Bubble Popping?
- Thread starter 57stratdawg
- Start date
Past time for Bally to go under. Here is to hoping the other side will be better.
I’m assuming he means the increases in media rights fees over the past few decades.
I’m going to go with no, it’s not a bubble pop, but it is a strong signal that things are headed away from cable toward digital first. MLB.TV is a really solid app with some awesome in-game features and Apple and Peacock have exclusive MLB broadcasts.
Some of these regional broadcasters are really getting squeezed. I think Bally has some gambling revenue or partners, but for them to be defaulting on that MLB contract can’t be a good sign for that side the business.
MLB App is great. It’s a better deal than the Sunday Ticket, IMO. But, that’s viewers not tuning into Bally.
I’ll admit to not being very knowledgeable about this but I have read a decent amount due to Bally having the broadcasting rights to the Cardinals. From what I’ve read, Covid really hurt these guys bad due a severely reduced MLB season, and that was right after the current operating group bought this from Disney. Secondly, the MLB blackout and out of market rules suck and make no sense, that I think hurts potential subscribers. The biggest thing I read was that Bally made the decision to pull their channels from any streaming provider. Only traditional cable and satellite even have access to distribute Bally channels. That was a stupid management decision.
I just don’t think I’d read too much into this as a problem for sports in general. And you also have to keep in mind it’s MLB, who has struggled keeping an audience anyway.
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