Bally's Bankruptcy

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PMWinSTP

PMWinSTP

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Literally predicted this when when they bought FSN and it got dropped from a lot of streaming platforms.
cordcuttersnews.com

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 cordcuttersnews.com
 



60's Guy said:
Why wouldn't the T Wolves and Twins form their own TV production companies?
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They tried that with Victory Sports a generation ago and it didn’t work so well. Practically the bankruptcy process will take too long for any material changes in broadcasting rights this season. I’m not sure what the value of their different entities are, but I would guess the BSN is more than most, so if they break up the company they will probably want to keep it in the reconfigured organization. Not hard to this coming.
 

Holy Man said:
They tried that with Victory Sports a generation ago and it didn’t work so well. Practically the bankruptcy process will take too long for any material changes in broadcasting rights this season. I’m not sure what the value of their different entities are, but I would guess the BSN is more than most, so if they break up the company they will probably want to keep it in the reconfigured organization. Not hard to this coming.
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You're correct. I don't recall any big company that they could sign on to carry their signal. Maybe one or two small services.
 




Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
Could this be a sign of what lies ahead for BTN?
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Not unless those who run BTN make stupid decisions on rights fees like Sinclair did. They paid too much for the stations assuming they could just pass it through to the platforms. Everyone has a breaking point. Ironically, they may have devalued their product by showing many of us, me included, that we can live without it. I’m not missing seeing any of the pro teams that rely on Bally.
 

I looked at my cable bill yesterday and my monthly cost for Regional Sports Fees is now more than $20 (this is Chicago-based), and with increasing rights fees that cost will continue to increase. That’s not sustainable, especially with more cord cutters (which I may be soon).
 



Yay! Sinclair...couldn't happen to a nicer company! Let's hope the bankruptcy judge forces them to make all their Bally creditors whole from the assets of the rest of Sinclair.

The Bally networks will end up sold to yet another corporate owner because live sports are still valuable TV property.

BTN and everything Gopher related should be fine but the Twins and Wild will feel it and it could hurt their payroll. The Timberwolves will also feel a monetary loss but they have already maxed out all their current and future resources to go .500 so it will have no competitive impact.
 

Sinclair paid too much to leagues and teams for the streaming rights and then charged too much for the APP.
Bankruptcy will only hurt the organizations that expected money for the rights to show their games.
I wish it did hurt Sinclair.
The BTN is not like Bally.
 





Yup. lots more about this on the Pro Sports page.

But the short version: Diamond Sports operates the RSN's (including Bally's Sports North) for Sinclair. Diamond is likely going to declare bankruptcy, and it's being reported that Diamond may refuse to make a $140-Million interest payment due in February. according to one report, Diamond has something like $580-Million cash on hand - but owes $2-Billion in rights fees to various MLB, NBA and NHL teams.

Bally's has been advertising its stand-alone $20/month streaming service - but as of right now, they do not have the rights to show Twins games.

where this all ends up is anyone's guess. and FWIW - the 2023 season is the last year of the Twins' contract with Bally's. so this really throws their future rights situation up in the air.
 


Plato said:
Sinclair paid too much to leagues and teams for the streaming rights and then charged too much for the APP.
Bankruptcy will only hurt the organizations that expected money for the rights to show their games.
I wish it did hurt Sinclair.
The BTN is not like Bally.
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They didn't have much streaming so that's part of the problem. Wanted too much for streaming rights and most services didn't bite.
 

Panthadad2 said:
I've watched the Twins maybe once or twice since they've been on Bally's. Neither my current Dish plan nor previous YouTubeTV plan carried it. It's sad that I don't miss them.
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While granted that NBA and NHL do it too .... it just strikes me as yet another, stupid way which baseball is different for no reason that benefits anyone other than the richest teams.

The Yankees very much enjoy be allowed to sell their rights directly to a special, regional cable network, instead of having to give their rights to the league to partner with national networks, which would mean more revenue sharing.

Regional networks for pro sports need to die off.
 

Gophers_4life said:
While granted that NBA and NHL do it too .... it just strikes me as yet another, stupid way which baseball is different for no reason that benefits anyone other than the richest teams.

The Yankees very much enjoy be allowed to sell their rights directly to a special, regional cable network, instead of having to give their rights to the league to partner with national networks, which would mean more revenue sharing.

Regional networks for pro sports need to die off.
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Get what you’re saying but it’s not as much about the networks as it is about league revenue sharing. Baseball won’t be competitive until revenue sharing happens. Fat chance the coasts ever agree to that.
 


60's Guy said:
ap-southeast-1.cubsinsider.com

New TV Deal Could Earn Cubs Additional $100 Million in Annual Revenue - Cubs Insider

As our own Evan Altman wrote yesterday, the Cubs confirmed their intentions to start their own television network at the conclusion of the 2019 season. The switch is expected to significantly increase team revenues and my estimates have that increase at about $90-100 million a year. The Cubs...
ap-southeast-1.cubsinsider.com ap-southeast-1.cubsinsider.com
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The Marquee Network alone costs me nearly $7/month as part of my Xfinity regional sports fees, no matter if I watch the Cubs or not (and given how crappy they’ve been in their rebuild, it’s mostly been not). And their non-game programming is awful, so there’s no reason to ever watch the network when there’s not a game, yet zero incentive for the Cubs to improve the product since their revenue stream is virtually guaranteed. And best for them, they keep all the money. MLB is bordering on becoming irrelevant.
 

according to my local cable TV provider, as of 2021, the provider was paying $10.64 a month per subscriber in fees to carry Fox Sports North - now Bally's. That is more than the fee they were paying for ESPN. and that money gets paid whether you watch the channel or not.

so, that is $127.68 a year that I am paying to BSN through my local cable TV provider.

to the best of my knowledge, the Twins receive $43-million a year from Bally's for the rights to broadcast Twins games. (near the bottom of MLB - only 5 or 6 teams are lower for local TV rights)
if every customer is paying the same rate as I am, BSN needs roughly 336,000 customers a year just to meet what they owe the Twins. and that does not consider what they owe the Wolves and the Wild, plus all the costs of production, pre and post-game shows, etc.

the point is - if Bally's goes away, it's not like some new, cheaper option is going to come along.

If you want Bally's - or whatever some new option is called - it's probably going to cost $15 to $20 a month. the only difference is that if it goes to a streaming option, you have the choice to pay it or not. right now, for people like me that still have traditional Cable TV, I'm paying for it whether I watch it or not.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
according to my local cable TV provider, as of 2021, the provider was paying $10.64 a month per subscriber in fees to carry Fox Sports North - now Bally's. That is more than the fee they were paying for ESPN. and that money gets paid whether you watch the channel or not.

so, that is $127.68 a year that I am paying to BSN through my local cable TV provider.

to the best of my knowledge, the Twins receive $43-million a year from Bally's for the rights to broadcast Twins games. (near the bottom of MLB - only 5 or 6 teams are lower for local TV rights)
if every customer is paying the same rate as I am, BSN needs roughly 336,000 customers a year just to meet what they owe the Twins. and that does not consider what they owe the Wolves and the Wild, plus all the costs of production, pre and post-game shows, etc.

the point is - if Bally's goes away, it's not like some new, cheaper option is going to come along.

If you want Bally's - or whatever some new option is called - it's probably going to cost $15 to $20 a month. the only difference is that if it goes to a streaming option, you have the choice to pay it or not. right now, for people like me that still have traditional Cable TV, I'm paying for it whether I watch it or not.
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What's your source for the $43 million figure?
 

PMWinSTP said:
What's your source for the $43 million figure?
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found an article online at a sports media site that listed the local TV revenue for all MLB teams. can't remember the name of the site, but I've seen similar info in other articles.

as far as I know, BSN is the only source of local TV revenue for the Twins, because they don't run games on any over-the-air channels the way they used to.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
found an article online at a sports media site that listed the local TV revenue for all MLB teams. can't remember the name of the site, but I've seen similar info in other articles.

as far as I know, BSN is the only source of local TV revenue for the Twins, because they don't run games on any over-the-air channels the way they used to.
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$250K+ per game seems high, but probably why they are going into bankruptcy. The fact that Sinclair couldn't come to agreement with the two largest streaming partners didn't help.
 

Bally's is currently running a replay of last night's Wild game. lol. Got to get better programming than that. Maybe they can get syndication rights for 'Coach' or something.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
according to my local cable TV provider, as of 2021, the provider was paying $10.64 a month per subscriber in fees to carry Fox Sports North - now Bally's. That is more than the fee they were paying for ESPN. and that money gets paid whether you watch the channel or not.

so, that is $127.68 a year that I am paying to BSN through my local cable TV provider.

to the best of my knowledge, the Twins receive $43-million a year from Bally's for the rights to broadcast Twins games. (near the bottom of MLB - only 5 or 6 teams are lower for local TV rights)
if every customer is paying the same rate as I am, BSN needs roughly 336,000 customers a year just to meet what they owe the Twins. and that does not consider what they owe the Wolves and the Wild, plus all the costs of production, pre and post-game shows, etc.

the point is - if Bally's goes away, it's not like some new, cheaper option is going to come along.

If you want Bally's - or whatever some new option is called - it's probably going to cost $15 to $20 a month. the only difference is that if it goes to a streaming option, you have the choice to pay it or not. right now, for people like me that still have traditional Cable TV, I'm paying for it whether I watch it or not.
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that is what it costs for us non-cablers, the Bally Sports app is $19.99/month, except I’ve heard it’s buggy and some folks haven’t been able to get it working at all

wish I could watch Wild hockey on ESPN+ but they black it out here in the Twin Cities due to BSN
 

Holy Man said:
Get what you’re saying but it’s not as much about the networks as it is about league revenue sharing. Baseball won’t be competitive until revenue sharing happens. Fat chance the coasts ever agree to that.
Click to expand...
The NFL would be an inferior product if each franchise was allowed to directly sell and negotiate the best deal it could for rights to its home games with whichever network, even one they created themselves, they wanted. And keep those profits to themself. Say except for one "national game of the week" that went out on broadcast, like the Sunday night game.

That's the MLB model. NHL and NBA would do well to get away from it, as MLS has chosen.
 

Gophers_4life said:
The NFL would be an inferior product if each franchise was allowed to directly sell and negotiate the best deal it could for rights to its home games with whichever network, even one they created themselves, they wanted. And keep those profits to themself. Say except for one "national game of the week" that went out on broadcast, like the Sunday night game.

That's the MLB model. NHL and NBA would do well to get away from it, as MLS has chosen.
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It's the schedule and shear number of games. MLS plays 34 regular season games over eight months, so basically once a week. Same with NFL, one game a week. MLB, NBA, NHL play a lot more games in the same amount of time or less. Way different model for figuring out broadcasting.
 

Gophers_4life said:
The NFL would be an inferior product if each franchise was allowed to directly sell and negotiate the best deal it could for rights to its home games with whichever network, even one they created themselves, they wanted. And keep those profits to themself. Say except for one "national game of the week" that went out on broadcast, like the Sunday night game.

That's the MLB model. NHL and NBA would do well to get away from it, as MLS has chosen.
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Disagree. Let's say each MLB team averages $75 million for their TV rights. That's $2.25 billion per year for the entire league. Apple TV is not paying $2.25 billion for exclusive rights to stream MLB the way they just acquired the MLS rights. It's a pond versus the ocean.
 

There was an article in the Pioneer Press stating that the Twins expect their games to be available this year. Dave St Peter was quoted and there also was a strange comment that the games would not be on the Bally streaming app. Overall the bankruptcy would be good to force the issue and develop a better solution. I suspect each sport will make their own deal.

Since this is a Gopher site I think that the Gophers need to work out a solution probably working with BTN to show games of interest such as all the hockey and volleyball games.
 

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