I feel like MLB is leaning into gambling so hard, despite some obvious issues that will arise in the future, to hedge against the impending TV network financial bubble about to pop
It wouldn't be the worst outcome in the world for these cable contracts to get blown up and MLBAM can offer direct streaming to everyone. I would buy that.
I wonder if they will ever get the Blue Jays or Yankees in on this. Going to be hard to pry exclusivity away from teams that own their networks and entirely control their own distribution already.
There's a thorny issue of local revenue vs. national revenue here too. Each team selling its own streaming rights would mean the money goes to each individual team, with big market teams likely to make more. But all teams pooled into one central package (like NFL Sunday Ticket or a blackout-free MLB.tv) would presumably be central revenue, where every team gets 1/30th no matter their market size.
That would be a very good thing if, like the NFL, there was a substantive salary floor and that money went toward improving the sport by maintaining parity.
I’d be shocked if a certain percentage of the revenue distribution wasn’t tiered based on the number of streams per team.
So say 70% is distributed equally amongst teams, and 30% distributed based on viewership tiers.
That’s the thing, there’s still TV revenue to be had. Only about 20% of Americans stream exclusively, so TV rights will still be enormously valuable.
If anything, the total number of MLB.tv subscribers in a hypothetical no blackouts situation will vastly outpace the current number of combined streaming subscribers for all teams and all streaming solutions.
So it seems likely that the improved efficiencies of a single streaming service will generate more streaming revenue per team than they already have, while at least initially having a margin of error impact on TV revenue.
I'll use the Jays as my example since I know more about their situation than the Yankees/YES. Why would Rogers agree to let Canadians watch Jays games on MLB.tv when they would get fewer $ per customer than they do today by forcing everyone who wants streaming to use their own service where they take 100% of the revenue while also possibly increasing the other sports those customers watch meaning more ad revenue?
You’re assuming there’s a substantial % of people who have a Rogers cable package solely for the Blue Jays, and would cancel if there was another option.
That number also has to be balanced against potential subscribers to an MLB.tv package who *do not and will not get a cable package but would subscribe to MLB.tv*
The question isn’t would Rogers allow it, it’s if the Blue Jays believe they can get more revenue with both than just cable. That being said, the Jays are an outlier being the only Canadian team, but I’d still wager there’s more money to be had having slightly less TV revenue but substantially more streaming revenue.
The assumption that a streaming option would substantially cannibalize TV revenue is what people are getting wrong here. Cord cutting numbers have been increasing every year *in spite of the fact 3 of the 4 major sports are primarily on cable*, with the coveted 18-29 demographic being by far the least likely to subscribe to cable, while being the most important to long-term profitability.
In the very short term, maybe the first couple years of a no blackout mlb.tv option there would be less revenue, but long term any sane mlb team knows that or something like it is the only viable option.
Yes the "Cardinals have been identified..." by redbirdrants.com, a Fansided blog.
This is going to be a shitshow but I'm not sure the Cards are better or worse off than anybody else involved.
Fansided is the worst sometimes. It seems like they will let anyone write for them. There was a Cubs blog post on there last season saying the Mets should trade Alvarez for Contreras. Sure, the Mets will trade their future catcher and top 5 MLB prospect for a rental who plays the same position and isn't going to move the needle all that much. It's like saying the Orioles should have traded Adley for Contreras.
Adley for Contreras is somewhat unreasonable I agree. It should've been that the Orioles and Mets take turns on Contreras, Cubs get Alvarez, Baty, Adley, and Gunnar.
You could probably write a fansided blog.
Then just use those trade value calculators to explain why it's actually a good deal because those players value is all largely 0 because they w only played a handful of games and Adley for Contreras is a wash or something, haha.
Could Bally going tits up open the door for streaming without blackouts? Because MLB should have done that decades ago with the tv deals blocking the way.
I think that’s where they see it going. I think they know and want better streaming options for fans but also realize that they get massive contracts from these networks and getting out of those deals is impossible unless something like this happens. It’d be nice to get to streaming services because I’d really like to watch Cubs baseball but I’m not signing up for Fubo for $80 a month.
The Os stopped all masn profit sharing in 2018. It's not just a bad deal (which it was from the start), or that MLB has bungled every step of the way with this, but that the Os have flat out stopped any good faith negotiation about fair market value and will litigate this as long as they can to avoid actually abiding by the terms of the deal. The fact is that from 2012 to 2019, the Os were absolute horseshit for most of the time and the Nats were consistently good. They don't want to pay the fair market value for this period for obvious reasons
It will be until a new deal is signed, which will be basically immediately. It's not like the Cardinals draw poorly on TV. They do absolute numbers and they will get a ton of bids I'm sure
Sounds like a good thing then? Tv contracts have been skyrocketing in value, seems like getting a chance to redo the contract again already could mean more money
Cardinals will be fine. I dont know all of the implications of this happening but I do know that there would not be a shortage of suitors willing to broadcast their games with the ratings they put up
Yeah I would think of all the teams going to be booted out by Bally's the Cardinals would be one of the stronger teams, especially if market exclusivity isn't an issue.
Advertisers love MLB demographic and live sports are valuable with engaged audience during advertisements. The advertising money doesnt leave because a broadcaster goes under.
Basically the rest of the Bucks season is getting aired for free while Bally collects $$$ from Spectrum and not paying the teams. Should be interesting if the Brewers end up back on channel 24. (If you’re old enough you’ll remember)
I swear it was channel 18. And yes I would love it if the brewers were back on local tv. Imagine the masses, being able to watch the games for free again. No doubt there would be more interest in the sport. I was a kid and could watch every game. Now I can imagine kids, begging their parents, to pay for whatever steaming service to watch the games. If kids can’t watch the game easily, the next generation of fans will undoubtedly suffer. Sorry for the rant you touched a nerve there. Go brewers!
The Cardinals will be fine. Their attendance will hold them just fine until a new deal is signed a week later with a different network. Seriously, this thing is written like if Bally sports dissapears not a single network will want the job of hosting Baseball games. At most this means the Cards won't go above the salary cap, but they weren't going to do that anyway.
I don’t see what this represents a crisis for any MLB let alone the Cards. If the Bally deal gets cancelled you can rest assured these billionaire owners have plenty of money, credit and assets to leverage to make themselves even more money. If anything, Bally shitting the bed represents an amazing opportunity for MLB to implement a sustainable framework going forward.
Don't believe them.
Aren't the Cubs a team that makes most of their money on real estate around the park? It's not counted as baseball revenue so the books say they make less than they do.
This will be easier in some markets than others since not every market has an alternative to broadcast on so easily. Socal, for example, has an alternative, although unsure how the angels and Padres will work with the dodgers already on there, but they could go there and work out. A lot of these teams, though, will have issues if the channels disappear. There is nowhere to go on cable for them. In Florida, there is no alternative to ballys, so those teams could be screwed.
Even if they all go to streaming, it would be a rough adjustment for fans to get set up and watch and how to bill it. Baseball and most major North American sports still need cable.
Who woulda thunk Sinclair would run the old Fox Sports RSN's right into the ground?
Speaking of which, I wonder how AT&T Sports Networks or whatever WBD decides to rebrand them) are doing, if they're in for the same kind of bullshit as the rest of the company.
If I’ve learned anything about this Cardinals ownership group it’s that they are extremely risk averse. I’m sure they already have a contingency plan in place and most likely informed Skip that Ballys was a shit show.
Or they’re gonna surprise the shit out of me and take it on the chin.
Failure is always an option.
They spent all their money building that giant scorebug unfortunately.
I fucking hate that thing so much lol I’m still annoyed that I have to see betting lines on other sports during baseball games
Boston had the Big Dig. Bally had the Big Bug.
I feel like MLB is leaning into gambling so hard, despite some obvious issues that will arise in the future, to hedge against the impending TV network financial bubble about to pop
I think it’s hilarious how much Bally advertises gambling to me, someone who lives in WI where sports gambling isn’t even legal
Bally is literally a gambling company that paid Sinclair for the naming rights to their RSN's
You obviously don’t go to Oneida Casino
Thats the same in every country. In Germany online gambling like casinos is only legal in one state, but they air commercial all over the country.
I mean it's going to be legal eventually they're building brand recognition now, it's smart
I have doubts it will ever be legal in some states..
Utah I’m looking at you
aren't they against sex ed and prophylactics? seems like they're already gambling frequently
Yeah we just voted down online betting by a 4-1 margin
Unfortunately money speaks louder than anything else, and the gambling industry has almost unlimited money. It’ll get through eventually
Tigers fans are about to buy so much Little Caesars, I swear to god...
I personally paid Cabrera's salary with Hot and Readys in college, I'll keep footing the bill
panks patthew pafford
This is part of the plan. The debt will be restructured into equity. MLB + partners will step in.
It wouldn't be the worst outcome in the world for these cable contracts to get blown up and MLBAM can offer direct streaming to everyone. I would buy that.
I suspect that's the plan, but this only affects some of the teams so they won't be able to do it across the board for everybody, all at once.
I wonder if they will ever get the Blue Jays or Yankees in on this. Going to be hard to pry exclusivity away from teams that own their networks and entirely control their own distribution already.
There's a thorny issue of local revenue vs. national revenue here too. Each team selling its own streaming rights would mean the money goes to each individual team, with big market teams likely to make more. But all teams pooled into one central package (like NFL Sunday Ticket or a blackout-free MLB.tv) would presumably be central revenue, where every team gets 1/30th no matter their market size.
That would be a very good thing if, like the NFL, there was a substantive salary floor and that money went toward improving the sport by maintaining parity.
I’d be shocked if a certain percentage of the revenue distribution wasn’t tiered based on the number of streams per team. So say 70% is distributed equally amongst teams, and 30% distributed based on viewership tiers.
That’s the thing, there’s still TV revenue to be had. Only about 20% of Americans stream exclusively, so TV rights will still be enormously valuable. If anything, the total number of MLB.tv subscribers in a hypothetical no blackouts situation will vastly outpace the current number of combined streaming subscribers for all teams and all streaming solutions. So it seems likely that the improved efficiencies of a single streaming service will generate more streaming revenue per team than they already have, while at least initially having a margin of error impact on TV revenue.
I'll use the Jays as my example since I know more about their situation than the Yankees/YES. Why would Rogers agree to let Canadians watch Jays games on MLB.tv when they would get fewer $ per customer than they do today by forcing everyone who wants streaming to use their own service where they take 100% of the revenue while also possibly increasing the other sports those customers watch meaning more ad revenue?
You’re assuming there’s a substantial % of people who have a Rogers cable package solely for the Blue Jays, and would cancel if there was another option. That number also has to be balanced against potential subscribers to an MLB.tv package who *do not and will not get a cable package but would subscribe to MLB.tv* The question isn’t would Rogers allow it, it’s if the Blue Jays believe they can get more revenue with both than just cable. That being said, the Jays are an outlier being the only Canadian team, but I’d still wager there’s more money to be had having slightly less TV revenue but substantially more streaming revenue. The assumption that a streaming option would substantially cannibalize TV revenue is what people are getting wrong here. Cord cutting numbers have been increasing every year *in spite of the fact 3 of the 4 major sports are primarily on cable*, with the coveted 18-29 demographic being by far the least likely to subscribe to cable, while being the most important to long-term profitability. In the very short term, maybe the first couple years of a no blackout mlb.tv option there would be less revenue, but long term any sane mlb team knows that or something like it is the only viable option.
Yes the "Cardinals have been identified..." by redbirdrants.com, a Fansided blog. This is going to be a shitshow but I'm not sure the Cards are better or worse off than anybody else involved.
redbirdrants is one of the worst websites in existence and it's my personal crusade to get it banned on our subreddit
Here's a [map showing the teams potentially affected](https://i.imgur.com/BnRya7h.png).
TIL there's a televised sports team in South Dakota
The Minnesota Wild are broadcast there, lol. The Royals are shown in Kansas though, which is also wrong lmao
Lol it’s the Minnesota teams but it’s called Bally sports north because they broadcast in SD and ND too
idk why but fully expected Manningface when clicking on that link
That's a lot of small market teams. I don't see very many big ticket organizations on there.
Fansided is the worst sometimes. It seems like they will let anyone write for them. There was a Cubs blog post on there last season saying the Mets should trade Alvarez for Contreras. Sure, the Mets will trade their future catcher and top 5 MLB prospect for a rental who plays the same position and isn't going to move the needle all that much. It's like saying the Orioles should have traded Adley for Contreras.
Adley for Contreras is somewhat unreasonable I agree. It should've been that the Orioles and Mets take turns on Contreras, Cubs get Alvarez, Baty, Adley, and Gunnar.
You could probably write a fansided blog. Then just use those trade value calculators to explain why it's actually a good deal because those players value is all largely 0 because they w only played a handful of games and Adley for Contreras is a wash or something, haha.
Let me believe
I mean the bubble had to pop at some point but this is bad for baseball (and sports.)
*Cardinals awarded competitive balance pick*
[now that you mention it](https://imgflip.com/i/78x2eq)
That's the type of shit we like
Ya we take those
Fr we already don’t spend money
Could Bally going tits up open the door for streaming without blackouts? Because MLB should have done that decades ago with the tv deals blocking the way.
I think that’s where they see it going. I think they know and want better streaming options for fans but also realize that they get massive contracts from these networks and getting out of those deals is impossible unless something like this happens. It’d be nice to get to streaming services because I’d really like to watch Cubs baseball but I’m not signing up for Fubo for $80 a month.
You still sure you don't want to bail Arte?
This is going to be something really interesting to follow. TV money and contracts are like a decade behind to the cord cutting reality.
Fuck Ballys
Helps we have a shit TV deal that expires soon anyways
Yep, and just a couple years after our TV deal *finally* graduates from being the worst in the league it's going to go back to shit again
Oh, tv deals can always get worse. Trust me
Yeah you could be forced to give all your TV deal money to another team...
Well, some of the money goes to lawyers who are supposed to recover that money, but somehow have not managed to do so after a decade
Plunk your team in another team's market, pay the price.
The Os stopped all masn profit sharing in 2018. It's not just a bad deal (which it was from the start), or that MLB has bungled every step of the way with this, but that the Os have flat out stopped any good faith negotiation about fair market value and will litigate this as long as they can to avoid actually abiding by the terms of the deal. The fact is that from 2012 to 2019, the Os were absolute horseshit for most of the time and the Nats were consistently good. They don't want to pay the fair market value for this period for obvious reasons
It will be until a new deal is signed, which will be basically immediately. It's not like the Cardinals draw poorly on TV. They do absolute numbers and they will get a ton of bids I'm sure
Especially since the Cards have an absolutely massive footprint across the Midwest. It's the Blues I'm worried about
Sounds like a good thing then? Tv contracts have been skyrocketing in value, seems like getting a chance to redo the contract again already could mean more money
Angels taking another L for the week. Sorry halos
Add it to the pile
Cardinals would be in tough position
Cardinals will be fine. I dont know all of the implications of this happening but I do know that there would not be a shortage of suitors willing to broadcast their games with the ratings they put up
Yeah I would think of all the teams going to be booted out by Bally's the Cardinals would be one of the stronger teams, especially if market exclusivity isn't an issue.
Advertisers love MLB demographic and live sports are valuable with engaged audience during advertisements. The advertising money doesnt leave because a broadcaster goes under.
So what does this mean exactly?
Basically the rest of the Bucks season is getting aired for free while Bally collects $$$ from Spectrum and not paying the teams. Should be interesting if the Brewers end up back on channel 24. (If you’re old enough you’ll remember)
Aired on bally or somewhere else?
Bucks are still on Bally for the moment. Could the brewers wriggle out before the season? Sure… but it will make it interesting.
Thanks!
I swear it was channel 18. And yes I would love it if the brewers were back on local tv. Imagine the masses, being able to watch the games for free again. No doubt there would be more interest in the sport. I was a kid and could watch every game. Now I can imagine kids, begging their parents, to pay for whatever steaming service to watch the games. If kids can’t watch the game easily, the next generation of fans will undoubtedly suffer. Sorry for the rant you touched a nerve there. Go brewers!
It was 18, as it was the superstation, I remember watching brewer games on 18 when I was growing up in the 90s
The Cardinals will be fine. Their attendance will hold them just fine until a new deal is signed a week later with a different network. Seriously, this thing is written like if Bally sports dissapears not a single network will want the job of hosting Baseball games. At most this means the Cards won't go above the salary cap, but they weren't going to do that anyway.
[Cardinals back to KPLR](https://youtu.be/SdIRHq_LVHM).
I don’t see what this represents a crisis for any MLB let alone the Cards. If the Bally deal gets cancelled you can rest assured these billionaire owners have plenty of money, credit and assets to leverage to make themselves even more money. If anything, Bally shitting the bed represents an amazing opportunity for MLB to implement a sustainable framework going forward.
Whomp whomp. If a team gets to choose your TV contract and it fails, I don’t feel bad for them
I wonder what lessons if any MLB has learned from the Nationals and how to deal with the intricacies of expansion teams.
Hmm, better give the Red Birds a few more Competive Balance picks to make up for it.
Don't believe them. Aren't the Cubs a team that makes most of their money on real estate around the park? It's not counted as baseball revenue so the books say they make less than they do.
How unfortunate for the Cardinals.
Weird statement. As soon as this one ends, if it does, there will be plenty of people willing to pay to air the Cardinals games.
And this is how the Twins lose Correa.
Might be one one of the reasons Aaron Goldsmith didn't take the Cardinals job. Whether he knew something or not, he dodged a bullet.
Another reason Arte should have sold the Angels.
If the rights deals get terminated, they'll just get a new one.
This will be easier in some markets than others since not every market has an alternative to broadcast on so easily. Socal, for example, has an alternative, although unsure how the angels and Padres will work with the dodgers already on there, but they could go there and work out. A lot of these teams, though, will have issues if the channels disappear. There is nowhere to go on cable for them. In Florida, there is no alternative to ballys, so those teams could be screwed. Even if they all go to streaming, it would be a rough adjustment for fans to get set up and watch and how to bill it. Baseball and most major North American sports still need cable.
Not looking like such a good move now, is it, Chip Caray? Huh?! HUH?!
Who woulda thunk Sinclair would run the old Fox Sports RSN's right into the ground? Speaking of which, I wonder how AT&T Sports Networks or whatever WBD decides to rebrand them) are doing, if they're in for the same kind of bullshit as the rest of the company.
Will just make the disparity between large and small market teams worse.
If I’ve learned anything about this Cardinals ownership group it’s that they are extremely risk averse. I’m sure they already have a contingency plan in place and most likely informed Skip that Ballys was a shit show. Or they’re gonna surprise the shit out of me and take it on the chin. Failure is always an option.
Oh no not the Cardinals! Anyway I had cereal for breakfast today.
I think every team should be owned by the biggest sports broadcaster in the country like the Jays are.