Regional Sports Networks Going Bankrupt

[Della9250]

After Bally's went tits up, Comcast put up a title card on the channel with a message about not getting paid and that customers would get a credit on their bill.
Lo and behold, my bill this month had a $5.60 credit listed as something like "regional sports fee."
That's one of those little transparency things that will infuriate you if you let it. How the heck is a channel that shows Braves games, fishing shows and infomercials worth $5.60 a month!?

Hey if you just watch Braves games that's like a quarter per game

 

[Twirling Time]

At $5.60 I'm surprised it was that high. If the Mouse went belly-up that has to be half a benjamin in comparison.

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

After Bally's went tits up, Comcast put up a title card on the channel with a message about not getting paid and that customers would get a credit on their bill.
Lo and behold, my bill this month had a $5.60 credit listed as something like "regional sports fee."
That's one of those little transparency things that will infuriate you if you let it. How the heck is a channel that shows Braves games, fishing shows and infomercials worth $5.60 a month!?

Back when I was a kid in Pittsburgh, mom finally sprung for cable in the summer of 1987, mainly so her idiot kid could have baseball to watch. Back then, Pirates games were broadcast on a channel called KBL, which had a digital scrolling message board for 21 hours a day ("St. Anthonys Fish Fry. Every Friday at 5. Call 412-666-6578 For Details... Glassport Community Day, July 13 at...." until the plug was pulled at exactly 7p.m. and they showed the game, then did a five-minute postgame show. The minute John Sanders was finished saying, "Join us tomorrow at 7 when the Pirates take on the Cardinals. Goodnight, everybody," blammo. Message board again. "McKeesport Band Car Wash, Saturday July 17 at CoGos...."

They should go back to that.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

We had one of those message board channels way back in the day, like late-70s and early-80s, and I was obsessed with that during baseball season.

The only regular games we could watch were Cubs on WGN (I think it was before the Braves on WTBS), the NBC Game of the Week on Saturday afternoon and the random Monday Night Baseball on ABC. So as a non-Cubs fan, that was how I kept up with my team.

It did news, weather and sports news, then each game had a screen page, updated inning-by-inning with the linescore, who the pitchers were and HRs. I can vividly remember being all, "Who the fork is this Guidry guy for the Yankees? He refuses to lose!" during his monster season (1979? 1978?).

 

[BitterYoungMatador2]

When we signed up for TCI cable our area got the infamous KBL, WWOR for Mets games, WTBS for the Braves and the Game of the Week/Monday Night Baseball. I was a Dodgers fan growing up so I thought it was great to be able to stay up and watch the Braves/Mets/Pirates play them on the west coast.

 

[dixiehack]

Back when I was a kid in Pittsburgh, mom finally sprung for cable in the summer of 1987, mainly so her idiot kid could have baseball to watch. Back then, Pirates games were broadcast on a channel called KBL, which had a digital scrolling message board for 21 hours a day ("St. Anthonys Fish Fry. Every Friday at 5. Call 412-666-6578 For Details... Glassport Community Day, July 13 at...." until the plug was pulled at exactly 7p.m. and they showed the game, then did a five-minute postgame show. The minute John Sanders was finished saying, "Join us tomorrow at 7 when the Pirates take on the Cardinals. Goodnight, everybody," blammo. Message board again. "McKeesport Band Car Wash, Saturday July 17 at CoGos...."

They should go back to that.

Minus the baseball, this was Channel 7 on our cable system. The top of the screen was a black band with the current National Weather Service forecast, complete with coding. Below that was a royal blue background with community messages interspersed with AP story summaries, all in default word processor font. Later they got fancy with multi-colored backgrounds for advertiser messages. For background music they used the local full-service radio station, complete with Paul Harvey and obituaries at high noon.

 

[Roscablo]

After Bally's went tits up, Comcast put up a title card on the channel with a message about not getting paid and that customers would get a credit on their bill.
Lo and behold, my bill this month had a $5.60 credit listed as something like "regional sports fee."
That's one of those little transparency things that will infuriate you if you let it. How the heck is a channel that shows Braves games, fishing shows and infomercials worth $5.60 a month!?

I gave the background on our provider a little earlier, but the fee I pay is $14.47. It used to be with two local channels, but now it's just one. Have we gotten any kind of refund or fee reduction? Of course not. So we're paying almost $15 for one channel. You got a steal. I really need to inquire about it. It seems a little ridiculous.

 

[The Big Ragu]

I gave the background on our provider a little earlier, but the fee I pay is $14.47. It used to be with two local channels, but now it's just one. Have we gotten any kind of refund or fee reduction? Of course not. So we're paying almost $15 for one channel. You got a steal. I really need to inquire about it. It seems a little ridiculous.

We got rid of our cable / Fios (two different homes) packages earlier this year and went streaming only for live TV. I care about Yankees / Rangers / Knicks. You can now subscribe for streaming only to YES Network (Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, which I don't care as much about) and MSG Network (Knicks and Rangers).

Yankees (YES) had a special if you signed up by end of April for $19.99 a month, which I was fine with. ... except that probably 20 percent of the games have been parceled out to Amazon, Apple TV and ESPN / Fox, which seem to want as many Yankees game as possible. I think that is how MLB is itself shooting themselves in the foot. I am sure there are people who are annoyed that their $20 a month to YES is getting them shut out of so many games. At what point do those people just bolt?

MSG is $29.99 a month, but at least you get 95 percent of the basketball and hockey games for the fee (which I suspect most of you will find exorbitant). You can pay $309.99 for the year, which works out to a little less than $26 a month (YES does something similar -- a yearly discount), but I decided to just pay monthly and only add each service in season.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

We got rid of our cable / Fios (two different homes) packages earlier this year and went streaming only for live TV. I care about Yankees / Rangers / Knicks. You can now subscribe for streaming only to YES Network (Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, which I don't care as much about) and MSG Network (Knicks and Rangers).

Yankees (YES) had a special if you signed up by end of April for $19.99 a month, which I was fine with. ... except that probably 20 percent of the games have been parceled out to Amazon, Apple TV and ESPN / Fox, which seem to want as many Yankees game as possible. I think that is how MLB is itself shooting themselves in the foot. I am sure there are people who are annoyed that their $20 a month to YES is getting them shut out of so many games. At what point do those people just bolt?

MSG is $29.99 a month, but at least you get 95 percent of the basketball and hockey games for the fee (which I suspect most of you will find exorbitant). You can pay $309.99 for the year, which works out to a little less than $26 a month (YES does something similar -- a yearly discount), but I decided to just pay monthly and only add each service in season.

This might just be me talking as an old fart shaking his fist at the clouds (though I'm younger than you ) but wouldn't you rather pay more for cable and get hundreds of channels (most of which, admittedly, you probably never watch) than pay so much for just two channels on a seasonal basis? It also lessens the sting of a forking Yankees-Orioles game being only on forking ION-3, or some shirt.

 

[The Big Ragu]

This might just be me talking as an old fart shaking his fist at the clouds (though I'm younger than you ) but wouldn't you rather pay more for cable and get hundreds of channels (most of which, admittedly, you probably never watch) than pay so much for just two channels on a seasonal basis? It also lessens the sting of a forking Yankees-Orioles game being only on forking ION-3, or some shirt.

Oh, I'm also paying for a live streaming TV package that gives me all the useless channels I never watch (in addition to a few I actually wanted).

 

[Readallover]

Florida Panthers games are moving from cable to local broadcast stations

 

[Readallover]

https://www.nexttv.com/news/altice-usa-drops-bally-sports-rsns-from-its-optimum-cable-tv-service