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AT&T SportsNet falls short on Payments to sports teams

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

www.post-gazette.com

AT&T SportsNet reportedly falls short in payment to Pirates, could be in distress

The television home of the Pirates and Penguins appears to be in some trouble. Sportico reported Tuesday that Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company...
www.post-gazette.com www.post-gazette.com

This RSN is also reporting that they are falling short on payments to teams like the Pittsburgh Pirates in this article.

Sportico reported Tuesday that Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, fell short of paying its full obligation to the local baseball team this week, amid industry-wide issues with the regional sports network model.


“An executive with direct knowledge of the RSNs’ financial dealings confirmed to Sportico that the AT&T outlets in Denver, Houston and Pittsburgh submitted their most recent rights payments to their MLB clubs in a timely fashion, although the disbursements were not commensurate with the contracted rates,” Sportico reporter Anthony Crupi wrote. “The teams impacted by the shortfall are the Colorado Rockies, Houston Astros and Pittsburgh Pirates
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The story notes that full payment isn't due until the start of baseball season in about 6 weeks. If they haven't paid up by then, the question becomes whether the teams will force AT&T SportsNet into involuntary bankruptcy.
 
If they declare Bankruptcy, it will be a Chapter 7 - All four are closing Shop!

cordcuttersnews.com

AT&T SportsNet RSNs Will Soon Shutdown Warner Bros. Discovery Tells Teams | Cord Cutters News

For a few weeks now, we have been hearing about how regional sports networks (RSNs) are struggling. Bally Sports is about to declare bankruptcy and now we learned that Warner Bros. Discovery will soon shut down. According to a report from Sports Business Journal, Warner Bros. Discovery has told...
cordcuttersnews.com cordcuttersnews.com
 
Well, that answers my question from last week rather definitively.

Got to think this will be only the first of several dominoes.
 
Don CT said:
How many teams can support owning their own network. I just see the big markets being able to do it.
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What's the point of owning a network when only 1 in 3 adults under age 40 has a cable subscription?

They need a whole new model.
 
It'll be interesting to watch it play out, as there are still several weeks left in the NBA and NHL regular seasons, and MLB spring training "officially" began today.

As I mentioned in the thread about the looming Bally Sports bankruptcy, if that happens, it makes our decision to cut the cord and dump cable a much easier one. We receive both Bally Sports RSN channels that are available here as part of our Comcast/Xfinity package. One of those RSNs carries our NBA team and the other our MLB franchise. If RSNs go bye bye and the only option to watch games becomes to pay for a streaming service to watch the games, we'll definitely subscribe, but unless our Comcast bill is reduced as a result, which won't happen, the decision to dump them becomes an easier one for us.

Just sucks for older folks who are die-hard viewers, as they either need to figure out how to stream the games and potentially buy the equipment required to enable them to do so, or they lose a big part of their almost daily routines during the season.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
I know what you mean whenever we talk about sports broadcasting contracts it's by league contracts.
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No. The deals the RSNs have are made by individual clubs., not the leagues.

The local/regional deals are subject to national rights, so a handful of Pirates games will be seen on Peacock or FS1 instead of their RSN.
 
i think we might be heading to a new era of sports on TV where all games from NBA, NHL, and MLB are streamed from either ESPN+, Apple TV+, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video or HBOMax (in the case of HBOMax & ESPN+, it would expand upon it's current broadcast rights deals for all 3 sports, Peacock may become a MLB RSN replacement).

but i wonder if Comcast gonna bail out the struggling RSNs they don't own ands buy them out and add more NBC Sports Network RSNs.
 
Will_H_69_9 said:
i think we might be heading to a new era of sports on TV where all games from NBA, NHL, and MLB are streamed from either ESPN+, Apple TV+, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video or HBOMax (in the case of HBOMax & ESPN+, it would expand upon it's current broadcast rights deals for all 3 sports, Peacock may become a MLB RSN replacement).
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I'm not sure if this would actually happen, but personally I'd be happy to buy a subscription to one of those services if it meant I'd have a "1 stop shop" for every regular season game. As it is, most of our team's games are on our RSN, but some are streaming only (I think a selection of Sunday and maybe some Thursday games), and others get picked up by national networks like ESPN.
Will_H_69_9 said:
but i wonder if Comcast gonna bail out the struggling RSNs they don't own ands buy them out and add more NBC Sports Network RSNs.
Click to expand...
I'm guessing no, as Comcast is already hurting with all the cord cutting that's happening, while their costs constantly increase as they upgrade to new and better technologies, etc. If the RSNs are having such a struggle financially trying to carry all the NBA, NHL and MLB teams' games in many markets, Comcast may see that as a financial gamble or burden they don't want. That would be UNLESS they maybe saw it as a viable way of getting customers to commit to Comcast/Xfinity, or bringing back customers who've left. Keep in mind that once you have a Comcast TV subscription, you can watch in many ways - a traditional TV/CATV box, or you can also log into your account via a laptop, smartphone or tablet and stream from anywhere.
 
Will_H_69_9 said:
i think we might be heading to a new era of sports on TV where all games from NBA, NHL, and MLB are streamed from either ESPN+, Apple TV+, Peacock, Amazon Prime Video or HBOMax (in the case of HBOMax & ESPN+, it would expand upon it's current broadcast rights deals for all 3 sports, Peacock may become a MLB RSN replacement).

but i wonder if Comcast gonna bail out the struggling RSNs they don't own ands buy them out and add more NBC Sports Network RSNs.
Click to expand...
That would be way to expensive to accomplish.

The local teams are going to each ask for top dollar.
 
I think only a handful of MLB, NHL, and NBA teams have any local over the air TV coverage, and in all likelihood, only a few games in each case are on broadcast TV.

Could broadcast TV make a comeback as regards local professional sports?

On the one hand, it would get games out there to viewers.

But on the other hand, the reason most MLB, NHL, and NBA teams abandoned local broadcast TV in the past 10-20 years was that regional sports networks had a dual revenue stream (revenue from commercial spots and fees from cable companies) and could afford to outbid broadcast TV stations for rights, and win rights to a team's entire schedule (other than nationally televised games).

In some (but not too many cases), a regional cable sports network is owned by teams whose games are carried by that network. For example, the Boston Red baseball team is a part owner of the New England Sports Network, which carries their games. From NESN's founding in 1984 until 2005, NESN split the local Red Sox TV schedule with an over the air TV station (WSBK-38 for most of that time), with the number of games on NESN gradually increasing over the years and the number of games on broadcast TV gradually decreasing during that time.

In 2005, WSBK carried around 30 games, while NESN carried about 120 games (the other 12 or so games were national telecasts on either Fox or ESPN). But in 2006, the Red Sox decided to move those 30 or so games to NESN because, as part owner of the network, the team would make more money keeping those 30 games on NESN than selling rights for those games to a local TV station.

That's probably also the case for team-owned RSN's.

Could we end up seeing more team-owned RSN's?
 
tvnewscheck.com

MLB Sets Up Local Media Group, Could Broadcast 17 Teams

Major League Baseball added three executives to its new local media department as it prepares for a possible takeover of local broadcasts for 17 teams amid the financial deterioration of the Bally and AT&T SportsNet regional sports networks. Doug Johnson was hired as senior vice president and...
tvnewscheck.com tvnewscheck.com

Here is more on the MLB and the future of local TV broadcasts for MLB games.

Major League Baseball added three executives to its new local media department as it prepares for a possible takeover of local broadcasts for 17 teams amid the financial deterioration of the Bally and AT&T SportsNet regional sports networks.

Doug Johnson was hired as senior vice president and executive producer of local media, Greg Pennell as senior vice president of local media and Kendall Burgess as vice president of local media technical operations, the commissioner’s office said Wednesday.

“These new hires are an important step in our preparation to address the changing landscape of MLB game distribution in light of the increasing challenges and pressure facing regional sports networks,” MLB chief revenue officer Noah Garden said in a statement.
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