So Sinclair pays the leagues for the broadcast rights, and then the leagues pay Sinclair for the out of market use of Sinclair's broadcasts? It seems like that would all be included in the rights contract.
dish and the RSN's
- Thread starter Chuck Summers
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Sinclair pays the TEAMS for the broadcast rights, not the leagues. That is how it works in the three leagues in question. Local rights belong to each team. That is why they say "Copyright, Cincinnati Reds Inc." (or whatever) at the end of local broadcasts and "Copyright Office of the Commissioner of Baseball" at the end of national ones.
So Sinclair, et al, produces a game for the LOCAL broadcast on an RSN. So now these get "nationalized" in two ways. One is the packages, like mlb.tv, NHL Center Ice, or MLB Extra Innings, and the other is that some get shown on MLB Network or NHL Network as I type I am watching Bally Sports Michigan production of the Twins @ Tigers on MLB Network.
Sinclair, et al, is paid a VERY SMALL fee for the use of these local productions nationally, it has never itself shown out of market games itself.
I like SBJ, and its covers a subject I have great interest in, but it really could use some editing, fact checking and proof reading. I remember a very long article about baseball's international presence in Central America. Lots of quotes about a team in Panama City.
Unfortunately they were about the one in Florida.
Sinclair does not negotiate individually with each team, they negotiate with the league's national committee that's made up of individual team managers. Individual team negotiations would be a nightmare to manage. When was the last time you saw difficulty in reaching an agreement with just one team holding up carriage of any games? It doesn't happen because there's only one contract, and it's with the league as a whole. That contract may spell out individual team apportionment of the money, but it's still just one contract, not one for each team.
Actually, Sinclair, et al, negotiates individually with each team. There is no "national committee". There is no national contract. Each contract is separate and has nothing to do with any other.
Let’s Update the Estimated Local TV Revenue for MLB Teams | FanGraphs Baseball
Reds, Fox Sports Ohio extend partnership through 2032 (cincinnati.com)
Pirates extend TV deal with AT&T Sports Networks (mlb.com)
How the Dodgers' $8.3B TV deal turned into an unmitigated disaster (yahoo.com)
I could go on.
Are you talking about the individual RSN local carriage contracts with the local teams? I thought we were discussing the national carriage contracts that the league head offices negotiate with NBC, CBS, ESPN, etc. for local and out of market carriage. If I've gotten that twisted around by now, I'll bow out with an agreement with your last post.
Okay, so the same question: if the rights are allowed to expire in those adjacent markets, then who picks up the rights to serve those markets, and do they produce their own feeds of the games? Or do those markets simply get left as "orphan markets" with no coverage of the nearby teams at all? (No Cleveland Indians games being shown in the Columbus, Ohio market, for example.)
I believe they would end up being "orphan" markets with no team coverage. The RSNs would lose a ton as they would no longer get subscriber fees in those areas so I really cannot see it happening. In theory rights would go back to the league which means if you were in Columbus and wanted to watch the Indians you would be able to get those in Extra Innings/MLB.TV.
From Sinclair's CEO Chris Ripley after the release of the company's first-quarter report:
"On your question related to Dish, we really can’t be renegotiating in public with Dish for I think obvious reasons, but I will note that we have had tremendous success with the traditional (cable and satellite operators) when we come with the entire suite of our programing on offer. In fact, we have been successful with all of them under that circumstance, say for Frontier who filed for bankruptcy. It will be a pivotal time and of course, we can’t predict. We don’t have a crystal ball, what will happen, but I will note that that has been a successful strategy for us with the other traditional [cable and satellite operators.]”
"On your question related to Dish, we really can’t be renegotiating in public with Dish for I think obvious reasons, but I will note that we have had tremendous success with the traditional (cable and satellite operators) when we come with the entire suite of our programing on offer. In fact, we have been successful with all of them under that circumstance, say for Frontier who filed for bankruptcy. It will be a pivotal time and of course, we can’t predict. We don’t have a crystal ball, what will happen, but I will note that that has been a successful strategy for us with the other traditional [cable and satellite operators.]”
Read the whole story, and can throw in YoutubeTV and Hulu. I like how he went from Dish will become irrelevant, to Sinclair sports channels becoming irrelevant. They could only sell the channels by combining them with their others to the other providers.
Would this effect how far out of market is considered? With ESPN+ replacing Nhl. Tv. The current blackout rules is ridiculous, there is no reason why people over 50-75 miles away should be considered in market and subject to blackout rules when they don't have the channel. They should be allowed to watch all the games on Center Ice, NBa league pass, MLB extra innings.
Just because your carrier (Dish) does not provide live games to it's customers, does not mean that someone else (DirecTV, Cable, etc.) does not. As long as one carrier provides access in your area, then the blackout rules - set up by the leagues - apply. Their (the professional athletic leagues) attitude is if you don't like it, change carriers or shut up.
50-75 miles is nothing, we are 600 miles from Houston and they consider us in their territory. Amarillo is 700 miles from Houston - same story and I'm not sure any of our carriers carry (maybe cable does) the Astros, Rockets and other professional team games from the Houston area, but we are still blacked out on all but the RSN designated for Houston teams which we have never had on Dish even when we had the Fox Sports Southwest RSN because Houston has its own RSN. We got Dallas and San Antonio teams games, but not Houston.
Digging around it seems the Astros are on ATT Sports Net Southwest which neither Dish nor local cable carry.
50-75 miles is nothing, we are 600 miles from Houston and they consider us in their territory. Amarillo is 700 miles from Houston - same story and I'm not sure any of our carriers carry (maybe cable does) the Astros, Rockets and other professional team games from the Houston area, but we are still blacked out on all but the RSN designated for Houston teams which we have never had on Dish even when we had the Fox Sports Southwest RSN because Houston has its own RSN. We got Dallas and San Antonio teams games, but not Houston.
Digging around it seems the Astros are on ATT Sports Net Southwest which neither Dish nor local cable carry.
Okay, so if someone lives in an area without any cable providers, and they can prove that they do not have line of sight to Directv's satellites (and do not have high-speed internet access to be able to use other "virtual" MVPD streaming providers) then the blackout rules would not apply to their Dish subscription as long as Dish is still not carrying their RSN?
No. The blackout rules have nothing to do with one's ability to actually receive a particular team's games. Every square inch of the USA is the "property" of at least one, some places up to six, teams. The Giants and A's even claim Guam. DirecTV and your local cable bandit could join DISH in dropping a set of RSNs. If you live in a team's zone, you can only receive the games via the RSN that has a deal with that team. Period.
Line of sight means nothing for this. That is more aesthetic than anything. It’s not about the “individual”, but about the region as a whole, regardless of the individuals capability. Saying no cable out there means nothing as the satellite companies are technically available everywhere for the above reasons.
I was using 50-75 miles an example, as that's what the blackout rules use to be. Then at some point later on it changed. With this day and age there shouldn't be blackouts period.
Oh yeah my other options are cable which is out like half of the time( and $50 more a month at least) and DirecTV ($40 more a month in year two) which doesn't install dishes anymore around here because they're lazy. They tell people they can't install a dish too many trees around the area, yet Dish does. High speed internet options are a joke, Dialup yes, is the most popular internet that's not from a cellphone service (4G). The other high speed(cable/dsl/broadband) options are so bad Dialup is faster and reliable. When there's an monopoly and no one cares to do anything you get losers like Sinclair, Mediacom, Lumen or whatever CenturyLink is now called. So that eliminates streaming services.
Must be nice for companies like Sinclair to be many billions in debt and nothing done. With how far in debt they'd be after the purchase of the RSN they shouldn't have been allowed to purchase them, then also buying up all the local channels nationwide. Those providers who all sold the channels won't ever get their money from Sinclair will end up in bankruptcy at some point.
This has nothing to do with Dish and it probably solves the problem of the RSN's coming back. Looks like you'll have to stream them if you want them: Sinclair Aiming for $23/Month Streaming Plan for Bally Sports in 2022 | Cord Cutters News
Interesting. At that price, it hopefully includes all of the games, rather than some hybrid model with some of the games only on streaming while other games stay on the traditional linear cable channels. That model was what I had speculated Sinclair might do, to try to force fans to pay for both services, and so they would still have some leverage to try to get their channels back on carriers that had dropped them.
