May 4, 2020
Name checks out, date checks out, meme checks out.
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Name checks out, date checks out, meme checks out.
That feeling when you start watching a new show and you don’t know who’s who yet or what the hell is going on.
omg gr8 name and cosplay!!
Main Street Sports Group is officially dissolving in two weeks, sources told SBJ Thursday, while Main Street’s 13 NBA teams were informed in
Tom Friend at SBJ:
Main Street Sports Group will officially wind down after the first round of the NHL playoffs, SBJ learned Thursday, while sources said Main Street’s 13 NBA teams were informed in a league call Wednesday that they will likely be reimbursed some portion of this year’s lost rights fee payments. The development is a prelude to seismic change in the local TV industry, with the NBA, for instance, telling the Hawks, Hornets, Cavaliers, Pistons, Pacers, Clippers, Grizzlies, Heat, Bucks, T’Wolves, Thunder, Magic and Spurs that they can begin signing new in-market deals for the 2026-27 season, which is tantamount to a free-for-all.
For linear -- where the rights fees will likely be under $10M annually -- many of those teams could either switch to local over-the-air channels or their own in-house networks, such as the Cavaliers’ Rock Entertainment Sports Network. For streaming (and even linear, as well), the NBA is urging teams to sign one-year deals or packages with at least a one-year exit clause, in the event the league does not launch a national streaming platform until the 2027-28 season. But sources said there is a sense multiple teams could shift to a streaming-only template for next season with platforms such as DAZN or Victory+ -- which would be a first for NBA teams.
While it was almost a forgone conclusion for months, Main Street’s lenders on Thursday officially signed the paperwork to wind down the business -- for the NBA on the last day of its regular season April 12 and for the NHL after any of its seven teams (theHurricanes, Blue Jackets, Red Wings, Kings, Wild, Predators and Blues) finish the first round of the playoffs. The NHL opening round is expected to begin April 18, with all of the best of seven series likely to end by the end of the month or conceivably early May. As a result, sources said many Main Street staff members have either already left or are staying through April 15 because they have retainer bonuses coming their way. A skeleton crew is expected to remain through May 15, those same sources said.
In a statement to SBJ, a Main Street Sports Group spokesperson said: “FanDuel Sports Network has reached agreements with the NBA and NHL to broadcast games and other programming through the end of the 2026 NBA regular season and the end of the first round of the NHL playoffs. We are preparing to wind down our operations upon seasons’ end unless we reach a strategic transaction. We’re pleased to finish out the NBA and NHL seasons, and we appreciate the collaborative relationships we have enjoyed with our team and league partners as well as the connections we have fostered with local fans.”
[...] In the interim, until the streaming hub materializes, the possibilities are intriguing. Sources said multiple NBA teams are considering a 2026-27 local TV blueprint that would have them streaming their games only -- without an over-the-air linear option. Teams such as the NHL’s Stars and Ducks have already gone the streaming-only route through Victory+, but no NBA team has yet to dive in.
Main Street Sports Group, the owners of the various regional FanDuel Sports Networks, will be shutting its doors in full in late April/early May, when the 1st round of the NHL Playoffs will end.
As for the St. Louis Blues, which streaming/DTC and/or OTA options should they consider? I’d anticipate keeping Matrix Midwest/KMOV for OTA, and maybe either join forces with the Cardinals to be produced by MLB Local Media (à la Red Wings), go to Victory+ (like they’ve done for preseason games), or a new streamer.
The Cards have already vacated FDSN Midwest for Cardinals.TV.
V Don crazy for dat “RSNS” (RealStreetNiggaShit) production for Boldy James! 🔥 💎 😂 💯 ‼️
Boldy James & V Don - RSNS (Official Music Video)
Diamond Sports Group appears poised to grant one of Major League Baseball’s fondest wishes. MLB has been adamant that it needs more clarity
David Satin at The Streamable:
Diamond Sports Group appears poised to grant one of Major League Baseball’s fondest wishes. MLB has been adamant that it needs more clarity from Diamond regarding plans to continue broadcasting baseball clubs in the 2025 season and beyond, and on Wednesday that clarity was granted. A new report indicates that Diamond has informed the court in which its bankruptcy proceedings are playing out that it intends to drop all MLB contracts but one in its attempts to reorganize and emerge from Chapter 11 protections.
The news that Diamond was willing to drop its MLB contracts was first broken by Sportico reporter Anthony Crupi, who posted on X (the social media site formerly called Twitter) that the broadcaster had declared its intentions to move on from most MLB clubs in bankruptcy court. It means that, presumably starting in 2025 Bally Sports-branded regional sports networks will no longer carry teams like the Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals. The only team that will be retained by Diamond is the Atlanta Braves, who play on Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast. The team does not play on the Bally Sports streaming service Bally Sports+. The news that Bally Sports channels will no longer carry their partner MLB teams is likely a source of great relief to baseball officials. In early September, MLB attorney James Bromley said that the league reserved the right to object to Diamond’s bankruptcy reorganization plan if it didn’t get clarity on the company’s intentions for 2025 and beyond soon.
A nuclear bomb has been dropped in the RSN world, as Diamond Sports Group will drop all MLB contracts other than the Braves. DSG could get a few of the dropped contracts back at lower rates.
As for the Cardinals, they are likely headed to a DTC model, per The Athletic's Katie Woo.
The bankruptcy declaration by Diamond Sports Group almost a year ago has forced MLB to envision a new model for broadcasts and distribution.
Hannah Keyser at Yahoo! Sports:
The sports broadcast model is mired in a protracted moment of flux. For baseball, the impact came for two teams already this past season. Nearly half the league could be affected as soon as next year, and for 11 of those teams, the uncertainty hangs over their offseason. Rather than resist this change, Major League Baseball is prepared to embrace what the league believes could be a brighter future, with the current changes paling in comparison to an overhaul of the sport’s economic structure.
The long-lucrative regional sports network is collapsing under the shift of television viewing away from mass cable packages, through which non-sports viewers subsidized some portion of the high cost of carrying live sports that teams charged distributors. Cord-cutting and more a la carte options have been looming issues for baseball teams for a while now, as teams benefited generously from the previous model. The exclusive rights to air local baseball games were such a priority for distributors that they were prepared to pay handsomely — with local media revenue accounting for an average of 23% of teams’ total revenue, by far the largest portion for any major sports league. The bankruptcy declaration by Diamond Sports Group almost a year ago forced the issue to the forefront of the baseball world. DSG, a subsidiary of Sinclair that owns Bally Sports Network, was responsible for the broadcasts of 14 MLB teams. Last summer, they stopped paying the rights fees to two of them, the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, forcing MLB to step in and take over those broadcasts with almost no notice.
As part of that process, the league was able to make Padres’ and D-backs’ games available in market through MLB.tv. The league’s streaming subscriptions are a technological feat that have long irked fans because they're riddled with blackouts. Cord-cutters can watch any and every game — except those of their local team(s). The blackouts are the result of the exclusivity agreements RSNs secure in return for the sometimes billion-dollar rights fees. But with those deals broken, MLB was able to make the Padres’ and D-backs’ games available both on linear TV and streaming in market. Although quite literally a stopgap step taken to ensure that San Diego and Arizona fans would not be left totally in the dark, that setup is what MLB would like to recreate across baseball. In the interim, that means MLB funneling local revenue to teams through their own distribution systems. But as part of the ultimate end goal, according to people with knowledge of the league’s thinking, all media revenue would be centralized and distributed more equally, leveling the payroll disparity that is believed to be a detriment to baseball reaching its full business potential.
MLB had seen the writing on the wall for years — dating back to when Sinclair purchased the slate of RSNs from Fox in 2019 — and had been preparing since late 2022 for the possibility that DSG would not be able to fulfill its contracts in 2023. That involved building out a local media department, which was pressed into action first in late May and then in mid-July to take over broadcasts for the Padres and Diamondbacks. For the remainder of the season, those teams’ games were available on linear cable television in their home markets as well as direct-to-consumer via MLB.tv in the same market at $19.99 per month or $74.99 for the remaining Padres games and $54.99 for the remaining D-backs games. As part of the bankruptcy proceedings in court, commissioner Rob Manfred guaranteed that the league would cover 80% of the money those teams were due to receive from DSG. The revenue from both the linear distribution deals struck by MLB and the MLB.tv streaming subscriptions went to the league and was then part of the 80% subsidy delivered to the teams. According to someone with direct knowledge of the situation, the league took a small loss as part of fulfilling that guarantee. When the season ended, the Minnesota Twins’ deal with DSG expired, putting them in the same boat as the Padres and Diamondbacks. That leaves 11 teams still in contract with DSG: the Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers. Reportedly, the Guardians and Rangers are most in danger of being dropped next. What happens with those broadcast deals will be decided in bankruptcy court. MLB is pushing for clarity as quickly as possible, while DSG has repeatedly requested an extension to deliver an answer. Recently, the league filed a motion requesting the court to force DSG to decide which contracts they’re going to continue to honor — at least through 2024, if not beyond — and which they will reject. That motion is scheduled to be heard Dec. 15.
[...] Instead, the economics will function as follows: Teams that do not have other RSN deals will be part of MLB Media. The league will broker a deal with local cable distributors, sell advertising against those games and give the advertising money back to the team. Those teams’ games will also be available direct-to-consumer through MLB.tv, as was the case for the Padres and D-backs last year. Revenue from out-of-market subscriptions will belong centrally to the league, as it always has, but in-market subscriptions and in-market advertising revenue will go to the local clubs.
[...] Eventually, MLB would like to have both national and local broadcast revenue run through the league’s media departments. That would be a significant change for a sport that has long been defined by the differing behavior of big markets and small markets and in which the value of the local broadcasts has been a major source of that disparity. Even as an aspiration, it bears paying attention to. How the league navigates from now to that version of the future — and how it strategizes around the predictable resistance from big-market owners, who presumably won’t want to see the payroll playing field leveled — will dominate the business of baseball for years to come. Ultimately, MLB believes even the still-lucrative iterations of RSNs are a sinking ship, and teams will have to embrace the league’s plans for a digital-first future.
The rapid collapse of the RSNs will have impacts on the MLB, NHL, and NBA, but its biggest ones will be felt across MLB.