Bally Sports RSNs Are Reportedly Preparing For Bankruptcy

[comfortably_numb]

$20 a month for baseball? And only your local team?

 

[meStevo]

For as long as I continue to get often 1/same-day shipping for less than a dollar per order - big or small - on average, they can bundle in whatever they want

 

[Bruce]

Hmm.. sounds like a giant "bundle" to me! Hope Amazon breaks out the RSN fee from the Prime membership fee.. otherwise this is just like cable

As I said, it will be like subbing to MAX via Prime, a extra charge.

No interest from me, especially since I watch the Red Wings on ESPN+ and the Lions via Sunday Ticket.

I hate watching Basketball and Baseball does a better job on me then Melatonin.

 

[navychop]

Yes, we understand there is to be an extra fee for sports.

We suspect that will not pay the bills, and the basic Prime fee might creep up.

We don’t care about sports, and sure don’t want to subsidize those that do. If Dish had a mandatory RSN fee, we’d have left.

 

[Bruce]

Yes, we understand there is to be an extra fee for sports.

We suspect that will not pay the bills, and the basic Prime fee might creep up.

We don’t care about sports, and sure don’t want to subsidize those that do. If Dish had a mandatory RSN fee, we’d have left.

While not a RSN fee, you still subsidize all the other sports you do not watch, yet are on Dish-

ESPNs, Big Ten, Fox Sports, all the sports on Cable/Network Channels like the NFL, etc, etc.

Why do you think your bill is over $120 a month.

That is why I prefer streaming, if a service is not working for me, I drop it, for example. AMC+, gone.

Call Dish up and tell them to drop ESPN from your account, save that $11 per month sub fee, I wonder what they will say.

 

[navychop]

Yes, well said, and why we are cutting back to 200 now, and may drop Dish entirely come the summer.

We love the Dish equipment and experience, but content is king. And Dish is losing a lot of content.

 

[Yespage]

What about the Clevelands out there?

 

[comfortably_numb]

What about the Clevelands out there?

Mistake on the Lake.

 

[Bruce]

What about the Clevelands out there?

What about them?

If you mean they are still planning to be on, depends on the negotiations, Diamond does not have digital rights to the MLB team, so I would assume still in danger.

MLB seems to prefer Diamond to just go away, then start a new deal with anyone willing to pay.

For some reason, they seem to believe they are going to get big bucks out of Amazon if they deal directly with them, but based on the ratings, they do not deserve it.

Also this from a few weeks ago-

Per the Sports Business Journal, an agreement between the two sides (which, importantly, has not been signed yet) would guarantee that Diamond pays all but three teams in full under its umbrella in 2024. The included teams are the Braves, Reds, Tigers, Royals, Angels, Marlins, Brewers, Cardinals, and Rays.

Cleveland and Texas are not listed, Minnesota is not either, but it’s TV contract ended last season.

 

[dishdude]

For as long as I continue to get often 1/same-day shipping for less than a dollar per order - big or small - on average, they can bundle in whatever they want

I suspect a lot of people just have Prime for the delivery service, I know I do.

 

[meStevo]

I suspect a lot of people just have Prime for the delivery service, I know I do.

It's primarily why we have it, other benefits becoming more and more important, but with 150+ deliveries a year it pays for itself just w/ shipping.

 

[Bruce]

Yes, well said, and why we are cutting back to 200 now, and may drop Dish entirely come the summer.

We love the Dish equipment and experience, but content is king. And Dish is losing a lot of content.

What I did, was first make a list of all the shows from what channels I watched from Network/Cable channels, then added if they were available on a streaming service.

The only thing from my list ( last updated a year ago) that was not available to my liking was News and College Football, everything else was available via streaming services.

Now, News is handled and College Football will be in 2025, that is the plus with YTTV, cancel with a click, sign back up in Sept 2024 ( which should be the last time), cancel in early 2025, then ESPN will be available, then sign up for only that in September 2025 till January.

What the list did was tell me how many streaming services I needed to replace Paid Live TV

Hulu/Disney/ESPN+ $25
Paramount+ with Showtime ( i pay yearly, $129 divide by 12)= $10.75
Peacock (yearly at $20)= $1.66
MAX-HBO/Discovery+(year at $200)=$16.66

So $54.07 a month to replace Live TV and with more content.

 

[Bruce]

Back to Bally’s, the deal with Amazon is not a done deal, things need to happen-

The NBA/NHL is a hard no, they want more money, a lot more money, hence why Diamond is asking the court to revert the deal, what hurts Diamond, is they have been paying the teams the sums indicated by the new deal, hard to say to the Court, we did not mean for that deal to be official , if they are paying the amount of money that was in that deal.

MLB is a super hard no, will not give up the digital rights without a lot more money, that $100 Million would go to Diamond, not to the MLB and not enough anyways.

I believe that MLB wants Diamond to go out of business.

The worst thing for Diamond, getting Amazon involved, now the MLB/NBA/NHL believe they are seeing a pot of gold at the other side of Amazon’s Rainbow, they all want a share of those streaming big bucks , like what the NFL is receiving.

Based on the ratings, they are very mistaken.

 

[savarese04]

The killing of the Bally's branding by EOY 2024 if the deal goes through is very obviously so Amazon can brand these "Prime Sports Southwest" and so forth.

I still think Amazon's play here is to shut the channels down and use this as a cheap way to acquire both talent and real estate/equipment for a larger sports play. When they took on TNF, they had to build everything from scratch - talent, studios, equipment, staffing. The NFL was okay with the risk because Amazon was paying BIG MONEY.

If they want to make a play for, I don't know, CFB rights at a more palatable price, it probably makes sense have infra in place that they can point to if they're trying to fend off the likes of Apple or Google who can only deliver, not produce, content.

Or am I completely off base?

 

[comfortably_numb]

"Prime Sports Southwest"

Interesting, didn't all these RSN's start out as "Prime Sports?" back in the day?

 

[Mr Tony]

Interesting, didn't all these RSN's start out as "Prime Sports?" back in the day?

no
Bally Sports North (Minnesota/ND/SD) started as WCCO II (WCCO is the Minneapolis CBS station) then became Midwest Sports Channel (MSC) then FSN North and now Bally Sports North. Minnesota did have a Prime Sports station (PS Upper Midwest) but they only lasted 5 years as the Timberwolves moved to MSC back in 1995.

Other sports stations back in the day were KBL (PIttsburgh), HSE (Houston), Home Team Sports (Washington DC), PASS (Detroit), Sunshine Network (Florida), Empire (Buffalo), SportsSouth (Georgia and SE area. I'm sure I missed a few that never really changed names like MSG or NESN

 

[Don in CT]

no
Bally Sports North (Minnesota/ND/SD) started as WCCO II (WCCO is the Minneapolis CBS station) then became Midwest Sports Channel (MSC) then FSN North and now Bally Sports North. Minnesota did have a Prime Sports station (PS Upper Midwest) but they only lasted 5 years as the Timberwolves moved to MSC back in 1995.

Other sports stations back in the day were KBL (PIttsburgh), HSE (Houston), Home Team Sports (Washington DC), PASS (Detroit), Sunshine Network (Florida), Empire (Buffalo), SportsSouth (Georgia and SE area. I'm sure I missed a few that never really changed names like MSG or NESN

MSG and NESN were never bought out.

MSG was always Cablevision/Dolan. NESN was Red Sox/Bruins.

 

[Mr Tony]

MSG and NESN were never bought out.

MSG was always Cablevision/Dolan. NESN was Red Sox/Bruins.

I'm aware of that. I was making a point stations that haven't changed their name

 

[Bruce]

More detail at the link about the proposed deal, but no new updates about it.

Amazon Eyes Diamond Sports Bailout Options

One way of another, it appears Amazon.com will boost its ownership of the Yankees' YES Network in a proposed $115 million bailout of Diamond Sports.

www.sportico.com

 

[savarese04]

interesting and shrewdly brilliant. If i'm reading this correctly, Amazon is using this as a ploy to get Diamond's 20% equity in YES at a ridiculously steep discount. It reads like they actually expect Diamond to fail, and when they do fail, Amazon gets first dibs on that 20% because they're making Diamond use it to backstop the $115M note.