Regional Sports Fee

[keenan]

I don't want to jump in and confuse the situation but here's my experience.

I initially signed up for XTRA but then on the day of install downgraded to Preferred XTRA for the lower cost knowing that I wouldn't have my RSN or NBA-TV or other sports channels. I was told I could move back to regular XTRA at any time and not lose any of my discounts that are included in my 2 year contract. I just confirmed by chat with an agent that it would cost me $2 more for XTRA package + $7.29 RSN fee to upgrade in October when the NBA season starts. BTW I'm in Sacramento so my RSN gets SF bay area Giants, Sharks, 49ers and Sacramento Kings basketball (not Warriors too).

Have you actually seen Giants games in Sacramento? To do so would mean you're also getting NBC Sports Bay Area in addition to NBC Sports California.

49ers games are on broadcast networks.

 

[Redwald]

Have you actually seen Giants games in Sacramento? To do so would mean you're also getting NBC Sports Bay Area in addition to NBC Sports California.

49ers games are on broadcast networks.

You're probably right about the Bay area teams since I never watch them. I only watch the NBA. But yes, I've seen the Giants & Sharks here but don't know about 49ers. Sacramento only has one professional sports team (Kings BBall) so our nearest baseball team is Giants and nearest hockey team is Sharks.

 

[SpaethCo]

Has this happened to anyone else?

Same thing here. I downgraded to the Entertainment package in July, and recently noticed that I'm still getting my local RSN (FOX Sports North).

I have $0 charges with the following channels being added: El Ray, PBS Kids Sprout, FOX Sports North, Big Ten Network, OWN, The Weather Channel, NFL Network, Travel Channel, ESPNEWS, IFC and ESPNU.

At first I thought it was a free preview of Choice, but I still don't have GSN, Science Channel, CNBCW, and the rest of the channels from that package.

DirecTV has been re-tiering things (NBC Sports Network moved down to Entertanment a couple months ago), and I still get channels like the Golf channel even though DirecTV says those are only in Xtra and above.

 

[pattykay]

A partial answer from dbstalk.

A member named techguy88 posted:
"My friend that works at D* said that if you have El Rey and you don't have Choice Xtra Classic, Preferred Xtra, Ultimate or Premier then it is a complimentary service that was added by the system for an undefinable amount of time."

I assume that all of the other $0.00 line-item channels are the same way. Of course, this still doesn't answer the questions of who is supposed to be receiving these channels (all subscribers to a particular package, or is it account-specific?) and how long will they last?

 

[Claude Greiner]

I wish they would cut all these so called athletes salaries, and Just have an overall price adjustment on everything.

Sports in general are becoming too expensive.

 

[AZ.]

I wish they would cut all these so called athletes salaries, and Just have an overall price adjustment on everything.

Sports in general are becoming too expensive.

Hey there is 2 sides that get plenty of money!......Owners start with huge buckets of money, and it is the players who are the entertainers.....It is totally unfair to blame players getting paid, and look the other way to management!

 

[SpaethCo]

How else should Directv account for the different regional costs that the rsns incur?

I'm dubious of how closely the fee being charged by DirecTV tracks with the actual cost of the RSN.

Take Atlanta: You get FOX Sports South and the SEC Network. The regional sports fee is $5.83, and you need to subscribe to Choice($78.99) or higher to have those channels be explicitly part of your programming package.

Per The Numbers - SEC network accounts for $0.74/mo. So that leaves $5 and change to cover FOX Sports South.

Yet if I sign up for Sling Blue ($25), DirecTV NOW "Live a Little" ($35), Playstation Vue Core ($44.99), FuboTV ($34.99), Hulu Live ($39.99), or Youtube TV ($35) I get those channels included with no additional fees.

Even if you completely ignore the difference in equipment fee costs ($0 for streaming vs $$$$ for cable/sat), the base programming packages for the streaming services are on average less than half the cost of the minimum package to get the local RSN AND they don't charge any additional RSN fees. Escalator contracts explains part of that (ie, first 100k subs are $0.10/mo, 100-250k are $0.25/mo, 250-500k are $0.50/mo) and starts to explain why services like Vue are having to dump channels as they're able to grow their subscriber counts.

Still .. I don't buy that my local FOX sports station costs nearly half of what ESPN monthly programming fees are. Just look at the contracts that ESPN has racked up: ESPN Spends More on Content Than Anyone Else, Including Netflix -- The Motley Fool

FOX Sports is covering Atlanta Braves and Atlanta Hawks regular season games, and broadcasts some of the FS Tennessee and FS Carolina Predators and Hurricanes games since the Thrashers NHL franchise was relocated. So FSSouth is directly producing content for 2 major sports leagues (with paid exclusivity contracts), no playoffs, and likely has a fraction of the on-air talent costs when compared to ESPN -- and yet I'm supposed to believe it still costs $5/mo in addition to a more expensive base programming package?

 

[SamCdbs]

Yes, you should believe that. The payments local RSNs pay to their local teams (which, remember, must be covered only from each team's draw area) are huge.