Fangraphs: Why a Mid-Market Team Can't Sign Players to Long Contracts

[weams]

Wow, I didn't realize how confused you were. No wonder you always seem so annoyed.

I told you that he is a nice enough guy when you talk with him

[weams]

Wow, I didn't realize how confused you were. No wonder you always seem so annoyed.

You know, you have to take into consideration that an entire two generations of our fan base got poisoned by the same spewers of factoid and fantasy. At the dawn of the digital age, that was the only Orioles news that you could get. Other than here. And we had our guy or two from planet zul.

[Frobby]

And... this is why the whole thing will eventually collapse. It's silly enough that the RSNs get to collect money from folks who don't care about baseball. But MASN gets to collect money from non-baseball fans who aren't even in the Orioles' market and wouldn't root for them anyway, and funnel that money to the Orioles. Because it's not fair that some other team came in and stole all that revenue from people who aren't watching the Orioles.

It may go away some day, but probably not as fast as you think. Also, I am not sure I agree with your idea of what is the Orioles' TV market, or used to be. Certainly the Orioles were carried throughout Northern Virginia before MASN. I don't know about other places. However, cable companies in Charlotte successfully opposed carrying MASN. So, it's not as if the cable companies are without recourse if they think their subscriber base isn't interested in MASN.

[weams]

"There's no arrangement now with MLB for in-market streaming and that?s one initiative that Commissioner Manfred is on in a big way," DeWitt said. "I feel confident that sooner rather than later there will be in-market streaming."

But -

"meaning if you have cable in your house in Cardinals territory and you have a tablet that you can watch that game on that tablet. Right now, you can watch all the other teams but not your team, just to protect the rights."

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/cardinals-billion-dollar-tv-deal-and-in-market-streaming/

At some point, MLB might not be able to reap the benefits of cable providers passing along the costs of massive rights fees to uninterested consumers by way of the cable bundle. When that happens, and MLB potentially cuts out the middle-man cable provider, it will then receive a much greater share of the pie from consumers and advertisers. Those dollars might not keep pace with the current guarantees being paid, but they are not going to vanish. The bubble might get smaller and be more manageable in size, but it does not look like it is going to burst.

[Nigel Tufnel]

So, it's not as if the cable companies are without recourse if they think their subscriber base isn't interested in MASN.

Right, this is why MASN is so important to the O's. If the Nats were to move to another network, cable companies in DC and Northern Virginia would drop MASN pretty quickly, which would eliminate a huge chunk of MASN's revenue.

[brooksfrankjim]

You don't understand how TV rights fees work. And that's where the money is, at least for now.

It doesn't matter how many Orioles fans there are in the region, or how many games they watch. MASN gets money for every single person in the market who has a cable/satellite package containing MASN, regardless of whether they know anything about baseball or not. This is the entire reason that MASN exists in the first place, so the O's would collect rights fees from the larger Washington market.

But MASN has to divide the money between two teams. And since MASN needs to split the money evenly, it makes sense to divide the size of the market in half. MASN doesn't make the Orioles large market; it just prevents them from being small market.

This explanation is flawed in that the Orioles ownership position in the RSN decreases only to 67% so years from now they still own majority of the 4th largest market.

[weams]

This explanation is flawed in that the Orioles ownership position in the RSN decreases only to 67% so years from now they still own majority of the 4th largest market.

You don't understand either. It is ownership of the profit. Or the loss. Not the rights fees. They are not skewed. Just the net operating profit of the fledgling network. That has no alternative programing. And has a top rated show by Tom Davis.

So they never own 67% of the market. Just of the profits, after rights payout and all expenses of the network. In a declining market place for networks.

[Nigel Tufnel]

This explanation is flawed in that the Orioles ownership position in the RSN decreases only to 67% so years from now they still own majority of the 4th largest market.

Right, they own the majority of the market, but they also have to pay rights fees to two teams, and those rights fees turned out to be a lot more than they had planned. Also, they thought that having their own RSN would protect them from revenue sharing, but with the increased rights fees, that's turning out to not be true.

If the O's win the court case, you probably will see spending increase.

[wildcard]

There was a good discussion going on between Stotle and CA-Oriole about mid market team building strategies, but I can't find it now. Can anyone point me to where it is?

[Nigel Tufnel]

There was a good discussion going on between Stotle and CA-Oriole about mid market team building strategies, but I can't find it now. Can anyone point me to where it is?

I think you want the DFA Bud Norris thread.

[wildcard]

I think you want the DFA Bud Norris thread.

Thanks. It was driving me nuts trying to find it.

[Nevermore]

I hear this a lot from Cubs fans. I think there is a difference between not being mid-market and operating in a highly successful manner as a mid-market.

What Cubs fans want is for STL to be kicked out of mid-market status because they have been successful enough to leverage their market and reach to the utmost. If the Cardinals weren't a successful organization Cubs fans wouldn't complain. Their payroll is on par with Baltimore's. I don't see the injustice.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

One thing that Cubs fans had going is that station WGN used to be carried on most cable networks and they would carry many of the Cubs games nationwide (plus a few White Sox games). However, just this year, WGN changed their cable offering to WGN-A and just plain WGN. WGN is carried in the Chicago area but nationwide on WGN-A, there are no longer any Cubs (or White Sox) games being televised.