Bally Sports Possibly Declaring Bankruptcy - Latest (Amazon's Pending Streaming Impact)

[TURBO]

17 minutes ago, SeaBass said:

Casual fans are not going to be concerned with being able to watch every single game. That's why they're casual. If you want every game you're probably a die hard.

Personally, I don't think it's a big deal if people miss a few games here and there. Pick the service that will get you the most games for the price you're willing to pay and deal with the ones you don't get some other way. It's not difficult or expensive to follow the goings on in a baseball game while not watching live. You can get updates on any number of websites or mobile apps that have box scores and post scoring plays, all for the price of free. Highlights are posted to Twitter while the game is still being played. You can watch 9 to 10 minute game recaps on YouTube free of charge once the game ends. Listen to the radio. If you don't get a good over the air radio signal MLB.com has a radio subscription service for a very reasonable price (MLB At Bat / $30 annually.) that will let you listen to any live MLB game with no blackouts and any broadcast of that game (Home or Road) for the whole year.

FYI MLB At Bat is included with a MLB TV subscription for those out of market fans that get that free with your mobile phone service but can't watch the games because of blackouts. You can still access the live radio broadcasts.

All those hassles will not draw in the young viewers, they will find other ways to spend their time.

By making it harder and more expensive to the die hard fans, all they will do is begin to alienate them.

 

[SeaBass]

15 minutes ago, TURBO said:

All those hassles will not draw in the young viewers, they will find other ways to spend their time.

By making it harder and more expensive to the die hard fans, all they will do is begin to alienate them.

 

How do you know that? Have you run a poll and gotten hard information about it? Or might the fact that MLB is actually doing it mean they think it's profitable? I'll trust the people with their eyes on the bottom line.

[TURBO]

18 minutes ago, SeaBass said:

How do you know that? Have you run a poll and gotten hard information about it? Or might the fact that MLB is actually doing it mean they think it's profitable? I'll trust the people with their eyes on the bottom line.

I know "that" just as much as you know what you were saying...  Geez.

[SeaBass]

3 minutes ago, TURBO said:

I know "that" just as much as you know what you were saying...  Geez.

Please feel free to point out what I said that I presented as fact that is not a fact. I'll wait.

[jay87shot]

I feel like having it on Prime will make it more accessible for the younger fan, in my experience more young people are skipping cable and just picking up streaming sites. For me personally, I don't have cable spend about $40 a month and have a monsterbox that is free and gives me all (literally all of them including free pay per view) the cable channels for free. 

[SeaBass]

People really seem invested in making something they personally disagree with some big wide issue when really it's just their own personal issue. You don't need to say, "but the KIDS" or "MLB can't survive this way" just because you don't like the idea of having to subscribe to a bunch of different streaming services to see every game. You don't have to, that's the point. If you want to, you know how. Just say, "I don't like it and I refuse to pay for it." That's really all there is to it.

[MrTPlush]

2 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

You're thinking about this incorrectly. If the Dodgers, for example, suffer a $100M reduction in revenue due to the RSN's...the impact to the Dodgers payroll will be significantly greater than the impact to the Brewers payroll. The Brewers revenue will drop 1/29th of 48% of $100M. The Brewers lose $1.6M in revenue while the Dodgers lose $52M. The % of spending power the Dodgers lose is much greater than the % of spending power the Brewers lose in this scenario. 

That is assuming they reduce their payroll to match the reduction in revenue. The difference between the Brewers and Dodgers is the fact their payroll is nowhere near what they actually bring in revenue wise. The Brewers, like many small markets, have a payroll that leaves a lot less profit margin. The Dodgers could lose $100mil off their TV deal, run the same payroll, and probably still have crazy profits.

[Vgmastr]

1 hour ago, TURBO said:

All those hassles will not draw in the young viewers, they will find other ways to spend their time.

By making it harder and more expensive to the die hard fans, all they will do is begin to alienate them.

 

Those aren't hassles for someone who streams all of their content, it's just another app on their TV, no different than choosing a channel to watch on cable.  As of 2021 less than half of people under 50 have cable or satellite.   That's only going to increase, most younger kids have never used linear TV, everything has always been on demand for them. Making the games easier to stream makes them more accessible to the younger demographic that MLB needs to grow.

[owbc]

26 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

That is assuming they reduce their payroll to match the reduction in revenue. The difference between the Brewers and Dodgers is the fact their payroll is nowhere near what they actually bring in revenue wise. The Brewers, like many small markets, have a payroll that leaves a lot less profit margin. The Dodgers could lose $100mil off their TV deal, run the same payroll, and probably still have crazy profits.

That's not true. They don't have infinite money. We (roughly) know their numbers from the Forbes analysis. They needed to defer Ohtani's contract in order to afford both him and Yamamoto. Otherwise they would be running in the red. 

[KeithStone53151]

1 hour ago, MrTPlush said:

That is assuming they reduce their payroll to match the reduction in revenue. The difference between the Brewers and Dodgers is the fact their payroll is nowhere near what they actually bring in revenue wise. The Brewers, like many small markets, have a payroll that leaves a lot less profit margin. The Dodgers could lose $100mil off their TV deal, run the same payroll, and probably still have crazy profits.

As owbc says, the money isn't unlimited. If revenue goes down $100M, either cost go down, or net income goes down. Maybe the owners do eat the entire dip and payroll stays up, seems unlikely though. Maybe Cohen would but none of the other 29 would.

[Fear The Chorizo]

1 hour ago, owbc said:

That's not true. They don't have infinite money. We (roughly) know their numbers from the Forbes analysis. They needed to defer Ohtani's contract in order to afford both him and Yamamoto. Otherwise they would be running in the red. 

I think the massive deferral to Ohtani has more to do with them creatively avoiding having to pay substantial luxury tax penalties to the rest of MLB during the 10 years Ohtani will be playing for them, and not about being able to afford a bloated payroll full of all stars because their profits have finally dried up.  They have a massive amount of revenue due to their market size, which is only going to skyrocket further now that most baseball fans in Japan and east Asia in general will make Dodgers games appointment television along with exploding merch sales.

The "safe" gamble the Dodgers are making with the huge deferred dollars is by the time they need to actually pay that money out, $68M a season in actual cash at that point in time will fell like ~$30M in today's actual dollars in cost, and their revenues will be plenty large enough to absorb that annual debit on the ledger.

[MrTPlush]

2 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

As owbc says, the money isn't unlimited. If revenue goes down $100M, either cost go down, or net income goes down. Maybe the owners do eat the entire dip and payroll stays up, seems unlikely though. Maybe Cohen would but none of the other 29 would.

Well, I never said their money is unlimited. Even in the hypothetical the $100mil disaster costed them $50mil in actuality. That is nothing to them. Us losing shared revenue? Yah, not good. 

Profitability in baseball really isn't in being competitive. The Dodgers would be infinitely way better off running a Brewers sized payroll. There is a reason the A's jog out a $45mil payroll. Bigger payroll doesn't really mean bigger profits. The ROI just isn't there. 

[RobertCrawley]

On 1/23/2024 at 7:40 AM, nate82 said:

Because the way cable tv is going it is going to be like streaming.  If you haven’t received a new box yet well you are in for an experience.

Cable will no longer come in through the coax cable soon.  My grandparents just experienced this with their new cable box.  It is all on WiFi no cables.  The new COX boxes are basically streaming boxes.  It is only a matter of time before you will have to install an app on them to watch the specialized channels like FSN, ESPN, etc.  Heck you can already watch Netflix, Amazon Prime and other streaming services on it.  So you won’t be able to just flip to FSN everyday you will have to go to the app or watch on one of the streaming services.

It is coming and the cable companies don’t care if you don’t like it.  You could always just go over the air and they know you won’t do that at least 90% of their customer base won’t because they are addicted to the tv programming.

Plus if the FSN’s go to Amazon 95% of the games will be on Amazon minus the few that are on Apple, Facebook and YouTube.  But those would be on there regardless so you wouldn’t be able to watch them by flipping to FSN anyways.  With streaming you could just flip to YouTube or Facebook very easily though.  

This post really made me think. I much prefer having the cable line because I felt it was, I don't know, more stable. But I don't know if that's the case. On the other hand, our house was built in 1994 and the cables must not be the best in here. I don't like change, but maybe this is for the better.

[Austin Tatious]

Why don’t the sports leagues just develop their own streaming business and sell it DTC, cutting out the middleman?  Isn’t that more profitable?   There may be an initial capital expense, but ultimately it would be all gravy.   One way or another, they will have a product that consumers will pay for.  My interest is getting the Brewers the most favorable cut.  The more this can be a shared enterprise, the better.  

[BrewerFan]

On 1/24/2024 at 12:56 PM, jay87shot said:

I feel like having it on Prime will make it more accessible for the younger fan, in my experience more young people are skipping cable and just picking up streaming sites. For me personally, I don't have cable spend about $40 a month and have a monsterbox that is free and gives me all (literally all of them including free pay per view) the cable channels for free. 

I have never heard of a Monsterbox, and nearly everyone I know who's younger than me, has Amazon Prime. It's just how so many people shop and purchase things.

But I'm interested in this Monsterbox as I'm really sick of paying for 7 streaming services, Prime and Direct TV. 

4 hours ago, RobertCrawley said:

This post really made me think. I much prefer having the cable line because I felt it was, I don't know, more stable. But I don't know if that's the case. On the other hand, our house was built in 1994 and the cables must not be the best in here. I don't like change, but maybe this is for the better.

'94? Still got that new house smell practically!

Mine was built in ~1900. There are pictures of the house throughout the years and it looks like a kid with a lego set! Just a little square first with old wooden steps(I think 900SQ Ft if that). Then a great-great cousin put in plumbing at some point in the 1920s. Then my Uncle bought it, he put in an addition, sold to my parents who...again renovated...and now I was the idiot who bought this thing where NONE of the floors are level. "But it's got good bones." Whatever the hell that means. It's like a pet graveyard. It's just bones on top of bones! Anyway, side rant over.

They just run new cables, don't they? I'll end up ponying up whatever...but whenever this topic comes up, it reminds me why I don't like looking at my monthly bills. It's depressing.

[RobertCrawley]

9 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

I have never heard of a Monsterbox, and nearly everyone I know who's younger than me, has Amazon Prime. It's just how so many people shop and purchase things.

But I'm interested in this Monsterbox as I'm really sick of paying for 7 streaming services, Prime and Direct TV. 

'94? Still got that new house smell practically!

Mine was built in ~1900. There are pictures of the house throughout the years and it looks like a kid with a lego set! Just a little square first with old wooden steps(I think 900SQ Ft if that). Then a great-great cousin put in plumbing at some point in the 1920s. Then my Uncle bought it, he put in an addition, sold to my parents who...again renovated...and now I was the idiot who bought this thing where NONE of the floors are level. "But it's got good bones." Whatever the hell that means. It's like a pet graveyard. It's just bones on top of bones! Anyway, side rant over.

They just run new cables, don't they? I'll end up ponying up whatever...but whenever this topic comes up, it reminds me why I don't like looking at my monthly bills. It's depressing.

Great point. I should ask or demand for new cables if they are going to charge me an arm and a leg each month. Edit: I just checked my download speed and it's 932 Mbps, almost a gigabyte per second, so it looks like the cables are probably fine.

I also have one of Spectrum's pods that boosts the signal in the house.

I'd like to try a Spectrum box that uses wifi. For one thing, it might store my DVRs in a cloud so I can watch later them someplace else. I'm looking forward to seeing Christian have a great year.

I put new floor in our house and even though built in 1994 the joists were not even. Not a pleasant project, that's for sure.

[Underachiever]

11 hours ago, BrewerFan said:

Then a great-great cousin put in plumbing at some point in the 1920s.

Ooh, look at Mr. Fancy here. INDOOR plumbing?

[nate82]

2 hours ago, RobertCrawley said:

I'd like to try a Spectrum box that uses wifi. For one thing, it might store my DVRs in a cloud so I can watch later them someplace else. I'm looking forward to seeing Christian have a great year.

I don't think you can access the cloud with the boxes.  Though you could possibly do that with your TV via a USB.  You may be able to do this through one of the cloud services but you would need to use a web browser I think or if you want to be really adventurous you could use an old PC and make it into a media server.  Then you can basically use your TV as a monitor and play your movies off of that.  

[owbc]

2 hours ago, nate82 said:

I don't think you can access the cloud with the boxes.  Though you could possibly do that with your TV via a USB.  You may be able to do this through one of the cloud services but you would need to use a web browser I think or if you want to be really adventurous you could use an old PC and make it into a media server.  Then you can basically use your TV as a monitor and play your movies off of that.  

FuboTV has the DVR in the cloud...I'll often start watching a sporting event on my TV, then pick up where I left off on my iPad or phone.

 

[areacodes]

1 hour ago, owbc said:

FuboTV has the DVR in the cloud...I'll often start watching a sporting event on my TV, then pick up where I left off on my iPad or phone.

 

TDS does as well - I can start watching in my basement and switch to my living room, bedroom or garage and pick up where I left off.  I know a few years ago Spectrum told me they were introducing it into some markets and it would be available in Wisconsin soon but I haven’t had them for almost 2 years now.

[nate82]

2 hours ago, owbc said:

FuboTV has the DVR in the cloud...I'll often start watching a sporting event on my TV, then pick up where I left off on my iPad or phone.

 

Yes was more referring to digital movies.  If you create your own media server you can put all of your movies on a hard drive and watch them.  Good thing right now is that physical hard drives are extremely cheap and even SSD's are extremely cheap.  So you could easily build a media server with an old PC.  All your movies and music in one place and no changing discs or tapes if you still have those. 

[BrewerFan]

5 hours ago, Underachiever said:

Ooh, look at Mr. Fancy here. INDOOR plumbing?

LOL...yup! That's how old my house is. It was originally built...without indoor plumbing! 

Back when you could just hire someone to build whatever you wanted without having to jump through hoops for permits and...all that fun stuff! 

I don't think I'd have taken it on, but it buts up against a Nature Preserve and is around farm land...so I like the location. But I had to find someone who specialized in renovating old houses. Still have the Limestone foundation in the basement(covered up now, but it's there). 

Anyway...didn't mean to steer this completely off the rails!

[Axman59]

I wish Bally/Diamond Sports just went belly up and have the rights revert to MLB.

[adambr2]

Sorry if this has been answered already-- is it known whether all these games will be included for Amazon Prime subscribers, or if it will require purchasing some sort of an additional add-on to the existing base Prime membership?

[hawing]

On 1/31/2024 at 11:34 PM, BrewerFan said:

"But it's got good bones." Whatever the hell that means. It's like a pet graveyard. It's just bones on top of bones!

I only want to add here that I really enjoyed this bit.  Though I'm sorry your house is a challenge.