The Co-Dependent Marriage Of TV and Sports

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According to a report released this week by PriceWaterhouseCooper, the revenue earned from media rights by the North American sports industry will surpass the revenue earned at the gate by 2018, when they’ll reach $19.95 billion and $19.72 billion, respectively, fulfilling the old adage that the sports business is really the TV business.

Increasingly, the reverse is also true: The TV business is really the sports business.

More than a third of all TV advertising in the U.S. today goes to live sports, and that doesn’t include ESPN, which shows a mix of live sports and sports-related programming. Add in ESPN and the share of advertising going to sport programming would top 40 percent, Advancit Capital partner and former Fox Digital president Jonathan Miller estimated from the stage at the New York Media Festival earlier this month. Franklin_Gutierrez_hitting_HRAt the same time, according to SNL Kagan, sports networks account for nearly 20 percent of the carriage fees paid by cable and satellite operators, and that doesn’t count the portion of the carriage and retransmission fees paid to broadcasters and general-interest cable networks that can be attributed to the sports programming they carry. According to an analysis last year by MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson, the aggregate of sports rights account for as much as 50 percent of the cost of the average cable bill. Read More »

Cracking The OTT Ice On Live Local Sports

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What a difference a spin-off makes. Barely a week after Major League Baseball’s 30 team owners approved the spin-off of BAM Tech, the streaming technology arm of MLB Advanced Media, reports surfaced that the league is drafting deal papers with Fox Sports to extend authenticated in-market streaming rights to Fox’s 15 regional sports networks (RSNs) beginning with the 2016 season.

Like most major sports leagues, MLB controls streaming rights for all of its teams’ games and game-related content. The league sells a high-end package of out-of-market games through MLB.com, but only the Toronto Blue Jays currently offer in-market streaming. The league and U.S. RSNs, led by Fox, have been negotiating Franklin_Gutierrez_hitting_HRover in-market streaming rights for years, but the league’s insistence that all streams be hosted by MLBAM –officially to ensure stream quality — has long been a roadblock to any deal because it would require Fox’s pay-TV affiliates to share subscriber information with the league during the authentication process. Under the deal now being finalized, according to the reports, Fox will handle authentication and fans will be able to access the games through their local RSN’s website, via the FoxSportsGo app, or through their service provider’s TV Everywhere app.

As part of the deal, Fox will still be required to use BAM Tech as its primary streaming technology vendor, and to pay a rights fee to MLB equal to around 4 percent of the team’s overall media deal. Read More »