Rosenthal: Overloaded with star prospects, Orioles need to determine how to escalate the team’s rise

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

Yea I as recently told that the idea of MASN folding over the next few years is a real possibility.

There’s no real reason for MASN to fold.  The rights fees they have to pay the teams are re-set every five years and the precedent set in the two arbitrations established that the rights fees have to be set at a level where MASN can earn a profit.   So, MASN is in a way better situation than these RSNs that entered into 10-20 year contracts that are locked into operating at a loss due to cord-cutting.   

[Sports Guy]

20 minutes ago, interloper said:

Fingers crossed!

That’s not necessarily a good thing.  Part of the premise was that could make it easier to move the team (after they are sold by the Angelos family).

[Moose Milligan]

52 minutes ago, interloper said:

Fingers crossed!

I don't know why you'd think this is a good thing.

[geschinger]

1 hour ago, Sports Guy said:

These RSNs need to break away from cable outlets and offer their own app.

If MASN charged say, $15/month or $120 a year (something like that), they would get the subscribers.

I just don’t get how these guys can be this far behind the technology that is out there that is used by so many.

I would love it if there were such an offering but not sure the economics work.  Say they charged $120 a year.  They would have to get somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000 subscribers to cover rights fees, assuming it's $50-60m per year per team.

Would anywhere near that many O's and Nat's households pay that much to watch MASN?  I don't think that's likely.  And that is before any/all expenses to operate (or outsource) a streaming platform is accounted for.  Not sure advertising would be anywhere near enough to cover that.

Edited March 8, 2023 by geschinger

[Sports Guy]

28 minutes ago, geschinger said:

I would love it if there were such an offering but not sure the economics work.  Say they charged $120 a year.  They would have to get somewhere between 800,000 and 1,000,000 subscribers to cover rights fees, assuming it's $50-60m per year per team.

Would anywhere near that many O's and Nat's households pay that much to watch MASN?  I don't think that's likely.  And that is before any/all expenses to operate (or outsource) a streaming platform is accounted for.  Not sure advertising would be anywhere near enough to cover that.

Well, they would still have the cable presence too(I wasn’t clear about that). I don’t see why they can’t do both. 

[MCO'sFan]

17 minutes ago, Sports Guy said:

Well, they would still have the cable presence too(I wasn’t clear about that). I don’t see why they can’t do both. 

I have brought this up in the past. Maybe someone like Frobby knows the answer. I am curious if there is something in the MASN agreements with the cable/satellite providers that prohibits MASN from streaming to non-cable subscribers?

[geschinger]

45 minutes ago, MCO'sFan said:

I have brought this up in the past. Maybe someone like Frobby knows the answer. I am curious if there is something in the MASN agreements with the cable/satellite providers that prohibits MASN from streaming to non-cable subscribers?

It would be interesting to see if Frobby or someone knows the answer for MASN but there is one team that offers a direct-to-consumer streaming option - the Red Sox with NESN 360.  It is only available in the Red Sox market territory, it's $30 a month and reviews are horrible about the quality.  The skill set for running a broadcast network that lets cable companies handle distribution doesn't seem to translate to competently running an OTT streaming service.

[interloper]

3 hours ago, Sports Guy said:

That’s not necessarily a good thing.  Part of the premise was that could make it easier to move the team (after they are sold by the Angelos family).

2 hours ago, Moose Milligan said:

I don't know why you'd think this is a good thing.

Mostly just hating on MASN as a joke. Didn't really give it much thought to be honest haha. My line of thinking was "MASN dies and something better replaces it", but good point about the move, etc. 

[Moose Milligan]

14 minutes ago, interloper said:

Mostly just hating on MASN as a joke. Didn't really give it much thought to be honest haha. My line of thinking was "MASN dies and something better replaces it", but good point about the move, etc. 

Well, yeah it's easy to hate on MASN.  But as far as an RSN, I think they're okay.  

[interloper]

1 minute ago, Moose Milligan said:

Well, yeah it's easy to hate on MASN.  But as far as an RSN, I think they're okay.  

Aren't they one of the few RSNs left that blackout games? They routinely screw up audio, video, and on screen graphics throughout the season. That said, they appear to be wildly under-funded and under-supported by the Orioles, which isn't really their fault. But obviously that's because they're about to cost the O's tens of millions of dollars in legal nonsense. 

[Moose Milligan]

5 minutes ago, interloper said:

Aren't they one of the few RSNs left that blackout games? They routinely screw up audio, video, and on screen graphics throughout the season. That said, they appear to be wildly under-funded and under-supported by the Orioles, which isn't really their fault. But obviously that's because they're about to cost the O's tens of millions of dollars in legal nonsense. 

I thought all RSNs blacked out their games.  I know for MLB.TV you can't watch the local games in your market.  

Eh, they screw up from time to time, that's true...but it's not enough for me to really hate MASN, especially when you point out that they're underfunded and under supported.  

Are they great?  No.  But they're adequate enough.  

I mean, I remember a time where HTS had a sign out in centerfield at Memorial Stadium bragging that you could catch something like 90 games on their network.  We've come a long way.

 

 

[OsFanSinceThe80s]

7 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

I thought all RSNs blacked out their games.  I know for MLB.TV you can't watch the local games in your market.  

Eh, they screw up from time to time, that's true...but it's not enough for me to really hate MASN, especially when you point out that they're underfunded and under supported.  

Are they great?  No.  But they're adequate enough.  

I mean, I remember a time where HTS had a sign out in centerfield at Memorial Stadium bragging that you could catch something like 90 games on their network.  We've come a long way.

 

 

Keep in mind this was when Orioles still had an OTA contract to televise games with local television stations. The reason why HTS only had 90 games was another 50 games would be exclusive to local television. That still left maybe 20 games that didn't get local broadcast coverage unless it was a national television broadcast.

From what I can remember in the late 90's mostly every game was on television and it was maybe a handful of games that weren't televised every season. I guess it's good MASN broadcasts every games, but it would be nice if a local Baltimore television station was able to broadcast a game or two every week.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, MCO'sFan said:

I have brought this up in the past. Maybe someone like Frobby knows the answer. I am curious if there is something in the MASN agreements with the cable/satellite providers that prohibits MASN from streaming to non-cable subscribers?

I do not know, but I suspect there’s some restriction like that.  

[Moose Milligan]

12 minutes ago, OsFanSinceThe80s said:

Keep in mind this was when Orioles still had an OTA contract to televise games with local television stations. The reason why HTS only had 90 games was another 50 games would be exclusive to local television. That still left maybe 20 games that didn't get local broadcast coverage unless it was a national television broadcast.

From what I can remember in the late 90's mostly every game was on television and it was maybe a handful of games that weren't televised every season. I guess it's good MASN broadcasts every games, but it would be nice if a local Baltimore television station was able to broadcast a game or two every week.

That's true, I forgot about that.  But living in Northern VA, we didn't get the local Baltimore stations so getting a game on HTS was a sort of a treat.

 

[Going Underground]

32 minutes ago, Moose Milligan said:

That's true, I forgot about that.  But living in Northern VA, we didn't get the local Baltimore stations so getting a game on HTS was a sort of a treat.

 

The NY Mets are showing 31 games on local TV.3 preseason games. One of the few who show any games on regular TV.

Edited March 8, 2023 by Going Underground