This is correct. It is voodoo economics.
Actually, Bally's plan is outlined in its court pleadings, as is required in any bankruptcy. Their plan, which won't work, is relatively straightforward.
- They will turn debt into equity, which is common in most all bankruptcies. This means that the new owners will be whoever was dumb enough to loan Sinclair money, for the most part.
- They want to renegotiate the deals with the teams (most of which run into the next decade) way down. Perhaps dropping some teams altogether.
- They want to have stand alone streaming rights (which they have now for a minority of teams) which they will sell to all these people who supposedly want to see the team.
The hole in this is, well, obvious. The people that left a provider with their local RSN did so for some combination of being cheap; not liking sports (or at least not liking MLB, NHL or NBA) which, BTW is the vast majority of people; and/or not liking their local teams for some reason or another. The people that want their local RSN, already have it. As do a lot of people who have stayed with their current provider for other reasons. In an a la carte world the number of potential subscribers is very small, and thus the price would be very high, so high that it approaches unaffordability for common people.
MLB's alternative plan, also outlined in its court pleadings, is not fully formed, or at least they won't tell us if they have worked out the obvious problem with it. They want mlb.tv/MLBEI with "no blackouts".
The problem here is that currently this package sells things that are not that valuable. Most people who follow baseball closely, at least closely enough to be potential customers for this considering how much "free" baseball there is on national channels, are fans of their local team.
Since we are on the Reds, I will use them as an example. The number of people that care about the Reds in Maine, or Louisiana, or Washington, or Saskatchewan is very tiny. Thus these (the costs of production having already been fully covered by the RSN) low value games can be tossed in with other low value material in the package, which is sold for a pittance (or given away by T-Mobile). However the number of people that care about the Reds in southern Ohio, most of Kentucky, southern Indiana, and even parts of Tennessee and West Virginia is, well, most people who care about baseball. Thus the games are very valuable. That is why they don't sell them in the cheap mlb.tv/MLBEI package.
Now the problem here is, again, obvious. How do they split the money? Do, say the Reds and Tigers and Royals, get the same as the Dodgers, Mets, and Braves? I'm pretty certain, the owners not only have not agreed on this, but are incapable of doing so.
In any event a "no blackouts" mlb.tv raises the price, again to the level of unaffordability, (MSG, which doesn't even have baseball, wants $30/month) for the average person. And, again, will yield FAR less money than the current system
Thus neither plan will work. What will work is simply that, for most teams, it will be what it was before there was an RSN. Maybe a game on local TV OTA, maybe once a week or so. Listen to the radio the rest of the time (and no local RSN production, no game to show out of market on mlb.tv in the first place).
Just the first of lots of original programming that will go away in the new era. The consumer is unprotected outside of the bundle.
Who won the "streaming wars"? Don't know yet. But we know who lost. The consumer.
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