-
-
Re: ESPN Cleaning House
I was listening to an interview with Richard Dietsch and he speculates that Disney could get out from under the 1 Billion dollar MNF/NFL contract as a cost cutting move in light of this Fox deal. They would use the extra money to invest in the stacking and building of streaming services for the soon to be rebranded Fox Sports regional networks.Member of the Official OS Bills Backers Club
"Baseball is the most important thing that doesn't matter at all" - Robert B. ParkerComment
-
Re: ESPN Cleaning House
So from the Sports end of this deal, it's pretty much all about getting those Regional Sports Networks:
It’s official: Disney is acquiring most of 21st Century Fox’s film and television assets at a price that values the latter at $75 billion.
The deal includes a large portfolio of sports television assets: Sky Sports, Star Sports, and Fox’s 18 regional sports networks (RSNs) across America.
Disney paying for these TV assets is a sign that Disney CEO Bob Iger is doubling down on live sports television, rather than back away from it, as some analysts have suggested or predicted Disney might. And the local channels are a potential boon to ESPN.
Fox owns 22 regional sports networks (here’s its own list), each one pegged to a specific city, state, or region, with names like Fox Sports Kansas City, Fox Sports Oklahoma, SportsTime Ohio, and Fox Sports Midwest. They show the games of more than 44 MLB, NBA, and NHL teams and produce more than 5,500 live games per year. The most well-known among these channels: YES Network, jointly owned by Fox and the New York Yankees.
ESPN did not have RSNs before now. It’s about to get 22 of them. So while some analysts say this dumps too much of a burden on Disney—air time it will have to fill with programming—clearly Iger sees the value and has a plan for them. Many of these channels still get very high ratings, from fans that watch a high number of games per year of their local hometown team.
Expect Disney to swiftly rebrand the Fox RSNs as ESPN channels.
ESPN can use the RSNs to bring new life to the SportsCenter franchise, which it has sought to reinvent with digital-first “SportsCenter Right Now” segments, a Snapchat version of SportsCenter, and a new anchor lineup at a time when many sports fans no longer see the need to sit down and watch a full episode of SportsCenter when they can get news and scores on social media as it happens.
Imagine regional versions of SportsCenter, like a SportsCenter Tennessee that airs on the ESPN Tennessee channel, covering only news about the Titans, Grizzlies, Predators, Volunteers, and Commodores. And vice-versa: Disney can pull some of the local content from RSNs into national ESPN broadcasts.
In other words: this is a bet on local, live sports television, but it can also build the reach of ESPN.
John Ourand
✔
@Ourand_SBJ
Iger: "There will be a sharing of product so that we can infuse ESPN national with some more local content" and vice-a-versa. "The result will be that both will be better."
9:30 AM - Dec 14, 2017
3 3 Replies 12 12 Retweets 17 17 likes
ESPN and its rival Fox Sports 1 (which is not part of the deal) are losing cable subscribers due to cord-cutting: ESPN lost 100,000 of them in November, according to Nielsen data, and FS1 lost 199,000. And ESPN laid off 250 people this year.
To turn the business around, Disney plans an ESPN+ streaming service, to be built by MLBAM Tech, which Disney acquired in full this year, though the product will not have everything that airs on ESPN (a la HBO Go) but instead offer supplementary live sports content (think tennis and cricket).
The RSNs could feed at least some content to the ESPN+ streaming product, although there are obvious questions about how much content and what content, since ESPN can only stream the live sports content it has rights to, and the rights to the local games shown on the RSNs are tied up in years-long deals already.
Then there’s Sky and Star, big European sports channels that can help grow ESPN’s global footprint.
Many are questioning the logic of this move by Iger and Disney. It is a massive bet on cable television at a time when many consumers are ditching cable television. Iger appears to be thinking, ‘We’ve already got one foot in the television world, we might as well go all in.’
And maybe, in two years, people will look back on 2017 as the year that two big Disney acquisitions saved ESPN.#RespectTheCultureComment
-
Re: ESPN Cleaning House
Would be nice if we are a step closer to allowing streaming of local sports. Yes, I would pay ESPN to stream their content if it added the Cardinals and Blues games that I cannot get now without Fox Sports Midwest.
That's the next step sports programming needs to take.Comment
-
Re: ESPN Cleaning House
There's a risk to that monetarily though because you bet your butt Disney is going to bundle the ESPN and local sports net packages together so if you want your local network you have to take ESPN as well. Prices will definitely go up for traditional cable/satellite and i'm sure there will be an additional fee for streaming as well.Member of the Official OS Bills Backers Club
"Baseball is the most important thing that doesn't matter at all" - Robert B. ParkerComment
-
Re: ESPN Cleaning House
Oh, there is going to be a cost. But at some point there will be a shift in where rights holders believe they can make the most money. As most people cut the cord, and ESPN, along with other cable networks, continue to hemorrhage viewers just based on people opting out of cable and dish TV, Disney may adjust and begin selling local sports online. Cable TV really is dying.
I started to cut the cord, but Spectrum made an offer I couldn't refuse. After refusing all of their offers, they finally offered me local OTA channels plus 10 national cable channels of my choice for just $11 a month, to go up to $23 a month later. I grabbed ESPN and ESPN2 as my only sports channels. Fox Sports Midwest was not eligible for the deal, because it is not a national channel.
So whether I keep the deal or decide to full on cut the cord later, I would still need a way to access FSMW if I want to watch the Blues and Cardinals. I may jump to one of the streaming options (PSVue, Hulu Live, Youtube TV, Slingbox, or something else, to get local sports, but so far, I'm not sure the pricing and available channels, as well as DVR functionality are what I want.
I use Spectrum cable and a TiVo now. Not only do I love TiVo as a DVR service, it's what my wife is comfortable with. If I make a change that loses us TiVo, there needs to be a good easy way to deal with that.
Honestly, if Hulu Live had AMC, we would probably be there already.
But local sports programming is a huge deal. They have lost me as a viewer because I don't want to pay for everything else just to get it. There is math there that should tell rights holders how much I might be willing to pay, and what I'm not.Comment
-
Re: ESPN Cleaning House
If they're going to charge more and more, I just hope they can never figure out a way to completely squash the free streamers. Because right now you can watch pretty much any sporting event you'd ever want to for free in HD if you know where to look. These streams are miles more reliable and less virus-laden these days than they were even a couple years ago too.
For example, NBCSN put a bunch of EPL matches behind a paywall this year. All that did was make me stream less from NBCSN's site...Comment
-
Re: ESPN Cleaning House
Looking like John Buccigross and Matthew Berry might be to get let go if this gets more attention:
Apparently, the network released her text messages as well to I guess "discredit" her:
#RespectTheCultureComment
-
Member of the Official OS Bills Backers Club
"Baseball is the most important thing that doesn't matter at all" - Robert B. ParkerComment
-
Comment