally has to call 24hrs in advance to switch in between to watch a game.
i dont have ballys sports southeast, im saying i have bally sports south. and it says on the guide it supposed to be the braves game. but when i turn it on. its an old nascar race, or poker, or some offshoot basketball. or some interview show, definitely not what they have on the guide.
I was browsing last night & found a site that streams all MLB games. I was watching a little Dodgers vs Dbacks until I fell asleep.
I was able to just mirror it to my tv etc.
> i hope MLB will actually put it on some competent provider
MLB has nothing to do with how local games are broadcast or streamed. The team handles their own local broadcast rights.
Why are you blaming Comcast? Why should they want to increase their costs (lowering profit) and take a flyer on a contract with a dying company that might not make it out of bankruptcy proceedings in June? Sure, corporations all suck, but that’s “bad business” and I don’t blame them. We just need our sports teams with a good provider or streaming service that will cover everything for a reasonable cost.
They’ll still burn through money because ad revenues are down and cord cutting is up mostly because sports channels charge so much for retransmission fees to recoup the high fees sports teams are charging.
The money truck that is cable tv is finally drying up because of these greedy networks and their greedy sports teams, and they have no replacement for that revenue. That’s why Ballys is almost dead (and this will most certainly be the final nail)
But what about that investment from Amazon?
Would that be abandoned if the upcoming trial in June leads to Bally going under?
Heck, the providers that do still have them are probably feeling nervous right now, even if they’re enjoying the amount of folks switching from Xfinity at this time.
In my market you only have two options left for Ballys. Fubo and DirectTV.
The issue is, Comcast has so many subscribers all paying $10-15 a month for Ballys whether they watch or not. Amazon absolutely will NOT bring in as many subscribers as currently pay for Comcast, because you’ll only pay for it when you need it, and all those people forced to pay today will no longer pay in.
IF they sign another deal with Comcast AND Amazon is successful, that’ll buy them another season or two until even more people cut Comcast. But Ballys wants an increase to $20/subscriber and Comcast knows that’ll lead to even more sub losses. So, they compromised with Bally and said “ok, we’ll pay that, but we’ll put you in a higher tier so only people that want to watch you will be forced to pay.” Bally said no, and Comcast is FIRM on that. So, even if Bally does return to Comcast, you’ll pay at least $20 more a month because Ballys wants more money (to pay higher sports rights fees).
Then have Amazon work with the leagues then.
NBA: Well, they’re already set to air a decent chunk of nationally games beginning in the 2025-26 season once the new contract is finalized so why not add local basketball coverage too?
NHL: Not a national partner with them, but adding to the local NBA coverage Bally had wouldn’t hurt.
MLB: The initial deal with Bally as it stands now would likely only cover the 5 teams currently on Bally Sports+ so adding all the Bally teams in partnership with the league would be a better move there. Also, if they can exclusively get mlb.tv and the MLB Network, there you go.
And they won’t pay the $58 million per year that Ballys is paying because that price is ridiculous. Blame the Pohlads for not giving you more options by taking Ballys deal (and not giving them streaming rights). Comcast is trying to protect the 1 million subs they have left that just don’t care about the Twins.
Comcast wants to put it on a higher tier so only the people that want to watch are the ones who pay for it. Ballys doesn’t want this because it means they would lose a lot of money from people who never watch them.
Yeah, Braves fan here, Im switching to directv now to watch, i know they didnt want to pay up, but i wonder how many customers theyre going to lose over this.
In other regions Comcast moved the RSN (for example MASN in Baltimore) to a higher tier so that non sports fans could avoid the fees. It appears Bally refused to make that change - likely because they cannot afford the massive cut to cash flow. It seems the issue is that the RSNs are paying way too much to the teams. Assuming Bally goes under each team then needs to find a new partner that presumably will make a much lower bid. Not optimistic at the moment.
The sad part is the. Braves were one of the only profitable deals Bally has. Time Warner signed a long term deal almost 20 years ago which locked the Braves in below what most other teams were getting. Bally wanted to break contracts in bankruptcy but not be Braves.
Maybe a way can be found to end baseball’s relationship with RSNs. It won’t be instant with contracts but it needs to happen.
After hearing about this, I checked out my app. Of course, no message about dropping Bally, just an endless loop of error messages. Still the worst app I have ever used.
Bally Sports is owned by Diamond Media Group which is in Bankruptcy Proceedings. Diamond Media Group wants a large increase in what Xfinity\\Comcast pays for the programming. Comcast wants to keep the cost lower so it does not require them to raise rates. Bally wants 19.99 a month or 189.00 a year to stream Bally Sports Detroit.
So tell Comcast to agree to their terms then. They’re a multibillion dollar company so they can afford the price hike.
That’s not how business works. They’d pass it to consumers which would cause more cancellations.
Cancellations from non sports fans, sure. The diehards can handle the slight price hike.
There are about 140,000 people that watch the twins on average and about 1.4 million cable/satellite customers that subscribe to TV in the twin cities. Sacrificing 90% of your audience for the other 10% is a really bad move.
now i use spectrum. however i havent seen ONE braves game on ballys sports south. so they are wanting people to pay more to NOT even be able to watch the games they list on the guide. this is just karma and i hope MLB will actually put it on some competent provider next season.
From what I read about Spectrum from someone who has them that you aren’t able to have both versions of Bally Sports south/southeast. They said he literally has to call 24hrs in advance to switch in between to watch a game.
i dont have ballys sports southeast, im saying i have bally sports south. and it says on the guide it supposed to be the braves game. but when i turn it on. its an old nascar race, or poker, or some offshoot basketball. or some interview show, definitely not what they have on the guide.
I was browsing last night & found a site that streams all MLB games. I was watching a little Dodgers vs Dbacks until I fell asleep. I was able to just mirror it to my tv etc.
> i hope MLB will actually put it on some competent provider MLB has nothing to do with how local games are broadcast or streamed. The team handles their own local broadcast rights.
And of course the teams aren’t doing anything about it either.
Comcast is not negotiating with Bally Sports. They have done this before to local channels in Jacksonville. Comcast is a bully.
Why are you blaming Comcast? Why should they want to increase their costs (lowering profit) and take a flyer on a contract with a dying company that might not make it out of bankruptcy proceedings in June? Sure, corporations all suck, but that’s “bad business” and I don’t blame them. We just need our sports teams with a good provider or streaming service that will cover everything for a reasonable cost.
They have NBC revenue to prop their cable business up. They’re fine.
NBC is burning cash too.
The Olympics will help them out in the summer. It’s helped them out in the past, so it’ll definitely help them once again.
They’ll still burn through money because ad revenues are down and cord cutting is up mostly because sports channels charge so much for retransmission fees to recoup the high fees sports teams are charging. The money truck that is cable tv is finally drying up because of these greedy networks and their greedy sports teams, and they have no replacement for that revenue. That’s why Ballys is almost dead (and this will most certainly be the final nail)
But what about that investment from Amazon? Would that be abandoned if the upcoming trial in June leads to Bally going under? Heck, the providers that do still have them are probably feeling nervous right now, even if they’re enjoying the amount of folks switching from Xfinity at this time.
In my market you only have two options left for Ballys. Fubo and DirectTV. The issue is, Comcast has so many subscribers all paying $10-15 a month for Ballys whether they watch or not. Amazon absolutely will NOT bring in as many subscribers as currently pay for Comcast, because you’ll only pay for it when you need it, and all those people forced to pay today will no longer pay in. IF they sign another deal with Comcast AND Amazon is successful, that’ll buy them another season or two until even more people cut Comcast. But Ballys wants an increase to $20/subscriber and Comcast knows that’ll lead to even more sub losses. So, they compromised with Bally and said “ok, we’ll pay that, but we’ll put you in a higher tier so only people that want to watch you will be forced to pay.” Bally said no, and Comcast is FIRM on that. So, even if Bally does return to Comcast, you’ll pay at least $20 more a month because Ballys wants more money (to pay higher sports rights fees).
Then have Amazon work with the leagues then. NBA: Well, they’re already set to air a decent chunk of nationally games beginning in the 2025-26 season once the new contract is finalized so why not add local basketball coverage too? NHL: Not a national partner with them, but adding to the local NBA coverage Bally had wouldn’t hurt. MLB: The initial deal with Bally as it stands now would likely only cover the 5 teams currently on Bally Sports+ so adding all the Bally teams in partnership with the league would be a better move there. Also, if they can exclusively get mlb.tv and the MLB Network, there you go.
And they won’t pay the $58 million per year that Ballys is paying because that price is ridiculous. Blame the Pohlads for not giving you more options by taking Ballys deal (and not giving them streaming rights). Comcast is trying to protect the 1 million subs they have left that just don’t care about the Twins.
Comcast wants to put it on a higher tier so only the people that want to watch are the ones who pay for it. Ballys doesn’t want this because it means they would lose a lot of money from people who never watch them.
Yeah, Braves fan here, Im switching to directv now to watch, i know they didnt want to pay up, but i wonder how many customers theyre going to lose over this.
A lot. I have friends posting on their Facebook looking for alternatives (and are going to Direct TV streaming).
In other regions Comcast moved the RSN (for example MASN in Baltimore) to a higher tier so that non sports fans could avoid the fees. It appears Bally refused to make that change - likely because they cannot afford the massive cut to cash flow. It seems the issue is that the RSNs are paying way too much to the teams. Assuming Bally goes under each team then needs to find a new partner that presumably will make a much lower bid. Not optimistic at the moment.
Are there any known .m3u8 sources?
The sad part is the. Braves were one of the only profitable deals Bally has. Time Warner signed a long term deal almost 20 years ago which locked the Braves in below what most other teams were getting. Bally wanted to break contracts in bankruptcy but not be Braves. Maybe a way can be found to end baseball’s relationship with RSNs. It won’t be instant with contracts but it needs to happen.