Sinclair Broadcast reportedly poised to buy Fox regional sports networks from Disney
Wasn't sure where to put this news TBH.
Wasn't sure where to put this news TBH.
Sinclair to buy Fox Regional Sports
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What will they call them? Well, I really have not seen anything about how long the license to use "Fox" is for, but my bet is a name change at the transition between MLB to NHL/NBA, so October? Anyway, their Chicago sports channel is going to be "Marquee" so that has cleared copyright, so it could be like "Marquee - Ohio" "Marquee - South" etc. They also still have the copyright to "American Sports Network" the former name for their "Stadium" netlet. And of course, KISS, they could just be "Sinclair Sports Network - geography" . If they are shooting for October, it is getting late to come up with something else.
In any event, Sinclair is just a bad company. Not because of their supposed politics (which is overblown, IMHO) but they just operate their stations at the very limit and are triple hard a**es when doing retransmission. They do not care about their customers.
Further this is a big step for Sinclair, which is a small town based media company. They only own a handful of stations in MLB markets (Washington, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, which these team's RSNs are not included; only Minneapollis, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee, with only Cincy being an affiliate of one of the four major networks. There is little synergy here.
In any event, Sinclair is just a bad company. Not because of their supposed politics (which is overblown, IMHO) but they just operate their stations at the very limit and are triple hard a**es when doing retransmission. They do not care about their customers.
Further this is a big step for Sinclair, which is a small town based media company. They only own a handful of stations in MLB markets (Washington, Baltimore and Pittsburgh, which these team's RSNs are not included; only Minneapollis, Cincinnati, and Milwaukee, with only Cincy being an affiliate of one of the four major networks. There is little synergy here.
We have a Sinclair station in our local reception area, along with a few others. The Sinclair station is known in this area as more of a joke when compared to the other local stations. It’s an EXTREMELY high turnover station. Someone new almost every month. News broadcasts always mismatching stories and pictures. Misspelled words scrolling across the screen. They throw in their opinion segments which are extremely skewed and one sided (always, they never waiver). The station is in Springfield, IL and we’re 17 miles South BUT to get a good local news reporting, we’ve resorted to a channel out of Champaign, IL. Much better reporting on Springfield. Better weather reporting. A more professional look and feel overall. But the Sinclair station...just terrible.
"Marquee Sports Midwest." Barf!
Luckily, they don't own any networks in my market (yet).
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Huh. Interesting. Although MLB isn't the only sport covered by these RSNs. Sinclair owns three locals here in Nashville (affiliates of Fox, The CW and MyTV) and our area's RSN, Fox Sports Tennessee, carries Nashville Predators hockey plus some college and NFL football from UT and the TN Titans (along with Memphis's NBA team, meh). Here's a handy link to all the Fox Sports RSNs and the teams they cover: https://www.foxsports.com/regions
Sinclair is the biggest backer of the new OTA standard ATSC 3.0 and will deploy it on some of their stations starting this year. One of the options that ATSC 3.0 easily allow is subscription-based channels carried over the air. I wonder if Sinclair plans to offer the relevant RSN as an ATSC 3.0 subscription channel, at least in markets like Nashville where they own more than one tower and could fit it in. They could easily beam it out in high-quality 1080p HDR if they wanted.
I started reading your post and thought, "sounds just like us." Then I read more and realized we're watching the same stations!
I'm just wondering how long it will take Sinclair to run them into the ground, then sell them off.
I miss the days when my regional sports network was truly regional, local ownership and all local programming.
Good lord, Marguee? When I think about the name Marquee, I think of the theater or a concert. Bad name in my opinion, unless they are trying to make it like PRISM was originally designed to be. I'd say bring back (The) Sports Channel. It would match up well with the running theme between the US and Canada where the US has channels named with "(The) _____ Channel" and Canada has channels named with "(The) ____ Network". Just my opinion. If I was right, FOX bought Sports Channel America, so is it possible that Sinclair gets the name with the purchase of the FOX RSNs?
Some areas are still lucky, New York, Boston, Baltimore/DC.
Where did I say we need to be like Canada? I said it was a running theme. As I'm in the general forums, I'll refrain from making fun of your pointless facepalm. You seriously slapped yourself in the head because I pointed out the similarities in channel naming between the US and Canada? Don't you see that as a bit overzealous?Why do we need to be like Canada?
Got to respect your opinion, even if I completely think it was a bit much. Also, throwing words in other posters statements doesn't help anyone's cause. Find where I said we need to be like Canada. I know you can't. What you can find is that I said it would go in the running theme between channels in both countries. It was being cheeky and G-Rated funny.
Good to see that the old Dish Forum is just as cut throat as I remember. I'll go back to The Pit, where at least I know a throw away line won't result in loaded statements and people slapping themselves in the face over it.
Can we all just agree that Root Sports was possibly the worst name for an RSN ever...
