Motor City Sonics Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 Good riddance. You'd probably increase your profit if you just made a deal with YouTube TV and a few other streamers, but no, go ahead and hold out for a few bucks. Well, looks like you could have used those extra bucks now, eh? Sinclair is a terrible company. I had a friend that worked for a Sinclair radio station who said it was like a cult. And this stupid blackout rule by MLB TV? Can't even watch your team when they are on the road. WHAT? Um, what decade are you in? The NFL realized it was a stupid idea years ago. Preventing people from seeing their home team at all is not the way to build or treat a fan base. This ain't the 70s. Get with it. Rob Manfred is the worst sports commish in my lifetime. I don't know, you guys and gals are obviously sports fan, can you think of a worse one? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
romad1 Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 6 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said: Good riddance. You'd probably increase your profit if you just made a deal with YouTube TV and a few other streamers, but no, go ahead and hold out for a few bucks. Well, looks like you could have used those extra bucks now, eh? Sinclair is a terrible company. I had a friend that worked for a Sinclair radio station who said it was like a cult. And this stupid blackout rule by MLB TV? Can't even watch your team when they are on the road. WHAT? Um, what decade are you in? The NFL realized it was a stupid idea years ago. Preventing people from seeing their home team at all is not the way to build or treat a fan base. This ain't the 70s. Get with it. Rob Manfred is the worst sports commish in my lifetime. I don't know, you guys and gals are obviously sports fan, can you think of a worse one? Well all the bad ones have the thing in common. They put the $.25 profit over the health of the game and building fanbases. Real sports fans are devoted and passionate and they carry along those near them and build generational support for a sport. Grandma telling her grandbabies about Mark the Bird Fydrich being a crazy guy who could really pitch is what that is all about. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motor City Sonics Posted February 11, 2023 Author Share Posted February 11, 2023 5 minutes ago, romad1 said: Well all the bad ones have the thing in common. They put the $.25 profit over the health of the game and building fanbases. Real sports fans are devoted and passionate and they carry along those near them and build generational support for a sport. Grandma telling her grandbabies about Mark the Bird Fydrich being a crazy guy who could really pitch is what that is all about. Plus the NFL realized the cost of going to a game was out of reach for a lot of people, so watching on TV was their only option. Droping the home blackout rule was one of the smartest moves ever. It ain't the pace of play that's the problem, one of the reasons to go to or watch/listen to a ballgame is just to relax and soak it in. The two most beloved radio broadcasters of all time were Vin Scully and Ernie Harwell...........they talked to you like a friend, they didn't scream and yell to oversell. Dan Dickerson is great at that, he only pitches it up when it's REAL. But what do I know, I'm just a simp in the the suburbs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edman85 Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 https://blogs.fangraphs.com/diamond-sports-groups-bankruptcy-could-rock-the-baseball-revenue-boat/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KL2 Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 10 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said: Good riddance. You'd probably increase your profit if you just made a deal with YouTube TV and a few other streamers, but no, go ahead and hold out for a few bucks. Well, looks like you could have used those extra bucks now, eh? Sinclair is a terrible company. I had a friend that worked for a Sinclair radio station who said it was like a cult. And this stupid blackout rule by MLB TV? Can't even watch your team when they are on the road. WHAT? Um, what decade are you in? The NFL realized it was a stupid idea years ago. Preventing people from seeing their home team at all is not the way to build or treat a fan base. This ain't the 70s. Get with it. Rob Manfred is the worst sports commish in my lifetime. I don't know, you guys and gals are obviously sports fan, can you think of a worse one? Lots of misconceptions here. Lots of comparing apples to torkelsons and mis understandings of tv deals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motor City Sonics Posted February 12, 2023 Author Share Posted February 12, 2023 13 minutes ago, KL2 said: Lots of misconceptions here. Lots of comparing apples to torkelsons and mis understandings of tv deals. Well, I do understand that I can't see Tigers games on You Tube TV and I am not alone, there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of baseball fans shut out. That's dumb. You want to make deals that have MORE viewers not less, but I am familiar through some radio friends about the cultish aspects of Sinclair. They play themselves off as religious, but they are devious..... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KL2 Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said: Well, I do understand that I can't see Tigers games on You Tube TV and I am not alone, there are thousands or hundreds of thousands of baseball fans shut out. That's dumb. You want to make deals that have MORE viewers not less, but I am familiar through some radio friends about the cultish aspects of Sinclair. They play themselves off as religious, but they are devious..... Well current tV contacts for airing games aren't based on how many people tune in on given day. Start there. Step 1a) why should youtube pay for carrying 30 rsn at their current rate? Step 2 it's silly silly to compare it to thr nfl. Football has a salary cap and 17 games a year they can make one national contract and share revenue equally. Baseball can't cause teams like the Yankees have no reason to agree to it. Step 3, Sinclair radio is different than Sinclair TV. Step 4 adding more viewers isn't always the best business deal. Crazy to say but think about it. Putting diamonds out there so everybody can have them doesn't make them more valuable. Step 5. This bankruptcy was inventiable. And something a host of media companies have done in the past decade. Step 6 Blackout rules do present a challenge bit they are there because of Step 1 and Step 4. Putting them to the side creates more challenges such as decreased subscription fees, decreased cable desire and potential oversaturation. Edited February 12, 2023 by KL2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motor City Sonics Posted February 12, 2023 Author Share Posted February 12, 2023 (edited) Well, the idea that wanting fewer people to have access to your product is a good idea is absurd. This isn't diamonds here, this is baseball, it's not elitist, but if that's what they want, well, good luck with that. More viewers = higher commercial royalties = more profit. Why do you think they charge so much for a Super Bowl ad. (oh, sorry, Big Game, don't sue me, NFL). When it was Fox Sports I could watch the Tigers, every single game. Sinclair came along and took that option away, so excuse me for celebrating their downfall. I hope they rot. If they had a great business model, then they'd be in a better place. I even paid for their stupid streaming channel for one month. I thought $20 was worth it as a Tiger fan. It was nothing but issue after issue. It was one of the most poorly designed apps/streaming channels I've ever dealt with, so I cancelled it. Couldn't log on half the time. I'd have to change my password, it would suddenly stop, I'd try to log in again and I would have to go change my password --- again. Plus, on more than one occasion, it got stuck in a commercial loop and I had to shut it down, and login again. Couldn't get any response from them at all. Oh, it doesn't play nice with Amazon Fire Stick. Are you kidding me? Nobody uses those things. And your idea that Sinclair radio and TV are different? They are run by the same people at the top. Edited February 12, 2023 by Motor City Sonics 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 (edited) 11 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said: Well, the idea that wanting fewer people to have access to your product is a good idea is absurd. At a single point in time there you can always select of a subset of your customers willing to pay a higher price and then maximize revenue at a sales point with fewer, higher value sales. But that is at a point in time of an established market. But for pro sport its the TV that creates the market in the first place. Cut back on the wide desemination of the games and the overall customer base shrinks, and eventually the numbers willing to pay the premium price begin to fall as well. So long term it's self-defeating for the sport as a whole, even if a manager can boost his quarterley revenue short term. Given the nature of US corporate governance, it's easy to understand how this kind self-defeating strategy becomes the order of the day. People confuse 'Market Economy' and the particular organzational evolution of US corporate structure and management. They are not the same thing, and you can have a market economy and its benefits with a vastly different set legal and organizational structures than the particular ones that have evolved in the US and no doubt a better one at that. Edited February 12, 2023 by gehringer_2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oblong Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 This is the inevitable result of a funding model that relies on people paying for something they don’t use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 42 minutes ago, oblong said: This is the inevitable result of a funding model that relies on people paying for something they don’t use. The die was cast when the first signal/banwidth supplier agreed to pay a content provider for programming. The transaction should go the other way! The content provider receives ad revenue. They should be paying the bandwidth provider to transport their content - how it ever came to be inverted is an interesting question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMRivdogs Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 48 minutes ago, oblong said: This is the inevitable result of a funding model that relies on people paying for something they don’t use. Since about 90% of the current channel lineup on cable is basically crap the business plan (as well as the long standing cable monopoly) seems to be working for some. The fact that I need to pay approx $150 a month for enough bandwidth for decent internet service and have to put up with their basic service selections is ridiculous. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 2 hours ago, oblong said: This is the inevitable result of a funding model that relies on people paying for something they don’t use. I have DirecTV and they just raised my regional sports fee, for the two channels here (Marquee, NBC Sports Chicago), to $14.99 a month (!), and I almost never watch either of them. But we keep the service because (a) I negotiate deep discounts every year, and (b) it's just so darn convenient to use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 (edited) 2 hours ago, CMRivdogs said: Since about 90% of the current channel lineup on cable is basically crap the business plan (as well as the long standing cable monopoly) seems to be working for some. The fact that I need to pay approx $150 a month for enough bandwidth for decent internet service and have to put up with their basic service selections is ridiculous. Remember the phrase "too cheap to meter"? As in, "[commodity_inserted_here] will be so plentiful it'll be too cheap to meter"? I'm pretty sure they used that phrase about Internet service way back when. lol Edited February 12, 2023 by chasfh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KL2 Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 5 hours ago, Motor City Sonics said: Well, the idea that wanting fewer people to have access to your product is a good idea is absurd. This isn't diamonds here, this is baseball, it's not elitist, but if that's what they want, well, good luck with that. More viewers = higher commercial royalties = more profit. Why do you think they charge so much for a Super Bowl ad. (oh, sorry, Big Game, don't sue me, NFL). When it was Fox Sports I could watch the Tigers, every single game. Sinclair came along and took that option away, so excuse me for celebrating their downfall. I hope they rot. If they had a great business model, then they'd be in a better place. I even paid for their stupid streaming channel for one month. I thought $20 was worth it as a Tiger fan. It was nothing but issue after issue. It was one of the most poorly designed apps/streaming channels I've ever dealt with, so I cancelled it. Couldn't log on half the time. I'd have to change my password, it would suddenly stop, I'd try to log in again and I would have to go change my password --- again. Plus, on more than one occasion, it got stuck in a commercial loop and I had to shut it down, and login again. Couldn't get any response from them at all. Oh, it doesn't play nice with Amazon Fire Stick. Are you kidding me? Nobody uses those things. And your idea that Sinclair radio and TV are different? They are run by the same people at the top. I like this post Ignores everything I wrote. Makes the same false assumptions. Hint again mlb teams TV deal with rsn don't care about advertising dollars or ad eyeballs. They get little if any of that cut. I guess my years doing this for a living should be thrown out. Clearly you know how this all works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger337 Posted February 12, 2023 Share Posted February 12, 2023 I don't think there has ever been a thread in the Tigers forum where I understood less about what was going on. The only one I understood was Romad. 😃 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oblong Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 5 hours ago, gehringer_2 said: The die was cast when the first signal/banwidth supplier agreed to pay a content provider for programming. The transaction should go the other way! The content provider receives ad revenue. They should be paying the bandwidth provider to transport their content - how it ever came to be inverted is an interesting question. Just depends on who has the upper hand in negotiations, right? Some channels pay to be listed. Other’s demand money from the providers. I think the providers are finding out people don’t care that much about sports and they aren’t going to pay for the difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shinzaki Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 Audacy Inc...parent company of 97.1 the Ticket...has been battling bankruptcy speculation for several months. Thanks, Avila.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiger337 Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 1 hour ago, Shinzaki said: Audacy Inc...parent company of 97.1 the Ticket...has been battling bankruptcy speculation for several months. Thanks, Avila.... Harris already fixed it. You just aren't smart enough to figure it out yet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edman85 Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 So in summary. Tigers seem likely to miss out on a 50M check in the coming weeks. I could see MLB floating them some money, but not sure what the league's emrrgency reserves are like, especially three years after COVID. The games should be telecast. This year on BSD while all the litigation is going down. I bet MLB.TV stays blacked out locally. Maybe a forced sale to AT&T or Comcast means the station becomes NBC Sports Detroit or AT&T Sports Detroit. Again, as the Fangraphs article pointed out, the RSN's would still be profitable if it wasn't for the massive debt taken on to make the purchase. And this is tangential, but for something that was intended to be a consumer protection, DOJ making Disney sell the FSN's ended up being very anticonsumer. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casimir Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 7 hours ago, Tiger337 said: Harris already fixed it. You just aren't smart enough to figure it out yet. Its about time Harris did something. Hinch can't do all the good things by himself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chasfh Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 (edited) 13 hours ago, KL2 said: I like this post Ignores everything I wrote. Makes the same false assumptions. Hint again mlb teams TV deal with rsn don't care about advertising dollars or ad eyeballs. They get little if any of that cut. I guess my years doing this for a living should be thrown out. Clearly you know how this all works. It’s not at all true that teams don’t care about ad dollars and ad eyeballs that RSNs get for their games. It is true they don’t make any immediate additional revenue if the RSN overachieves on ratings estimates and can start charging higher rates for sponsorships and spots—that benefit all accrues to the RSN. But overachieving on ratings estimates, getting more eyeballs than anticipated, does serve to help the team negotiate a sweeter rights deal when it’s time for renewal. More eyeballs also means more interest for the team, which they benefit from in terms of a boost in attendance, more concessions sold, more merchandising sold, etc., which gooses non-broadcast revenue and could provide additional funds for better players, coaching, infrastructure, et al, as well as the halo effect it provides to the owner’s other business interests as the proprietor of a popular, high-profile major sports franchise. High fan interest driven through high broadcast ratings has a strong effect on all of this. Teams definitely root for high ratings for their broadcasts on RSNs. Edited February 13, 2023 by chasfh 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedRamage Posted February 13, 2023 Share Posted February 13, 2023 Not that I would ever condone such a thing, but when you make something not only quite expensive, but also make it very cumbersome and buggy... well, people will find ways around it. If I'm going to be paying a decent chunk of change each month to be able to access something, it better work reasonably well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Motor City Sonics Posted February 14, 2023 Author Share Posted February 14, 2023 7 hours ago, RedRamage said: Not that I would ever condone such a thing, but when you make something not only quite expensive, but also make it very cumbersome and buggy... well, people will find ways around it. If I'm going to be paying a decent chunk of change each month to be able to access something, it better work reasonably well. I got the MLB TV package and a VPN that puts me in Atlanta so I can watch my home team --- ON THE ROAD. Yep, I get it Rob Manfred. Watching the Tigers play the Angels on the road on TV prevents me from buying a ticket to a game in Anaheim, better keep that blackout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gehringer_2 Posted February 14, 2023 Share Posted February 14, 2023 36 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said: I got the MLB TV package and a VPN that puts me in Atlanta so I can watch my home team --- ON THE ROAD. Yep, I get it Rob Manfred. Watching the Tigers play the Angels on the road on TV prevents me from buying a ticket to a game in Anaheim, better keep that blackout. But unlike the NFL blackouts of yesteryear, MLB TV blackouts are not to protect ticket sales, and they don't benefit the home *directly*. They are to protect the RSN, the theory being that more valuable RSN rights mean bigger payments to the teams. But with the RSNs going under and the rights all devolving back to the teams and league, this is the perfect time to rationalize the system. With all the broadcast rights back in one place, the teams can in theory collect the full value of the broadcasts and MLB could offer Gameday to customers for *all* games for one fee. So simple you *know* it won't happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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