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Bally RSN owner Sinclair looking at bankruptcy

Mediafrog+ said:
One of baseball’s biggest problems is that the games are way too long. I’ve attended a few where the standard nine innings push four hours. Not a good thing, especially on a weeknight, and it makes for terrible television. At least MLB is aware of the issue and is instituting rule changes (such as the pitch clock) to speed up the game. When tested in the minor leagues the pitch clock whacked over 25 minutes from average game lengths.
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They can pay lip-service to long game times all they want, but the problem is clear: Too many commercials between innings and pitcher changes. Unless that's cut, it's status quo. Fox, ESPN, and the RSNs will never allow that to happen, so we're stuck with 3+ hour games.
 
KeithE4 said:
They can pay lip-service to long game times all they want, but the problem is clear: Too many commercials between innings and pitcher changes. Unless that's cut, it's status quo. Fox, ESPN, and the RSNs will never allow that to happen, so we're stuck with 3+ hour games.
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I take issue with the idea that there are "too many commercials." There are as many commercials as it takes to pay the rights fee and associated costs without passing more of that cost on to subscribers. I remember paying $5 a month for my RSN. That wasn't so long ago. It's twice that now. If the teams and leagues want to cut fees to media, then we can talk about cutting commercials. There are a lot of groups involved. Nobody ever offers to cut prices. If they don't, we don't.
 
TheBigA said:
I take issue with the idea that there are "too many commercials." There are as many commercials as it takes to pay the rights fee and associated costs without passing more of that cost on to subscribers. I remember paying $5 a month for my RSN. That wasn't so long ago. It's twice that now. If the teams and leagues want to cut fees to media, then we can talk about cutting commercials. There are a lot of groups involved. Nobody ever offers to cut prices. If they don't, we don't.
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It’s not the amount of commercials, it’s that the sport was never built to support in-game advertising to such a magnitude (some ball parks didn’t even have advertising signs until the 1950s, Shibe/Connie Mack Park might have been the last holdout). Thus, there was never a need for time limits on pitch counts, etc., up to now.
 
KeithE4 said:
They can pay lip-service to long game times all they want, but the problem is clear: Too many commercials between innings and pitcher changes. Unless that's cut, it's status quo. Fox, ESPN, and the RSNs will never allow that to happen, so we're stuck with 3+ hour games.
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That problem may be clear to you, but it is also bogus.

The number of adverts between innings in regular-season games has remained the same for years, while average game time has climbed. The average time for a nine inning game first reached three hours in 2014, and peaked at 3:12 in 2021.

I've worked for a radio affiliate of an MLB club that entire time, and I can assure you the amount of advertising time between innings has not increased. The number of pitching changes is up slightly (approximately 0.6 per team per game), although that includes pitching changes which coincide with an inning ending, not necessarily a spot for me to sell more commercials.

We can compare 2013 (average game time 2:55) to 2021. Time of game is up 7%, number of pitches is up 3%, and seconds per pitch is up 6%. Advertising time between innings is actually down 7%.

EDIT: And I should add, game time is up 50 minutes from 1975. Even if you assume there were zero ads in baseball in '75, the math doesn't work out.
 
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Don CT said:
It’s the pace of play that has slowed down. Not commercial time.
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Absolutely. And everyone complains about baseball's pace when the average football game -- pro or college -- runs about a half-hour longer, with just as much dead time between most plays, and no one seems to mind except the short-attention-span millennials and younger who are watching all traditional team sports less.

There's a YouTube user who has an account called "This is Where You Find Baseball" that has a huge, and ever growing, collection of ordinary regular season games dating back to the mid-1980s. Watch a few of these games and you'll quickly see just how much sludge has built up in the Grand Old Game in recent years.

 
CTListener said:
Absolutely. And everyone complains about baseball's pace when the average football game -- pro or college -- runs about a half-hour longer, with just as much dead time between most plays, and no one seems to mind except the short-attention-span millennials and younger who are watching all traditional team sports less.
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Football and baseball are not exactly a good apples/apples comparison. The pace of the games are different, the excitement levels depending on the teams, the way the quarters and halftime are timed out are different than baseball's innings, etc., but the biggest striking difference is that most college football schedules only contain about a dozen regular season games. Most NFL pre-season and regular season schedules contain about 20 games. On the other hand, the regular baseball season is 162 games long, sometimes with teams having a game sometimes nearly every night of the week for months. Again, that's a lot for both fans and networks to commit to with life's pace in 2023 IMO.
 
Baseball was built for radio. Put the game on and use it as background noise. Or in the car. It works for TV but it’s great on radio.
 
Mikey Radio said:
Football and baseball are not exactly a good apples/apples comparison. The pace of the games are different, the excitement levels depending on the teams, the way the quarters and halftime are timed out are different than baseball's innings, etc., but the biggest striking difference is that most college football schedules only contain about a dozen regular season games. Most NFL pre-season and regular season schedules contain about 20 games. On the other hand, the regular baseball season is 162 games long, sometimes with teams having a game sometimes nearly every night of the week for months. Again, that's a lot for both fans and networks to commit to with life's pace in 2023 IMO.
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Good points. And I forgot to mention that football has about 20 minutes of pure tedium baked into every game in which no game action at all happens -- halftime. During the overlap season (September), halftime is when I switch to a baseball game and sometimes never return to the football game.
 
Don CT said:
Baseball was built for radio. Put the game on and use it as background noise. Or in the car. It works for TV but it’s great on radio.
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Radio broadcasts are easier to have in-game sponsorships “the Ford Home Run Payoff Inning”, “the AT&T call to the Bullpen”, “another Denny’s Grand Slam home run”, etc. When done right, they can be extremely creative and not obtrusive or detrimental to the listening experience.
 
Nathan Obral said:
Radio broadcasts are easier to have in-game sponsorships “the Ford Home Run Payoff Inning”, “the AT&T call to the Bullpen”, “another Denny’s Grand Slam home run”, etc. When done right, they can be extremely creative and not obtrusive or detrimental to the listening experience.
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My favorite is the Makers Mark Bourbon "Bottom of the Fifth" on Cincinnati Reds radio. Also, the Minnesota Lottery has (or used to have; I haven't listened to many Twins games lately) a sponsorship known as the "Seventh Inning Scratch" in the middle of the seventh inning on Twins radio in which a bunch of lottery tickets are given away to a listener.

Way back in the infancy of sponsored baseball bits, People Express Airlines used to sponsor the three run-downs of scores from around baseball during each Mets radio broadcast. The scores would be followed by a live read that went "The out-of-town scoreboard is brought to you by People Express ... People Express: We get you out of town for less!"
 
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nomadcowatbk said:
Many students leave college FB in the 4th quarter even in places like Alabama
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If the game’s a 66-7 blowout and your team is decisively in the lead, you’re less likely to want to stay in a stadium for over four hours. I’ve seen that when having attended games at Ohio Stadium that become blowouts, and yes, I usually stick it out to the very end.
 
CTListener said:
Bally Sports RSNs go live on Fubo today
cordcuttersnews.com

Bally Sports RSNs Are Now Live on fuboTV | Cord Cutters News

Back in December 2022, fuboTV announced that the regional sports network (RSN) Bally Sports would be joining its lineup. Now after a long wait, sports fans will be able to watch their favorite MLB, NBA, and NHL teams on Bally Sports, to name a few. Update Cord Cutters News has confirmed that...
cordcuttersnews.com cordcuttersnews.com
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Dude that was 3 days ago when they went live
 
ShawnHill1 said:
The bankruptcy (Chapter 11) of Diamond Sports Group (AKA Bally Sports) could come to be as soon as sometime within the next week...

www.sportico.com

Diamond RSNs Planning Bankruptcy in Blow to Lucrative Cable Model

The Bally Sports RSNs are planning to declare bankruptcy next week, according to sources, a move with major consequences across U.S. sports.
www.sportico.com www.sportico.com
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From the article in the link you posted:
Diamond Sports Group, a collection of 19 regional sports networks (RSNs) doing business as Bally Sports, is planning to file for bankruptcy next week, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The group currently controls the local broadcast rights to more than 40 teams in the NBA, NHL and MLB, and its bankruptcy would be a significant blow to the cable network model that has lucratively buoyed U.S. sports for the past 50 years.
Diamond is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group (Nasdaq: SBGI), which bought the RSNs in a debt-heavy $9.6 billion deal back in 2019. Since then, it has struggled to right the business as consumers rush to abandon cable and Diamond struggles to define its digital future.
The group has $140 million in interest payments due next week. Instead of meeting them, it is planning to file Chapter 11 next week.
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Both our NBA and MLB teams are broadcast almost exclusively on Bally Sports, which we get via Comcast / Xfinity. I guess next season we may be stuck paying for a streaming service to catch the games? On the flip side, our cable bill has risen $30/month over the past 2 years, so if Bally Sports goes away or becomes a subcription-only streamer, that may push us over the edge and cause us to (finally) cut the cord.
 
Mikey Radio said:
Both our NBA and MLB teams are broadcast almost exclusively on Bally Sports, which we get via Comcast / Xfinity.
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Based on what I saw with previous radio Chap 11s, all of the sports contracts will be voided and renegotiated, usually at the same rate, unless it's deemed by the court to be a bad deal that wouldn't be wise to continue. I imagine if that happens, the team is free to negotiate with another similar company, such as NBC Sports or Root. Or perhaps Comcast will get into that business.
 
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