The bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group, which operates the regional sports networks under the Bally Sports brand, … [+]
Over the past two seasons, determining overall viewership trends on the regional sports networks that support Major League Baseball has been chaotic due to the ongoing bankruptcy of Diamond Sports Group (DSG).
In March 2023, DSG, which runs the Bally Sports-branded facility of regional sports networks, filed for Chapter 1 bankruptcy. Supporting half of MLB’s teams at the time and impacting teams in the NBA and NHL, the move threw the entire RSN bubble into disarray. Midway through last season, two DSG clubs were dropped — the San Diago Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks — followed by the Colorado Rockies leaving AT&T Sportsnet Rocky Mountain. All three have since moved to MLB, providing production and working out their own carriage deals.
To date, Diamond Sports Group still maintains 12 teams on Bally Sports branded RSNs: Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers.
In May, Comcast dropped Bally Sports’ regional sports networks after failing to reach a new deal, leaving a massive hole in MLB’s local viewership numbers. While MLB had been on an upward trend since the carriage dispute between Comcast and DSG, MLB RSNs were down 6% year over year compared to the same point last season. That number could improve. In a status conference in court on Wednesday, Diamond said they had made “substantial progress” with Comcast, opening the door for games to return to the major distributor.
Craig Sloan, who was recently named CEO of Playfly, a full-service, integrated sports media and marketing company that acquired Home Team Sports, Impression Sports and Entertainment and Fox Sports College Properties, three major arms of FOX Sports in 2021, said MLB’s regional sports network model was holding up as expected before the DSG/Comcast dispute, saying that at the highest level, sports are exceptionally consistent on television, like an annual subscription.
“When you look at MLB, or the NBA or the NHL in general, the portfolio delivers,” Sloan said in an interview with me for Forbes. “In the aggregate, someone is going to go up and someone is going to go down. The only variation traditionally that our insights team sees is that we’ll see the numbers be a little bit above our average impression delivery across the country when big market teams are winning and if small markets are winning, we see the numbers be a little bit below the median, but overall, over the last 10-15 years, it’s been very consistent.”
While the Comcast issue looms large over MLB’s overall numbers, there have been some promising signs from several clubs.
In the Philadelphia designated market area (DMA), the Phillies are drawing a 6.83 TVHH rating, which equates to over 217,000 TV households, a +46% increase from the same number of games last season.
The Baltimore Orioles, who have been starved for a winning team for years, are seeing dividends on MASN. In the Baltimore DMA, their TV Household rating has jumped to an average of 4.91, meaning the O’s deliver over 57,000 TV Households every game. That’s a considerable +28% increase over the same number of games last season.
The Cleveland Guardians are seeing a +7% increase from last season, while also averaging a 4.24 TV Household rating in the Cleveland DMA, which translates to over 65,000 TV Households each game.
Other teams that outperformed the previous year of 2023 in their respective DMAs are the Dodgers, Royals, Brewers and Pirates.
While linear TV numbers for RSNs are up in the air with Comcast’s dispute, streaming continues to gain traction as subscribers shift away from traditional TV. Average unique viewers are up 10%, while average consumption is up 20% year-over-year.
According to Sloan, advertiser interest in MLB remains exceptionally strong, given the large inventory of games and how the season unfolds in the summer. While it has declined somewhat in recent years, the insurance channel is back on the rise. For the auto industry, it’s on an OEM-to-OEM basis based on new car launches, but it remains strong for MLB. The biggest channel for ad growth is the gaming industry. While MLB limits the number of ads for sports betting companies, it’s a highly competitive ad space that has quickly grown as a major advertiser. Other staples continue to be the fast-food industry, mobile carriers and other technology companies. A major shift has been around entertainment, as streaming companies continue to grow.
“The end of entertainment viewership on traditional broadcast television has opened the door for companies like Amazon Prime and others,” Sloan said of streamers advertising on Major League Baseball.
A key question is what the future holds for the RSN model in the short term. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has said that putting all of the clubs’ local media rights under one umbrella is similar to what the NFL did to split revenues equally among the clubs. The ability to put all 30 clubs under this model seems like a long shot. Clubs that have equity in RSNs that are performing well probably won’t see the value in joining the model. Larger market brands like the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Astros would likely fall into this category.
At the same time, ESPN has the option to cancel its national broadcast deal with MLB in 2025. While some have concluded that ESPN will negotiate down, talk has also emerged that World leader ESPN Inc. is looking to potentially acquire some local MLB media rights should they become available to bolster its new direct-to-consumer streaming service set to launch next year. If so, ESPN’s media revenue streams could potentially remain at their current levels or increase depending on how much inventory it obtains. Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy throws a wrench into MLB Regional Sports Network’s viewership trends
