While I should have been enjoying college football this weekend, I was left to scramble because my cable provider Charter/Spectrum and Disney are involved in a dispute which left myself and many sports fans without the ESPN family of networks.
Thanks to YouTubeTV for an easy setup and a nice trial period, and my potential permanent home for my sports viewing.
What does the future look like? Well, this article from Sport Business Journal provided some answers. It’s behind a paywall, but readable if you have some free articles from that site.
Here are two quotes that caught my eye.
It’s likely that these two will reach an agreement over the next few days or weeks. The two sides still are talking.
Well, that’s good news, because this is currently unacceptable.
Here’s the other quote…
If Charter gets out of the video business, and if other cable operators follow suit, media rights could be reset lower, which would have broad implications on team values and player salaries. Leagues and teams still would have media rights deals. But they wouldn’t be the same as they’ve seen over the past three decades, when the cable model benefitted sports leagues and teams more than anything else.
All signs have been pointing in this direction. The Networks are tapped out for the time being. The last eight P5 adds did not add a penny to the existing media rights deal for the poaching conference – that is (ACC) – Stanford, Cal, Big10 – Oregon, Washington, Big12 – Utah, Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado.
There’s only current negotiation going on that is between Notre Dame and NBC. It will be interesting to see where that ends up.
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