ehatt493 28 Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 Noticed one of those "Prep Zone" broadcasts from FOX Bally Sports West show up in the FOX Sports Go app (yep, still hasn't been rebranded and the Bally Sports website still says "coming soon!") and noticed that we have an early look at a football score bug! Unless they're planning on popping down information out of the team sections like NBA timeouts or baseball pitch counts, the idea of just having the right side of the bug be the ticker might be an issue. Not going to base reactions on a football version of the score bug on this one just yet because it seems like a generic version that's been adapted for football. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 4 hours ago, ScottJ said: Having the generic open for all teams seems to be part of Sinclair's strategy to homogenize the RSNs. The article also mentions the possibility of adding national programming to the RSNs. There's just so much that I need to analyze on that article it'll be a long one so please bear with me on this one: Quote At some point the Bally’s Sports might produce two game telecasts, a traditional one plus one for people interested in gaming That is likely where I see the Bally Sports Extra channels ultimately being used for eventually. Keep the traditional broadcast on the main and then those that want to watch the game from a sports betting perspective can watch it on the Extra channel. Quote Sinclair has other programming ideas. Some involve going inside the team’s training facilities to look at advances in health and data science, staging a three-on-three hockey tournament or a “Hockey University” show that would help teach viewers the sport’s rules. I'm a huge fan of this idea, this is a very good way of attracting new younger fans. Both the sports betting aspect of it and this Hockey University concept is a good way of doing that. Quote Sinclair will take a crawl, walk, run approach to new programming, trying it out at one of its RSNs before rolling it out to the entire group. I believe this is the approach that I'm sure Sinclair is doing right now even with the SportsCenter-esque show that @Georgie56has been mentioning so much of. I think Sinclair really wants to try to finish what Fox tried to start in the late 90s and (ultimately) make it work when it does launch its OTT/DTC service Also I have a feeling Georgie is correct on 2 key fronts: Quote In some ways, Sinclair plans to nationalize its RSN operations. Quote There may also be national programming on the RSNs. I have a feeling Sinclair really wants to carve out its own niche in a way. I don't see so much of Sinclair trying to compete with ESPN as much as I see Sinclair carving out its own niche in an area of this SportsCenter-style show. One of the advantages Sinclair has is (in addition to the RSNs and Stadium) is the local stations. Sinclair can tap into the local stations for major sports stories as well and in a way that's a huge advantage over SportsCenter right there because you don't see SportsCenter doing anything like that at all not even with its ABC O&Os. They might use the O&Os for like during player/coach interview segments and certain other things but that's pretty much it. Quote In addition to the RSNs, the sports programming Sinclair develops could also run on its CW and MyNetworkTV affiliated stations This is pretty much consistent with what Bally Sports North is doing by putting some T-Wolves games on WUCW, In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see certain shows actually replace syndicated programming down the road. Quote Weisbord mentioned Shams Charnania, Stadium’s NBA reporter, as possible talent for a national show. Again. There's your big hint right there that one of the many shows Sinclair is in the process of developing is a SportsCenter-style show. I think to summarize up all of the points is, I hope Sinclair is learning from the mistakes Fox made. But I'm sure Sinclair also understands they can't be running the same type of programs Fox had been running in the later years which I believe is one of the many reasons why the streammers and Dish has been balking at the RSNs. The RSNs charge way too much for programming that (outside of live sports and the pre/post shows) are garbage..That might be what gets the RSNs back on at least the streammers eventually. Dish on the other hand might be a lost cause though. It'll be an interesting 12 months for Sinclair. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
JCB4TV 283 Posted April 2 Share Posted April 2 9 hours ago, Georgie56 said: As I posted before, that Big Opening Day special yesterday felt like a test for a Sportscenter-type show they may be planning for sometime in the future. This strategy would also harken back to the early days of Fox Sports Net. I'm skeptical about this as FOX tried to compete with SportsCenter in the early days of both FSN and FS1 and failed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CTrey98 7 Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 Looks like Bally's has plans to introduce exclusive graphics for each sport once the new NBA and NHL seasons start in October. Makes sense since they launched with only a month left in the current Basketball/Hockey season. Seems a lot better if they do a full rollout at the beginning the season. Baseball will probably get the same treatment next Summer as well. https://www.newscaststudio.com/2021/04/02/bally-sports-broadcast-design-insert-graphics/ 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Georgie56 2125 Posted April 4 Author Share Posted April 4 Well, looks like MLBN/NHLN fixed their problem. 1 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WCAUTVNBC10 268 Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 16 hours ago, Georgie56 said: Well, looks like MLBN/NHLN fixed their problem. Did MLBN/NHLN shrink the feed or did Bally hike up the bar. Seems like the latter to me. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
24994J 3633 Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 (edited) 1 hour ago, WCAUTVNBC10 said: Did MLBN/NHLN shrink the feed or did Bally hike up the bar. Seems like the latter to me. It's actually the former. Raising it on the screen would defeat the purpose of it being streamlined and efficient, but a quick check of raw MLB highlights shows it hasn't changed. Edited April 5 by 24994J Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 Here's a good collumn made by the SBJ about the future of the BSNs https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2021/04/05/Portfolio/Media.aspx?error=Login+Failed Sinclair is going to have a ton of negotiating to do beginning with the Clippers, Pelicans and Predators all have rights coming up plus the out of market agreements with the NBA and the NHL expires after this season. A lot of negotiating ahead and I'm sure the leagues and the teams are definitely going to hit home to Sinclair about getting them back on the streammers + Dish. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
CTrey98 7 Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 (edited) It took 12 days after the network launch but the Bally Sports website has finally went live! Still no update on the Fox Sports Go app which is now all thats left of the Fox brand on the regional sports networks. https://www.ballysports.com/ Edited April 12 by CTrey98 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
AmericanErrorist 40 Posted April 12 Share Posted April 12 2 hours ago, CTrey98 said: It took 12 days after the network launch but the Bally Sports website has finally went live! Still no update on the Fox Sports Go app which is now all thats left of the Fox brand on the regional sports networks. https://www.ballysports.com/ They're trying to make a new national sports website instead of just a promotional tool for the networks. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
ehatt493 28 Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 (edited) Now that the website's launched, you can stream the BSN's on their website, but it's limited to the large providers. It would shock me if they had to re-negotiate deals with every small cable provider for streaming rights. FOX Sports Go still works concurrently with it, too. EDIT: nope, looks like the website just glitched Edited April 15 by ehatt493 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 On 4/5/2021 at 3:50 PM, dman748 said: Here's a good collumn made by the SBJ about the future of the BSNs https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2021/04/05/Portfolio/Media.aspx?error=Login+Failed Sinclair is going to have a ton of negotiating to do beginning with the Clippers, Pelicans and Predators all have rights coming up plus the out of market agreements with the NBA and the NHL expires after this season. A lot of negotiating ahead and I'm sure the leagues and the teams are definitely going to hit home to Sinclair about getting them back on the streammers + Dish. And in an interesting twist, now MLB wants to take all of its RSNs DTC This should be interesting Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Yankees4life 320 Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 11 hours ago, dman748 said: And in an interesting twist, now MLB wants to take all of its RSNs DTC This should be interesting And I want a pony. Doesn't matter what MLB wants as the RSNs are at mercy of their current providers too and I imagine they'll all lawyer up if something like this happens Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 That's my concern too. DirecTV and maybe other smaller cable companies could very well sue MLB and other leagues as well because of this. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
tyrannical bastard 2238 Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 It needs to happen. Yesterday. Back in the day, Warner Cable in Akron used to charge extra for Sportschannel Ohio to watch their Indians and Cavs games. Let the fans pay for it. It's making pay TV way too expensive and the OTT services aren't going to budge to their demands. 3 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 23 Share Posted April 23 48 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said: It needs to happen. Yesterday. Back in the day, Warner Cable in Akron used to charge extra for Sportschannel Ohio to watch their Indians and Cavs games. Let the fans pay for it. It's making pay TV way too expensive and the OTT services aren't going to budge to their demands. Yep and if DirecTV and other cable providers don't want to allow us the fans to pay for it then they can go bye-bye. I'm afraid that sports not named the NFL will become irrelevant by the end of the decade unless things change and change fast. People are abandoning cable at a much faster rate now and it's time for cable and satellitte companies to finally allow the teams and the leagues to stay relevant to the next generation of consumers. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
doublejman69 81 Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 (edited) I think most of you guys are assuming if/when the rsn’s go to DTC, the channels are to charge customers what they charge to the cables and sat providers, 4-10 dollars a month. That’s not going to be the case, it’s going to be 30-40+ dollars easily. The future of tv isn’t going to be traditional cable packages or even fubo or youtube tv. For the streaming tv services that look like regular cable, growth is slowing way down and I wouldn’t be surprised if they top out soon. The future is having a service that has discovery+, Disney+ Hulu and the like all together with live channels that are looking for a mass audience, news channels, live sports, networks/locals. When NESN is number one in prime time over 100 nights a year or almost all the former FSNs/ current Bally’s sports either being number one or two with local mlb teams there will be at least some providers that will always carry the rsn’s and it will be the services that have a mass subscriber base. Edited April 24 by doublejman69 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 26 minutes ago, doublejman69 said: I think most of you guys are assuming if/when the rsn’s go to DTC, the channels are to charge customers what they charge to the cables and sat providers, 4-10 dollars a month. That’s not going to be the case, it’s going to be 30-40+ dollars easily. Well it seems like MLB wants to do is charge customers is about that figure. If they charge 30-40 or more then I might as well pay for mlb.tv Quote Link to post Share on other sites
doublejman69 81 Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 On 4/23/2021 at 8:32 PM, dman748 said: Well it seems like MLB wants to do is charge customers is about that figure. If they charge 30-40 or more then I might as well pay for mlb.tv You’re going to have to add an extra zero to that amount of you want to watch the local team on any MLB streaming service before any RSN would sign up for this. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 1 hour ago, doublejman69 said: You’re going to have to add an extra zero to that amount of you want to watch the local team on any MLB streaming service before any RSN would sign up for this. Well whether you want to admit it or not, the leagues will eventually face irrelevance to the younger generation if they don't get away from the outdated model (and that is cable) and it won't be because of anything else, it will be because they didn't do their part to adapt with the direction the younger people are going. Not a lot people are watching linear TV very much these days, especially in the younger generation. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
doublejman69 81 Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 35 minutes ago, dman748 said: Well whether you want to admit it or not, the leagues will eventually face irrelevance to the younger generation if they don't get away from the outdated model (and that is cable) and it won't be because of anything else, it will be because they didn't do their part to adapt with the direction the younger people are going. Not a lot people are watching linear TV very much these days, especially in the younger generation. It’s the cost of doing business, at some point in the near future streamers like Hulu and Disney+ will have to raise prices if they want to be profitable and also add more content. Disney loses money when people drop cable and sign up for Disney+ and we all know that not everyone that is dropping cable is a Disney+ sub. Disney, discovery, nbc all of those companies are making far more money off of cable customers than from streaming sub. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 1 hour ago, doublejman69 said: It’s the cost of doing business, at some point in the near future streamers like Hulu and Disney+ will have to raise prices if they want to be profitable and also add more content. Disney loses money when people drop cable and sign up for Disney+ and we all know that not everyone that is dropping cable is a Disney+ sub. Disney, discovery, nbc all of those companies are making far more money off of cable customers than from streaming sub. That I do agree, I also see the streamming bubble bursting at some point. In fact, I'm very concerned that sports in general may have been caught up in all of the streaming craze while local teams are still rely on a dying model (cable) via the RSNs. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Nelson R. 206 Posted April 26 Share Posted April 26 The app has now switched over to Bally’s. Took less than a month. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
TexasTVNews 1070 Posted April 28 Share Posted April 28 https://www.sportico.com/business/media/2021/sinclair-rsns-long-road-to-recovery-1234628452/ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
dman748 1136 Posted April 29 Share Posted April 29 1 hour ago, TexasTVNews said: https://www.sportico.com/business/media/2021/sinclair-rsns-long-road-to-recovery-1234628452/ This part of the article perked my interest Quote “If the RSN business continues to be challenged, you may see leagues selling more like the NFL,” Kosner said. “The teams may start plugging their local rights into a more national package scheme.” The question mark is going to be how can you make that work without pissing off the big 4 networks or the CW? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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