YES, this makes sense.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

This bears noting, doesn't it?

News Corporation and Yankees Global Enterprises announced an agreement on Tuesday that calls for News Corporation to acquire a 49 percent equity stake in the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network (YES)... The media rights agreement is subject to the approval of Major League Baseball, and the investment is expected to close by the end of the calendar year, according to a team release. According to the release, after three years, News Corporation can acquire an additional stake in the network that could bring its ownership up to 80 percent.

[Ceetar]

definitely interesting. What's the incentive for the Yankees here, besides the initial income?

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Massive risk reduction, should the RSN-value bubble get closer to bursting (this sort of sale kinda hints we're headed that way, no?).

[Ceetar]

RSN-value?

sorry, my acronym brain doesn't seem to work on Captain Morgan.

[Frayed Knot]

Regional Sports Networks

They've been growing like moss for the better part of the last decade or so but there never seems to be enough programming to fill them all which points to a possible future of contraction and mergers rather than expansion.

[Edgy MD]

One might suggest... work on your programming.

[metirish]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Massive risk reduction, should the RSN-value bubble get closer to bursting (this sort of sale kinda hints we're headed that way, no?).

John Malone tends to see this happening.

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-73381727/

[ashie62]

Cashing out and getting ready to dump the rest.

[Gwreck]

A rare moment of the unvarnished truth coming from Randy Levine's mouth:

We tell our people if you want to be bipartisan and fair, don�t work for YES.

More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/24/sports/baseball/change-in-yes-ownership-unlikely-to-alter-yankees-heavy-format.html?ref=sports

[Ceetar]

metirish wrote: Massive risk reduction, should the RSN-value bubble get closer to bursting (this sort of sale kinda hints we're headed that way, no?). John Malone tends to see this happening. http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-73381727/

There's some sound theory there. I don't how common it actually is, but you hear more and more about people dumping their cable and just streaming/downloading/etc the content/shows they want. Most people don't do this for sports though, but perhaps more of the non-sports fans 'tricked' into having to pay for the sports programming stations will stop. But this is a tv-wide issue, and the cable and TV companies are not going to go down without a fight either. Think about how many court-hours have been spent fighting over the EVERY subscriber versus ADD ON channel for YES and the like.

I don't pretend to know which way things are going, but certainly these cable companies could go more towards controlling the streaming towards subscriptions and video on demand and making it expensive to just have basic channels versus the add-ons. You'll have to buy their app for the playstation and the Android and your computer and the chip in your head.

I could envision a system where you literally pay per show too though. I wonder if that would help cut the crap on TV though. It's on thing to flip on Honey Boo Boo and marvel at the idiocy in a train-wreck way, quite another to routinely spend a couple of bucks to do so.

[Frayed Knot]

Ceetar wrote: There's some sound theory there. I don't how common it actually is, but you hear more and more about people dumping their cable and just streaming/downloading/etc the content/shows they want. Most people don't do this for sports though.

The few that do are doing so through MLB.TV or similar avenues.
The problem with MLB.TV replacing cable/local stuff entirely is their arcane black-out policies which severely limit some options. I was reading an on-line note from one guy who said he lived in Iowa and was blacked out via MLB.TV of Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Indians, Royals, Tigers, Brewers, and Twins games (and maybe one or two others as well) even though he's several hundred miles from most or all of those cities.




That Levine quote is priceless even though I'm sure Michael Kay would confess to being the love child of Bea Arthur impregnated by an alien before admitting that he's under any such restrictions from his YES overlords.

[Ceetar]

Frayed Knot wrote: Ceetar wrote: There's some sound theory there. I don't how common it actually is, but you hear more and more about people dumping their cable and just streaming/downloading/etc the content/shows they want. Most people don't do this for sports though. The few that do are doing so through MLB.TV or similar avenues. The problem with MLB.TV replacing cable/local stuff entirely is their arcane black-out policies which severely limit some options. I was reading an on-line note from one guy who said he lived in Iowa and was blacked out via MLB.TV of Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Indians, Royals, Tigers, Brewers, and Twins games (and maybe one or two others as well) even though he's several hundred miles from most or all of those cities. That Levine quote is priceless even though I'm sure Michael Kay would confess to being the love child of Bea Arthur impregnated by an alien before admitting that he's under any such restrictions from his YES overlords.

yeah, i think Vegas is another of those 17 area type blackout places. Well, MLB would rather the cable companies do well in this regard. But they clearly have a fallback model if they wanted to. That's all out of market stuff anyway though.