Bally Sports RSNs Are Reportedly Preparing For Bankruptcy

[Bruce]

Break those costs down per hour and compare it to the number of viewers it gets...

Baseball, it’s about $400k an hour given 30 teams playing 160 games. Basic cable programming costs for Fox News level viewership.

And based on the ratings still overpaying.

The NFL is pretty big at $14 million per hour, but they bring in viewership that Game of Thrones aspired to.

It has been widely known the Networks will pay more in NFL rights fees than they can recoup in advertising.

 

[SamCdbs]

No one has said that, the only thing I have posted is DirecTV will be unprofitable in a few years, based on the link below, I believe myself correct-

Soooooo, DirecTV will be unprofitable, but the people that own it are so stupid they will continue to operate it.

Got it.

Actually most seem to care more about the National Channel like ESPN, but of course it depends on what is on.

"Most" is 50% +1.

Actually the total day ratings for ESPN are about 800K people. The evening ratings average about 2M. An average MLB Sunday night game gets about 1.5M, an NBA game about 1M even, the playoffs might get 5M, hockey about half those. College football is highly rated, if you add all the games together. The highest rating thing, of course, is the NFL game which gets maybe 11M, depending on the match up. The much hyped college football championship got 22M.

"Most" would be about 10 times higher than that. There are 340M people in the country. Or 121M "TV households" as Nielsen terms it.

So, no, most people have no interest at all in ESPN, or FS1, or, well, any one thing.

That is the magic of the bundle. Protecting the consumer. Making diverse content available for all.

So, no, most people don't want ESPN. Which is why ESPN is just less far down the path to bankruptcy than the RSNs are. But they are on the same path.

But considering ESPN+ has over 26 Million subscribers vs Ballys at 300,000 total for all of their markets combined, does show there is a market for a national sports streaming service.

umm, a "market" will be shown to exist when someone makes a PROFIT from it. Disney cannot.

And that is why profits are shrinking for the vast majority of them.

Profts. Yep, every kind of media makes them.

Except streaming.

But by the end of 2024, we should have a good idea how things will end up for the future.

I have a good idea right now.

 

[SamCdbs]

Anyhow, the demise of the RSNs is pretty much a nonstory. They offer one game a day, and that can be just as easily streamed.

How would the game get produced? Not enough people want to watch it.

 

[meStevo]

The only thing traditional providers are protecting:

Soooooo, DirecTV will be unprofitable, but the people that own it are so stupid they will continue to operate it.

So you're predicting DirecTV won't become unprofitable, and if it does they'll shut down. At what point does the churn stop to prevent that from happening?

 

[Bruce]

The only thing traditional providers are protecting:

View attachment 164379

Those fees are more then Paramount+ with Showtime, Hulu with Disney/ESPN+ and Peacock all commercial free, combined.

So you're predicting DirecTV won't become unprofitable, and if it does they'll shut down. At what point does the churn stop to prevent that from happening?

My guess is that will not get answered from him.

 

[Bilbo1]

I have a good idea right now.

Yep. Cable companies are going to continue losing customers. At some point, they’ll decide cable TV isn’t worth the effort. Let’s face it, they don’t want to deal with negotiating carriage agreements (motivation enough to drop TV). As time goes, they’ll have less motivation to operate the cable co. Traditional cable will slowly wither as the cable companies focus on being an ISP. Nice margin.

Best case is these former cable cos (ISPs) will resell YouTube TV or DirecTV stream, at least for a while. Depends if the cable networks survive the withering. At some point, the number of cable networks will drop too low for this model to be viable.

Each major content producer (Disney, Paramount, NBC/Universal, etc) will have a streamer. These streamers will have “live” content. This may be the former cable network their parent used to sell to cable cos or virtual networks created for a spell. Live content will be something like the equivalent of Sirius XM. A number of full time themed channels and then they’ll stand up a few seasonal or special interest channels (like Sirius does with Holly at Christmas time or Billy Joel twice a year). These live channels will have commercials, and be the low priced (maybe free) tier on the streamer. This free tier will look a lot like free-to-air broadcast of yore. That model made money back in the day.

Maybe a couple of Pluto clones attain critical mass. You know, free (ad supported) channels made of ancient content, which is unwatchable because of all the commercials.


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[Bilbo1]

How would the game get produced? Not enough people want to watch it.

This wasn’t a problem for Apple and MLS, at least not beyond a bit of a learning curve, mostly with talent. It would be nice if they had kept the local flavor of hometown announcers as opposed to national talent. But, they do offer home team radio simulcast for the audio. It would also be nice if they offered away hometown audio option as well.

They have a smallish format issue around the ancillary content, but aren’t hurting on the production side.


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[dishdude]

Yep. Cable companies are going to continue losing customers. At some point, they’ll decide cable TV isn’t worth the effort.

They've had internet to fall back on, but now that 5G wireless is here they're really going to start feeling the squeeze.

 

[Clarbear]

I didn’t know where to post this, I mean it does offer a online version and one of the reasons it is in trouble is because so many have left Live TV, only about 48 Million pay per sub fees for RSNs vs 100 million 9 years ago.

So I will post it here-

Bally Sports RSNs Are Reportedly Preparing For Bankruptcy | Cord Cutters News

Today it is being reported that Sincalir’s Sports Channels are preparing for bankruptcy. This would include the Bally Sports RSNs. The company called Diamond Sports Group LLC, which runs Sincalirs sports channels, is reportedly $8.6 billion in debt. Sinclair is hoping to strike a deal to help...

cordcuttersnews.com

By the way, I said this was going to happen months ago back in the DirecTV Sunday Ticket thread.

I'm glad that I didn't get their app. I was debating if I was or not. With them planning for bankruptcy I glad that I didn't.

 

[ncted]

They've had internet to fall back on, but now that 5G wireless is here they're really going to start feeling the squeeze.

Well, except that all the big cable companies are making bank on selling cellular service. They are the fastest growing MVNOs.

 

[dishdude]

Well, except that all the big cable companies are making bank on selling cellular service. They are the fastest growing MVNOs.

With the drop of them providing home internet service that will go away too. T-Mobile and Verizon are offering discounts for mobile customers.

 

[SamCdbs]

Yep. Cable companies are going to continue losing customers. At some point, they’ll decide cable TV isn’t worth the effort. Let’s face it, they don’t want to deal with negotiating carriage agreements (motivation enough to drop TV). As time goes, they’ll have less motivation to operate the cable co. Traditional cable will slowly wither as the cable companies focus on being an ISP. Nice margin.

Best case is these former cable cos (ISPs) will resell YouTube TV or DirecTV stream, at least for a while. Depends if the cable networks survive the withering. At some point, the number of cable networks will drop too low for this model to be viable.

Each major content producer (Disney, Paramount, NBC/Universal, etc) will have a streamer. These streamers will have “live” content. This may be the former cable network their parent used to sell to cable cos or virtual networks created for a spell. Live content will be something like the equivalent of Sirius XM. A number of full time themed channels and then they’ll stand up a few seasonal or special interest channels (like Sirius does with Holly at Christmas time or Billy Joel twice a year). These live channels will have commercials, and be the low priced (maybe free) tier on the streamer. This free tier will look a lot like free-to-air broadcast of yore. That model made money back in the day.

Maybe a couple of Pluto clones attain critical mass. You know, free (ad supported) channels made of ancient content, which is unwatchable because of all the commercials.

That is not far off, a vast wasteland of reruns, filler, and cheaply made and foreign content. With high costs for everyone, six or seven or eight bills per month (whether you pay them with green stamps or not).

The mistake is assuming that the major content producers will continue to produce content at a loss. They will not. And, since no one thing is popular enough to make a profit, the content will slowly decline. Reruns, cheaply made faux reality, documentaries, news commentary.

A vast wasteland.

 

[Bruce]

The mistake is assuming that the major content producers will continue to produce content at a loss. They will not. And, since no one thing is popular enough to make a profit, the content will slowly decline. Reruns, cheaply made faux reality, documentaries, news commentary.

Hard to believe there is a streaming service that puts out tons of new content and is profitable ( and I am quite happy to own shares of the company), I wonder what it is called….hmmm.

Not Hulu, which is also profitable, read that Paramount+ would have been profitable this year, but they took that 1.9 Billion dollar loss on shutting down Showtime, which they will claim on their taxes, so that kept them in the red.

So next year for them, Disney+ is also expected to be profitable next year, I believe it will be late 2024 or early 2025 before they are.

And once again, it took DirecTV 6 years to turn a profit, Dish 9 years.

Also do not start the infrastructure costs stuff again, streaming has tons of costs to start up, Disney buying BamTech alone was billions of dollar is just one example.

Making content is streaming’s infrastructure, DirecTV/Dish never had to produce content to attract subscribers, just pay the channels/broadcasters a per sub fee, which was pretty cheap back then compared to today.

 

[SamCdbs]

Netflix makes a profit.

It is, for the vast majority of its subscribers, what HBO was 20 years ago. A supplement.

Nothing else can, or ever will.

Of course, lets try again. In 2024 ____________ will be different and therefore people who currently have decided not be in the small streaming only minority, will choose to be, and thus make streaming profitable.

Fill in the blank.

 

[Ronnie-]

Nothing else can, or ever will.

You are correct, except for where you are wrong.

With the easily verifiable and often pointed out examples that are.

 

[meStevo]

It is, for the vast majority of its subscribers, what HBO was 20 years ago. A supplement.

Clipped out the trolling. As for this though - so what? Everything is. If I want to bundle services around a handful of others I can, if I want to just pay for a handful individually for a month or 6 or 12 I can and if I want to shut it all off I can. By virtue of it's unique benefits unrelated to video services Prime is the only service I am confident I'll have 12 months from now.

What I don't have is $50+ of arbitrary service fees paid to a middle man. I don't have to run those services on loaned hardware that has to be returned if I shut the service off for an undetermined amount of time. You might like that, but that's one of the things that has driven customers away by the millions and continues to do so.

In what year will the bleeding stop and what does the new normal look like for providers? You spend a lot of time criticizing and trolling, but you do nothing to make a case for what the new normal will look like for the foreseeable future.

 

[Bruce]

That is not far off, a vast wasteland of reruns, filler, and cheaply made and foreign content. With high costs for everyone, six or seven or eight bills per month (whether you pay them with green stamps or not).

By the way, noticed the dig at me for how I pay for TV services, amazing how you can sound so condescending towards someone being fiscally responsible.

 

[ncted]

With the drop of them providing home internet service that will go away too. T-Mobile and Verizon are offering discounts for mobile customers.

I personally don't expect the fixed wireless play by cellular providers to be a huge success in the long term. My parents tried Verizon's, and, even with "full signal" at their house, they only got about 50Mb down compared to the standard 300Mb from Spectrum (of which they only see about 110Mb). They cancelled after a couple weeks of sluggish Internet. 5G really only provides enough speed with mmWave frequencies which don't propagate far and don't pass through walls. Compared to a hardwired connection, it is going to suck in a majority of locations, especially for any household with children.

 

[SamCdbs]

Clipped out the trolling. As for this though - so what? Everything is. If I want to bundle services around a handful of others I can, if I want to just pay for a handful individually for a month or 6 or 12 I can and if I want to shut it all off I can. By virtue of it's unique benefits unrelated to video services Prime is the only service I am confident I'll have 12 months from now.

What I don't have is $50+ of arbitrary service fees paid to a middle man. I don't have to run those services on loaned hardware that has to be returned if I shut the service off for an undetermined amount of time. You might like that, but that's one of the things that has driven customers away by the millions and continues to do so.

In what year will the bleeding stop and what does the new normal look like for providers? You spend a lot of time criticizing and trolling, but you do nothing to make a case for what the new normal will look like for the foreseeable future.

Missed the answer to: In 2024 ____________ will be different and therefore people who currently have decided not be in the small streaming only minority, will choose to be, and thus make streaming profitable.

No one is "trolling" you or anyone else. You, and others, post a lot of really poorly thought out opinions, mostly based on a poor grasp of the entertainment industry. Pointing that out is not "trolling". It is contributing to the community. I have learned a LOT from other posters here over the years, mainly because I lack an agenda and do not ignore facts that would disprove said agenda. You might want to try that.

 

[Bruce]

I have learned a LOT from other posters here over the years, mainly because I lack an agenda and do not ignore facts that would disprove said agenda. You might want to try that.

And yet, you have not once presented any of those so called facts to disprove anything.