RSN Channels
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Sport broadcasts ain't cheap. Someone had to pay for those high salaries, I prefer it to be not me
That's part of the negotiations currently on hold while Sinclair sorts out their ransomware issues.
Finally a thread about RSN's.
I’m a old-new guy coming back to dish, they were on there when I last left (5 years ago) haha.
Maybe you’ll be the lucky charm that brings them back….
We can only hope lol!
My Dish contract runs out next month, so I'm exploring options (including streaming) as alternatives. The only ones that offer RSNs (at least for where I live) are DirecTV and DirecTV stream. For DirecTV, you are charged a monthly $7.37 "regional sports fee." There are no real "deals" to change. I looks like I'd pay about what I'm paying now with Dish with DirecTV and then the price goes up after one year.
The high player salaries has very little to do with high cost of sports broadcasts. The popularity/viewer ship (demand) of sports broadcasts is what drives the cost. Ownership of a sports team is going to try to maximize their income from selling the rights to broadcast their games regardless of their overall costs including player salaries. There is obviously competition from various distributors like Sinclair to purchase the rights to broadcast sports team's games. No competent business or business owner is going to take less for the product regardless of their cost to produce their product (player salaries), all else being equal. This is basic economics which is surprising how so many don't understand.
Plus with DISH you will have better equipment.
I wish they’d just out the RSNs back on and local channel 10.
The viewership of RSN's is low and certainly does not justify the high cost of re transmission rights. This is one reason why Rupert Murdoch unloaded the RSN's upon Disney, and Disney was required to sell them off if Disney wanted the Fox purchase to be approved while alowing Disney to keep ESPN. Huh, even Disney choose the ESPN(s) over the RSN's, and that says a lot about how Disney saw RSN's as not having superior value.
On the other hand, Rupert did keep his general sports channels (Fox 1 and 2) that broadcast multiple teams and sports because they, like ESPN, have higher viewership and play some of the bigger games that can justify the cost of those channels retransmission rights.
Sports fans are loud and make their presence known, but they are a minority of the US population: most people in the USA do not watch nor care about sports. However, many non-sports folks becomes a fair weather local sports fans for play-off parties and everyone, it seems, throws a Super Bowl party and tunes-in to the Rose Bowl for a while, but outside of that, the RSN's want too much money for too little sports content for too few people.
Did not YTTV dump the RSN's, too? I don't know if they are back on YTTV, but it illustrates the point that even the filthy rich Google/Alphabet didn't want to pay that much for RSN's either. Charlie Ergen said a long time ago that "someone" was going to go without the RSN's. Dish was the first, then followed by YTTV. Ergen really does have good vision of the future of the MVPD business. He even predicted cable and sat cos. were gonna lose customers long before they did.
On the other hand, Rupert did keep his general sports channels (Fox 1 and 2) that broadcast multiple teams and sports because they, like ESPN, have higher viewership and play some of the bigger games that can justify the cost of those channels retransmission rights.
Sports fans are loud and make their presence known, but they are a minority of the US population: most people in the USA do not watch nor care about sports. However, many non-sports folks becomes a fair weather local sports fans for play-off parties and everyone, it seems, throws a Super Bowl party and tunes-in to the Rose Bowl for a while, but outside of that, the RSN's want too much money for too little sports content for too few people.
Did not YTTV dump the RSN's, too? I don't know if they are back on YTTV, but it illustrates the point that even the filthy rich Google/Alphabet didn't want to pay that much for RSN's either. Charlie Ergen said a long time ago that "someone" was going to go without the RSN's. Dish was the first, then followed by YTTV. Ergen really does have good vision of the future of the MVPD business. He even predicted cable and sat cos. were gonna lose customers long before they did.
- Nov 29, 2003
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Actually, Disney really wanted to keep the RSN’s, you are correct that they were forced to sell as a condition of the purchase of 20th Century Fox.
If Disney was able to keep them, things might be a little different, they could still be on Dish, Disney still has a lot of power in the pay TV world, look at the money they get for ESPN, a channel I might watch once or twice a year.
but can Charlie really fight off the RSN's when they get forced into the contacts for local channels? And if some takes an big channel like TNT, TBS, USA, HGTV, Etc and forces local RSN's to be part of them?
also ESPN is getting to HBO like cost levels and like HBO they have 4-5 channels as part of the ESPN package.
- Nov 29, 2003
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Actually, I believe ESPN costs more because they charge separately for each channel, ESPN is one per sub fee and ESPN 2 is another per sub fee.
Sorry, I must disagree. Disney was in the position having to sell the RSN's, and so, like any good home owner trying to sell house of horrors, will gladly make statements and moves that indicate that the entity for sale is worth more than it really is for the best possible price. To my recollection, there were reported a number of Fox holdings and real-estate that Disney did NOT want as part of the purchase of most of Fox. Among them were the 20th Century lot in Century City (that sits GREATLY unused compared to the beehive of activity on that lot before the sale to Disney) and for which Disney pays Fox to lease back, and other former Fox holdings that include the RSN's. Disney is a shrewd company, better managed under Iger who agreed to the purchase of junk among jewels, than the current brute in charge.
One must also consider that the equally shrewd Fox under Rupert Murdoch, would not agree to any deal unless Disney took off Murdoch's hands the assets that were now more junk than the diamond vault of content. Murdoch gladly bid "so long" to the troublesome RSN's. Rupert Murdoch kept all the real money makers for Fox such as his local stations group, Fox News, FS1 and FS2, etc. On that fact alone, one has to consider the savvy of Fox requiring the RSN's also be bought by Disney: the RSN's were not worth Fox keeping and found someone upon whom to unload it; RSN's aren't what they used to be.
Fox was in the "cat birds' seat" on this deal--NOT Disney. But it was worth every penny for Disney to buy the Fox junk, such as the useless and now barely populated Fox Studios lot for which Disney pays Fox a lease-back, that would net Disney the Fox voluminous library of films and TV series to provide much needed additional "mature" content for its Disney+ as well as Fox's stake in Hulu (giving Disney majority control of Hulu) that gives Disney an additional streaming service that Disney can leverage, with its now significant amount of content outside of Disney+. Fox was clearly transitioning to a slimmer broadcast and linear TV company, while Disney was going deep into becoming more of a streaming content player with gobs of content to provide while holding on to its broadcast and linear TV channels.
IMHO, RSN's make NO SENSE to Disney's new path in viewable entertainment. Fox even lost some of the RSN's it once had. It was clear RSN's had seen its day and looking at the current problems the new RSN owners had and still have in getting the most money for its debt at purchase of RSN's, it sure looks like Rupert Murdoch and Bob Iger knew what they were doing in NOT keeping RSN's--in the case of Disney they choose ESPN's over RSN's in the choice the Justice Department gave Disney, but I don't think Disney every wanted the RSN's, anyway. All they really wanted was the vault of content and nothing else.
Now if RSN try $10-$15/mo (price may vary per market?) and let direct / dish / others sell them like ANY Other Premium (this is how some RSN stated out) and as an Premium then cable co must let you buy them at the lowest level limited basic package.
Maybe selling the channels as an pay cable channel can work or even as ATSC 3.0 PAY channel (this is how some of the RSN stated out in non cable citys)
Now let's just say that some team push an antitrust case and they win the right to market there own feeds with no black outs to any one in the USA then pay RSN can even get people who live out of market but want there TEAM's feed at all times not just there call but all the other pre / post / other stuff as well.
Maybe selling the channels as an pay cable channel can work or even as ATSC 3.0 PAY channel (this is how some of the RSN stated out in non cable citys)
Now let's just say that some team push an antitrust case and they win the right to market there own feeds with no black outs to any one in the USA then pay RSN can even get people who live out of market but want there TEAM's feed at all times not just there call but all the other pre / post / other stuff as well.
sound like MSG all over again, I still waiting for the to comeback, but then again it be 10+ years so i highly doubt it will
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