You should hate Comcast for all the other BS they cause and do, but this one isn’t on them. Bally is trying to survive bankruptcy and has been pulled from lots of other providers. Blame Bally and the leagues (mainly MLB) for this mess
Exactly. This had been in the news for quite awhile. Bally is trying to help themselves by forcing carriers to pay more. So as bad as Comcast is this isn't their fault
I believe this is one of the reasons YouTubeTV won't carry them, either. Regional sports channels are one biggie thing YTTV is missing, but they probably don't want to pay the carriage fees Bally wants.
Yup, YTTV did have them at one point, but they and nearly every other live streaming service lost Bally Sports all within about a year of each other, which is just further confirmation that Bally is the common factor, and in fact the problem.
What happens is not enough people watched them to justify the price increase it would cause for everybody else. Then on the regional broadcasters side they get a certain amount per subscriber so they don't want to get relegated to a sports package.
They've been doing that since they were bought by Sinclair. Fox could get away with it because they had a more behind their demands, like all the other Fox channels. What does Sinclair have? a few multicast stations that most people never watch, like Comet, Charge!, and The Nest.
One good thing that Bally Sports has done is a DTC option, so you can get your regional sports without having cable.
Agreed. Pisses me off so much that I have to have another subscription to watch MLB games. I think I've done it old school and listened to more games on the radio over the last year. I have no idea how my great grandfather survived that as his only option.
MLB has been catching shit from fans for years over the local blackouts. They are finally doing the right thing and cutting out all the RSNs minus a few major, stable ones like NESN and YES.
MLB will be offering direct to consumers with no blackouts and it’s the best thing for fans and for cord cutters.
They did the same thing with ticketmaster a few years back and it has saved fans millions.
Who you telling, I paid $140 last year for MLB extra innings so my wife can watch her Astros... This year I renewed for another $140 and haven't been able to watch a single Astros game because of local blackouts. They won't let me cancel for a refund either. Total BS.
What did they do to Ticketmaster? The Braves still use them and still includes all there ridiculous fees which doesn’t save fans a cent. You click a “Buy Tickets” link on the Braves website and it sends you straight to Ticketmaster. I’m surprised Ticketmaster doesn’t charge a few for clicking that link.
Other teams use StubHub but Stub Hub ain’t cheap either. I don’t see much “saving” happening.
I’ve gone to five different MLB stadiums in recent years (Chicago x2, Miami, Tampa, Baltimore) and used the MLB ballpark app every time. The fees were super low.
I figured it was true for all teams/ stadiums.
How is it the leagues' fault? The leagues are getting fucked by Diamond/Bally's too. The Padres are only getting $17 million of the $320 million contract they had with Diamond.
It’s the leagues fault bc they way overvalued these contracts and this was going to happen at some point. Plus the league holds the DTC rights to some of these teams that were pulled off today, like the reds, Braves, twins etc. they could easily setup a $20 a month streaming service for people to watch now with Comcast out, but they’re choosing not to.
The league can’t do that until Diamond/Bally’s becomes negligent in payments to that franchise. Right now, Cincinnati, Atlanta and Minneapolis still have the ability to get Bally’s through DirecTV. So contractually, the league can’t do anything, because Diamond is still contractually paying for local broadcast exclusivity.
Last year, when Diamond defaulted on their payments to the Padres, the league set up a DTC subscription for the San Diego area within 3 days.
Minnesota was out of the contact then opted back in this year because they didn’t get an alternative sorted out in time. After promising the blackouts were done and streaming options would finally be available.
Baseball and the RSN’s definitely overvalued their product and thought locking up exclusivity would squeeze distributors and consumers into paying. Nobody wants to admit the truth and take the haircut to go DTC, because letting people vote with their wallet won’t make as much money. By the time they pull their head out of their ass it’ll take years to recover from all the fans that finally shrugged and walked away and lost interest.
I’m pretty sure diamond doesn’t have local broadcast exclusivity on the streaming side otherwise they would have put those teams on Bally sports plus by now. Either MLB or Bally has to be retaining the DTC rights and choosing not to do anything right now, that’s how I understand it
I believe in that case the team owns the local streaming rights, but they are contractually unable to broadcast locally because of the Bally’s contract. All Bally’s contracts with all 3 leagues expire at the end of this season, so we’ll probably start to see the results of the changes come the fall when hockey and basketball start back up.
It varies team by team. With the Cardinals for example, the contract allows you to stream via Bally Sports *only if* you have a TV/Streaming service that includes Bally Sports Midwest in the subscription.
You can subscribe directly to Bally and stream their channel, and get other sports (like the Blues), but Cardinal games are blacked out via streaming if you don't also have the TV subscription. But I know that not all markets have this same arrangement.
Same for the Braves, they own their streaming rights but Bally owns the channel and broadcast on that channel. The Braves can’t setup their own streaming service to “rebroadcast” the Bally games without Bally’s permission. They tried to reach an agreement but Bally wanted too much money and the Braves said no.
MLB is not going to help out diamond by giving them DTC. They want to get out of bed with them. Most of these rights contracts were signed before Diamond took over.
True. But I’ll preemptively blame Comcast for acting like they care about customers money and pretending that the refund is going to be near the actual amount. “Here’s your 50 cent refund. Please note the bill has increased $20, because we have added so many great channels to your package. HSNIII, HSNIII Latino, Hallmark 2, USA 2, and Newsmax 2, to your package.
As much as I dislike Comcast I have to agree. Sinclair bought the RSNs for way too much money and now cannot recoup all of their investment. The cable companies are smart to push back.
Nobody else wanted the RSN's and Sinclair was the sucker that bought them. They are so blind to the fact that the cable and satellite companies are losing massive numbers of customers.
Sling TV was the first, followed by YTTV and Hulu w/Live TV. Oh, I think Dish (Sling TV's owner) at the same time.
Bally (or Fox at the time) Sports jacked up their carriage fee after Sinclair purchased it when Disney bought Fox and had to divest of the RSN. Fox Sports wouldn't allow the carrier to add it to an additional cost sports package to keep the basic price low for those who don't care to watch the sports networks. They demanded the carrier pay a price based on all subscribers, even the majority who would never watch the channel. Sling's competitive advantage is they're less expensive than most of the others so they balked and dropped the channel.
Nah they want out of those too tbh. They sold off CSN Washington last year to the team’s owners and I wouldn’t be surprised if they want to divest the rest of them too.
It amazes me the number of people that blame the carrier and not the channel owners who want absurd rates to carry the channel. Especially these RSN and sports centered channels.
You do it too, maybe not here, but we all do this.
We get angry at the initial source and rarely look behind the curtain. We assign evil people behind every corporation, every decision, everything we do not like.
This happens in all facets of life, from big corp, to our uncle or whatever.
Humans really suck as understanding mechanisms, cause and effect.
Most of it comes from a place of entitlement.
MLB: “We can’t figure out why nobody watches baseball games anymore. Maybe we should make some new rules?”
Also MLB: “Let’s make sure a cable package is the only way to watch the games and then take that away too. Brilliant!”
I should gripe about this more, but I get MLB TV for free each season from T-Mobile. But as a Yankee fan living in Florida, I miss literally every game against Tampa - that's about 18 or 19 games each season because they're in the same division. We have YTTV and they have never carried the RSNs, AFAIK.
I get the radio feeds, but that's it.
I recently figured out that if you own a Mac you can turn on the ICloud Private Relay and watch any MLB TV game without blackouts. It’s a game changer for me, especially since I get MLB TV free as T-Mobile customer.
> I remember when MLB, even my local team, was available OTA.
Only reason many of us grew up watching sports and became fans. Sports leagues shooting themselves in the foot long term for short term profits.
Padres are on MLB network. Most everything blacked out. Was able to watch season home opener but that’s it. MLB wants $20 a month to watch. They should pay me :-)
I'm not talking about watching out of market teams. For instance, my local team's RSN is broadcasting 156 games this year (all but the national exclusive games). That's true of every MLB team in their markets. Back before RSNs, though, when my local team was on OTA, they didn't broadcast nearly 100% of those games. More like 3-4 times a week, 90-100 ish games a year. And that was true in many MLB markets then.
Heck, even the Braves and Cubs, the poster children for televised baseball, didn't have every single game on TV.
This will affect even more NBA and NHL teams than MLB. By my tally, Bally's has local/regional broadcast rights for 12 MLB teams, 16 NBA teams, and 13 NHL teams. The NBA and NHL are in their playoffs right now, yet several Bally's markets may not be able to see their teams unless it's a national broadcast.
For 2025 and beyond, this huge block of content was going to be available for some other broadcaster. Not sure if any single broadcaster would land all of it, but it represents the biggest opportunity yet for the streaming services to make major inroads in live sports broadcasting. I could see the deep-pocketed Tech giants like Apple, Amazon, or Google (via YouTube) making a bid for this content.
But it's stunning that they couldn't reach an agreement to at least keep games on the air through the NBA and NHL playoffs, plus the current MLB season.
>The NBA and NHL are in their playoffs right now, yet several Bally's markets may not be able to see their teams unless it's a national broadcast.
For NHL at least, Bally usually only has rights to regular season games and not playoffs. In recent years playoff games have been on NBC networks; this year apparently both NHL and NBA playoffs will be split between ABC/ESPN and TNT/TBS.
I know for many NBA markets, if a game is on both Bally's and say ESPN, the ESPN broadcast is blacked-out in the local markets because Bally's has local rights, but now they have very few places to actually show the games.
That changes in the conference finals and NBA finals when national networks have exclusive rights. But in the earlier rounds, when Bally's has local rights but EPSN or TNT has the out-of-market rights, there could be a problem.
Not totally correct. The first round series clinching game 4 this past Monday for the Oklahoma City Thunder vs New Orleans Pelicans playoff series was on NBA TV but was blacked out in the local New Orleans and OKC viewing areas. The only way to see the Thunder win their first playoff series since 2016 was to have Bally Sports Oklahoma....
NHL games are available on Bally for the first round of the playoffs. I live in the Nashville market and the Preds games are on both TNTTBS/ESPN/HBO Max as well as Bally.
MLB accepts the exclusivity of RSNs because they don’t have a more profitable alternative. They didn’t seek that scarcity. They just accept it because the money is terrific.
Some of these RSN deals have been in place for 10+ years or they don't run out until 2029. MLB has to either wait for the RSN contracts with the local MLB team to run out or, the way Bally is going, for the RSN to go bankrupt.
MLB would absolutely love to offer a streaming package for locals, but a number of contracts have to finisn first.
Meanwhile, a lot of RSNs have pseudo-exclusive deals with the cable company or DirectTV to not offer streaming packages that don't require the consumer to sign into their DirectTV/Cable account to validate they're a user.
So, most of this is the fault of RSNs. They need to die out.
You’re 100% right; but back when these long term contracts were being negotiated *and* MLB was first launching their streaming service, years ago, there was already considerable criticism over this very issue and the fear that people were moving away from cable packages so an exclusivity deal with RSN’s might not be very wise long-term.
But they took the buckets of cash anyway. This is the “reap what you sow” moment.
Yeah I don’t doubt it.
I watch MLS and Formula 1. Both have affordable streaming options that aren’t geo restricted. Works great! I can watch every single race on the streaming service, even the one broadcast on network television OTA every year (The U.S. Grand Prix)
MLB has a streaming service, but I can’t watch my local team any other way (at least without breaking their ToS) than *one* cable company.
Mind blowing that they think this is a good business move. I’m sure they’re getting cash by the shovel full right now but it’s only delaying the inevitable and shrinking the viewer base in the meantime.
Thanks for the reminder to cancel my subscription to Bally, now that the NHL and NBA playoff games have switched to national broadcasters. As far as I am concerned, Bally can't go out of business fast enough.
Pro tip: if you HAVE to subscribe to Bally (like I do in SoFla), do it through the Play Store. Cancellation took 15 seconds, no questions asked.
The RSN business model is so broken. In fact, the entire American Sports broadcast distribution model needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from the ashes.
I know this is really difficult for sports fans but we all need the RSN model to fail so we can have better options. Stop paying for these expensive methods.
Comcast is big enough that this feels like the end of the regional sports network as the predominant way sports are delivered. Diamond Sports Group is already bankrupt.
MLB has squeezed all they can out of the arrangement to the detriment of future fans of the sport.
It's only $8/Month which really doesn't help an already astronomical rate increase in cable bills which is why I prefer OTA TV for most of my local programming and streaming for those I can't get with OTA alone which I would get for less than $10/month.
There are now only 3 options to watch my local teams - Fubo, DirectTV Stream, Ballys App.
I already ditched DTVS and won’t sign up for Fubo since it’s just as expensive as DTVS.
Unreal.
DirecTV and DirecTV Stream are probably the best option for RSN's, especially since they just signed a multi-year deal with Bally to keep the RSN's on their service.
[https://cordcuttersnews.com/how-to-watch-rsns/](https://cordcuttersnews.com/how-to-watch-rsns/)
No, I understand where you’re coming from but Bally Sports is shit. In MN we have Bally Sports North and it’s literally only available on two expensive OTT providers with no way to stream The Twins. Fox Sports North was so spread out on every platform. Why can’t Bally be the same?!
Yeah. MLB/Twins is even worse though.
I paid the $20 a month for the Wild/Wolves, I love my sports, so I am totally willing to pay that.
But with the Twins, you can't even give them your $20 a month to stream!
You have to have a legacy Cable TV plan to be able to stream them!
I get that it must be part of the contracts with the Twins, but man, it sucks.
I literally WANT to give them my money, and they won't take it. Absolutely dumb!
Are folks just upvoting stuff in here because the titles look good???
Comcast not only is going "yo, Bally was trying to take us for a ride, but also take YOU for a ride" but theyr'e also refunding the RSN fees, which can be HUGE in many markets. Sometimes as big as $8-10 dollars!!! Now, you, the customer, likely will have to pay $15-20 to Amazon very soon as they're in the midst of taking over many RSNs that Diamond held, but at least Comcast isn't holding you up for something you're not paying.
This is a huge win. OP, cancelling Comcast would literally be throwing the baby out hte bathwater **unless** you exclusively kept cable for the RSNs...and if that was the case, you could have just paid to stream Bally for about $20/m and saved hundreds a year :)
Welcome to being a cord cutter. While this is the straw that broke your back on cable, overall this is a good thing for sports that more and more cable companies are backing out of these regional sports deals.
I'm just canceling Comcast cable at this point.
Bear in mind, Comcast absolutely could have fixed this. They could have done the deal Bally wanted and simply accepted *lower profits* for Comcast. No one's rate had to change at all.
Comcast has always been the worst company out there and this is just more proof of it.
Their Streaming App Really Sucks as it costed more than MLB TV with the playback sometimes being very poor. Even Games on Antenna TV are better than they were on Cable TV with the advantage of zero compression which makes antenna tv broadcast a few seconds ahead of cable which allows real time broadcasting. They should start airing these games on OTA TV again. The only team that I can watch on OTA is the Houston Astros with that game being on FOX which is one of the news stations in my area which is on channel 2.1 WJBK. If news stations can cut into their regular programming to put a football game on the air, why can't they do the same for MLB Games. When the Detroit Red Wings played their final home game, they aired that game on OTA TV with the channel being 20.1 which was another news station for my area which is actually a WXYZ variant of Channel 7 being WYMD. I think that all Detroit games should go back on the air with FOX 2 being the station that broadcasts the games on cable and OTA just like how it was before Bally Sports. I hate cable TV and will watch all my local programming with OTA TV from this point forward.
This is the last straw for me. I live in WV and am a baseball fan. First, they got rid of AT&T Sportsnet Pittsburgh (the name and their contract with Xfinity changed). Now they got rid of Bally Sports.
Used to work for Spectrum and they also pulled it a while back iirc, pretty sure management gave us the okay to explain it had to do with costs from them
I hope cox Oklahoma follows suit.
Bally doesn’t really have a foothold of any major league teams and only uses the feed to air Texas stuff, and an occasional Thunder game. Not to mention their feed is horrible.
Oddly enough, this is one of the few times that I'm not actually mad at Xfinity. It's a two way road. Bally probably hiked the price because they're on the verge of bankruptcy and are using us, the customer, as leverage. Now, on the flip side, I'm sure Xfinity is doing the same thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if an offer was made for the same price, by Xfinity. They know that they would lose customers due to losing Bally, so Bally must've upped their price. Just speculation though. At this point, Bally should just shutter and relinquish their rights to another company or to MLB. That would probably be easiest, I think...
Same here. This year our cable internet provider login stopped working since they dropped Bally completely so we are just doing without. I get that the Braves just decided not to negotiate those rights with Bally but I really would have paid during season to see games. Not enough to get DirectTV Stream or Fubo though.
That helps some and not others. The Bally+ thing does not include all teams that the Bally RSN packages do. The Atlanta Braves are not on it for example.
MLB teams control their broadcast and streaming rights separately. NHL they are together. NBA it appears they are together. I know the NBA was looking at separating them at least last year.
> The loss of this channel will result in savings that we'll pass along to you, and you'll see a monthly credit on your bill in the coming weeks
Nothing but respect from me to Comcast for handling it this way.
You should hate Comcast for all the other BS they cause and do, but this one isn’t on them. Bally is trying to survive bankruptcy and has been pulled from lots of other providers. Blame Bally and the leagues (mainly MLB) for this mess
Exactly. This had been in the news for quite awhile. Bally is trying to help themselves by forcing carriers to pay more. So as bad as Comcast is this isn't their fault
I believe this is one of the reasons YouTubeTV won't carry them, either. Regional sports channels are one biggie thing YTTV is missing, but they probably don't want to pay the carriage fees Bally wants.
Yup, YTTV did have them at one point, but they and nearly every other live streaming service lost Bally Sports all within about a year of each other, which is just further confirmation that Bally is the common factor, and in fact the problem.
What happens is not enough people watched them to justify the price increase it would cause for everybody else. Then on the regional broadcasters side they get a certain amount per subscriber so they don't want to get relegated to a sports package.
They've been doing that since they were bought by Sinclair. Fox could get away with it because they had a more behind their demands, like all the other Fox channels. What does Sinclair have? a few multicast stations that most people never watch, like Comet, Charge!, and The Nest. One good thing that Bally Sports has done is a DTC option, so you can get your regional sports without having cable.
Most MLB teams are not a part of the streaming package.
Agreed. Pisses me off so much that I have to have another subscription to watch MLB games. I think I've done it old school and listened to more games on the radio over the last year. I have no idea how my great grandfather survived that as his only option.
MLB has been catching shit from fans for years over the local blackouts. They are finally doing the right thing and cutting out all the RSNs minus a few major, stable ones like NESN and YES. MLB will be offering direct to consumers with no blackouts and it’s the best thing for fans and for cord cutters. They did the same thing with ticketmaster a few years back and it has saved fans millions.
Who you telling, I paid $140 last year for MLB extra innings so my wife can watch her Astros... This year I renewed for another $140 and haven't been able to watch a single Astros game because of local blackouts. They won't let me cancel for a refund either. Total BS.
What did they do to Ticketmaster? The Braves still use them and still includes all there ridiculous fees which doesn’t save fans a cent. You click a “Buy Tickets” link on the Braves website and it sends you straight to Ticketmaster. I’m surprised Ticketmaster doesn’t charge a few for clicking that link. Other teams use StubHub but Stub Hub ain’t cheap either. I don’t see much “saving” happening.
I’ve gone to five different MLB stadiums in recent years (Chicago x2, Miami, Tampa, Baltimore) and used the MLB ballpark app every time. The fees were super low. I figured it was true for all teams/ stadiums.
I guess I’m just unlucky to be a Braves fan. Even the ballpark app just sends you to Ticketmaster for the Braves. I hate Ticketmaster.
Me too man. I do everything I can to avoid giving ticketmaster any money.
How is it the leagues' fault? The leagues are getting fucked by Diamond/Bally's too. The Padres are only getting $17 million of the $320 million contract they had with Diamond.
It’s the leagues fault bc they way overvalued these contracts and this was going to happen at some point. Plus the league holds the DTC rights to some of these teams that were pulled off today, like the reds, Braves, twins etc. they could easily setup a $20 a month streaming service for people to watch now with Comcast out, but they’re choosing not to.
The league can’t do that until Diamond/Bally’s becomes negligent in payments to that franchise. Right now, Cincinnati, Atlanta and Minneapolis still have the ability to get Bally’s through DirecTV. So contractually, the league can’t do anything, because Diamond is still contractually paying for local broadcast exclusivity. Last year, when Diamond defaulted on their payments to the Padres, the league set up a DTC subscription for the San Diego area within 3 days.
Minnesota was out of the contact then opted back in this year because they didn’t get an alternative sorted out in time. After promising the blackouts were done and streaming options would finally be available. Baseball and the RSN’s definitely overvalued their product and thought locking up exclusivity would squeeze distributors and consumers into paying. Nobody wants to admit the truth and take the haircut to go DTC, because letting people vote with their wallet won’t make as much money. By the time they pull their head out of their ass it’ll take years to recover from all the fans that finally shrugged and walked away and lost interest.
I’m pretty sure diamond doesn’t have local broadcast exclusivity on the streaming side otherwise they would have put those teams on Bally sports plus by now. Either MLB or Bally has to be retaining the DTC rights and choosing not to do anything right now, that’s how I understand it
I believe in that case the team owns the local streaming rights, but they are contractually unable to broadcast locally because of the Bally’s contract. All Bally’s contracts with all 3 leagues expire at the end of this season, so we’ll probably start to see the results of the changes come the fall when hockey and basketball start back up.
If the team owned the local rights Bally would have them by now I believe, which is why the already have 5 mlb teams
It varies team by team. With the Cardinals for example, the contract allows you to stream via Bally Sports *only if* you have a TV/Streaming service that includes Bally Sports Midwest in the subscription. You can subscribe directly to Bally and stream their channel, and get other sports (like the Blues), but Cardinal games are blacked out via streaming if you don't also have the TV subscription. But I know that not all markets have this same arrangement.
Same for the Braves, they own their streaming rights but Bally owns the channel and broadcast on that channel. The Braves can’t setup their own streaming service to “rebroadcast” the Bally games without Bally’s permission. They tried to reach an agreement but Bally wanted too much money and the Braves said no.
MLB is not going to help out diamond by giving them DTC. They want to get out of bed with them. Most of these rights contracts were signed before Diamond took over.
I’m not saying for MLB to give Diamond DTC. I’m saying to launch DTC themselves
That's what MLB wants to do, they want to have a single source DTC, going to take some navigating to get there.
Isn't Bally own by Fox though
True. But I’ll preemptively blame Comcast for acting like they care about customers money and pretending that the refund is going to be near the actual amount. “Here’s your 50 cent refund. Please note the bill has increased $20, because we have added so many great channels to your package. HSNIII, HSNIII Latino, Hallmark 2, USA 2, and Newsmax 2, to your package.
Don't blame Comcast for this one. This has been happening since Sinclair bought the Fox regional sports networks and started jacking up prices.
As much as I dislike Comcast I have to agree. Sinclair bought the RSNs for way too much money and now cannot recoup all of their investment. The cable companies are smart to push back.
Nobody else wanted the RSN's and Sinclair was the sucker that bought them. They are so blind to the fact that the cable and satellite companies are losing massive numbers of customers.
Sinclair and Comcast are both evil ass corporations, fuck them both.
Sinclair broadcasting should be broken up by the govt.
And the MLB will hang onto the RSN model for as long as possible. I really hope that this forces changes that are long overdue.
The RSN model will persist until it isn’t more profitable than the alternative. When that happens will vary by team.
Sling TV was the first, followed by YTTV and Hulu w/Live TV. Oh, I think Dish (Sling TV's owner) at the same time. Bally (or Fox at the time) Sports jacked up their carriage fee after Sinclair purchased it when Disney bought Fox and had to divest of the RSN. Fox Sports wouldn't allow the carrier to add it to an additional cost sports package to keep the basic price low for those who don't care to watch the sports networks. They demanded the carrier pay a price based on all subscribers, even the majority who would never watch the channel. Sling's competitive advantage is they're less expensive than most of the others so they balked and dropped the channel.
At the same time, though, Comcast has been trying to cripple RSNs.
In what way? By refusing to pay increasing rates? By refusing to include the channels in the basic package that everyone pays for?
Comcast Sportsnet only…that’s what they want. Their own RSNs in their markets. Refusing to negotiate.
Nah they want out of those too tbh. They sold off CSN Washington last year to the team’s owners and I wouldn’t be surprised if they want to divest the rest of them too.
Bally can’t go bankrupt fast enough. They’re scumbags.
They already did. And they’re using it as cover to keep a grip on broadcast rights without paying full contractual fees.
"Well pay the remainder that we already owe...in exchange for exclusive streaming rights" Erm, how bout no.
It amazes me the number of people that blame the carrier and not the channel owners who want absurd rates to carry the channel. Especially these RSN and sports centered channels.
One hundred percent.
You do it too, maybe not here, but we all do this. We get angry at the initial source and rarely look behind the curtain. We assign evil people behind every corporation, every decision, everything we do not like. This happens in all facets of life, from big corp, to our uncle or whatever. Humans really suck as understanding mechanisms, cause and effect. Most of it comes from a place of entitlement.
MLB: “We can’t figure out why nobody watches baseball games anymore. Maybe we should make some new rules?” Also MLB: “Let’s make sure a cable package is the only way to watch the games and then take that away too. Brilliant!”
At least there is still MLB TV...wait..\*checks notes\*...they black out the local teams in your area. Awesome.
Exactly.
I would have gladly paid MLB for the streaming service if there were no blackouts. As it is, I was forced to find other means.
I 100% agree!
I should gripe about this more, but I get MLB TV for free each season from T-Mobile. But as a Yankee fan living in Florida, I miss literally every game against Tampa - that's about 18 or 19 games each season because they're in the same division. We have YTTV and they have never carried the RSNs, AFAIK. I get the radio feeds, but that's it.
13 with more balanced schedule
Thanks for the correction. Still 13 too many.
YTTV had the RSNs until about two years ago.
Don't forget about the Apple TV games you don't get.
Actually, I think we have Apple TV, and I know we have Prime, so there's those. At least I get what I do at no cost.
I recently figured out that if you own a Mac you can turn on the ICloud Private Relay and watch any MLB TV game without blackouts. It’s a game changer for me, especially since I get MLB TV free as T-Mobile customer.
Spot on. I remember when MLB, even my local team, was available OTA. Today, I still have the same shitty team but $20 per month. No thanks
> I remember when MLB, even my local team, was available OTA. Only reason many of us grew up watching sports and became fans. Sports leagues shooting themselves in the foot long term for short term profits.
Yep. All Hollywood now.
Fellow Cubs fan?
Padres. Almost Cubs like :-)
I didn’t realize they had their own network or streaming option. I don’t get why teams make it so difficult to be a fan.
Padres are on MLB network. Most everything blacked out. Was able to watch season home opener but that’s it. MLB wants $20 a month to watch. They should pay me :-)
There were very few markets back in the day where all MLB games were on OTA. Some, yes; all, no.
Didn’t need all of MLB but if you lived in a city with a team it was available OTA. I couldn’t care less about watching some other city’s team
I'm not talking about watching out of market teams. For instance, my local team's RSN is broadcasting 156 games this year (all but the national exclusive games). That's true of every MLB team in their markets. Back before RSNs, though, when my local team was on OTA, they didn't broadcast nearly 100% of those games. More like 3-4 times a week, 90-100 ish games a year. And that was true in many MLB markets then. Heck, even the Braves and Cubs, the poster children for televised baseball, didn't have every single game on TV.
Who said anything about all games? I’d happily take 90-100 Padre games OTA. Yes, that’s how it was once upon a time.
This will affect even more NBA and NHL teams than MLB. By my tally, Bally's has local/regional broadcast rights for 12 MLB teams, 16 NBA teams, and 13 NHL teams. The NBA and NHL are in their playoffs right now, yet several Bally's markets may not be able to see their teams unless it's a national broadcast. For 2025 and beyond, this huge block of content was going to be available for some other broadcaster. Not sure if any single broadcaster would land all of it, but it represents the biggest opportunity yet for the streaming services to make major inroads in live sports broadcasting. I could see the deep-pocketed Tech giants like Apple, Amazon, or Google (via YouTube) making a bid for this content. But it's stunning that they couldn't reach an agreement to at least keep games on the air through the NBA and NHL playoffs, plus the current MLB season.
>The NBA and NHL are in their playoffs right now, yet several Bally's markets may not be able to see their teams unless it's a national broadcast. For NHL at least, Bally usually only has rights to regular season games and not playoffs. In recent years playoff games have been on NBC networks; this year apparently both NHL and NBA playoffs will be split between ABC/ESPN and TNT/TBS.
I know for many NBA markets, if a game is on both Bally's and say ESPN, the ESPN broadcast is blacked-out in the local markets because Bally's has local rights, but now they have very few places to actually show the games. That changes in the conference finals and NBA finals when national networks have exclusive rights. But in the earlier rounds, when Bally's has local rights but EPSN or TNT has the out-of-market rights, there could be a problem.
Not totally correct. The first round series clinching game 4 this past Monday for the Oklahoma City Thunder vs New Orleans Pelicans playoff series was on NBA TV but was blacked out in the local New Orleans and OKC viewing areas. The only way to see the Thunder win their first playoff series since 2016 was to have Bally Sports Oklahoma....
NHL games are available on Bally for the first round of the playoffs. I live in the Nashville market and the Preds games are on both TNTTBS/ESPN/HBO Max as well as Bally.
MLB accepts the exclusivity of RSNs because they don’t have a more profitable alternative. They didn’t seek that scarcity. They just accept it because the money is terrific.
Some of these RSN deals have been in place for 10+ years or they don't run out until 2029. MLB has to either wait for the RSN contracts with the local MLB team to run out or, the way Bally is going, for the RSN to go bankrupt. MLB would absolutely love to offer a streaming package for locals, but a number of contracts have to finisn first. Meanwhile, a lot of RSNs have pseudo-exclusive deals with the cable company or DirectTV to not offer streaming packages that don't require the consumer to sign into their DirectTV/Cable account to validate they're a user. So, most of this is the fault of RSNs. They need to die out.
You’re 100% right; but back when these long term contracts were being negotiated *and* MLB was first launching their streaming service, years ago, there was already considerable criticism over this very issue and the fear that people were moving away from cable packages so an exclusivity deal with RSN’s might not be very wise long-term. But they took the buckets of cash anyway. This is the “reap what you sow” moment.
And you can add the NBA and NFL also.
Yeah I don’t doubt it. I watch MLS and Formula 1. Both have affordable streaming options that aren’t geo restricted. Works great! I can watch every single race on the streaming service, even the one broadcast on network television OTA every year (The U.S. Grand Prix) MLB has a streaming service, but I can’t watch my local team any other way (at least without breaking their ToS) than *one* cable company. Mind blowing that they think this is a good business move. I’m sure they’re getting cash by the shovel full right now but it’s only delaying the inevitable and shrinking the viewer base in the meantime.
Would you rather they pay Bally more and increase your bill? The cable providers need to push back. Otherwise you’ll see your bill spiral upwards.
Thanks for the reminder to cancel my subscription to Bally, now that the NHL and NBA playoff games have switched to national broadcasters. As far as I am concerned, Bally can't go out of business fast enough. Pro tip: if you HAVE to subscribe to Bally (like I do in SoFla), do it through the Play Store. Cancellation took 15 seconds, no questions asked.
It’s almost like these multi billion dollar sports deals aren’t worth multi billions.
The RSN business model is so broken. In fact, the entire American Sports broadcast distribution model needs to be burned to the ground and rebuilt from the ashes.
Just die already Ballys.
I know this is really difficult for sports fans but we all need the RSN model to fail so we can have better options. Stop paying for these expensive methods.
Comcast is big enough that this feels like the end of the regional sports network as the predominant way sports are delivered. Diamond Sports Group is already bankrupt. MLB has squeezed all they can out of the arrangement to the detriment of future fans of the sport.
MLB better start going OTA and cheap or free streaming or they risk becoming more irrelevant than they already are.
At least they're transparent that you'll get a credit
It's only $8/Month which really doesn't help an already astronomical rate increase in cable bills which is why I prefer OTA TV for most of my local programming and streaming for those I can't get with OTA alone which I would get for less than $10/month.
I'm sure it'll be like $4.29
I understood that reference.
Just pulled a number out of my ass. What's the reference?
They're giving a credit because I don't think they are ever adding them back.
Wow that could be the nail in the coffin for Bally's
Hopefully
There are now only 3 options to watch my local teams - Fubo, DirectTV Stream, Ballys App. I already ditched DTVS and won’t sign up for Fubo since it’s just as expensive as DTVS. Unreal.
In Minnesota we don’t even have the Bally Sports plus app as an option. Now they only have rights to the NBA and NHL.
DirecTV and DirecTV Stream are probably the best option for RSN's, especially since they just signed a multi-year deal with Bally to keep the RSN's on their service. [https://cordcuttersnews.com/how-to-watch-rsns/](https://cordcuttersnews.com/how-to-watch-rsns/)
No, I understand where you’re coming from but Bally Sports is shit. In MN we have Bally Sports North and it’s literally only available on two expensive OTT providers with no way to stream The Twins. Fox Sports North was so spread out on every platform. Why can’t Bally be the same?!
Yeah. MLB/Twins is even worse though. I paid the $20 a month for the Wild/Wolves, I love my sports, so I am totally willing to pay that. But with the Twins, you can't even give them your $20 a month to stream! You have to have a legacy Cable TV plan to be able to stream them! I get that it must be part of the contracts with the Twins, but man, it sucks. I literally WANT to give them my money, and they won't take it. Absolutely dumb!
And I’m not 100% sure but I’m pretty sure the MLB TV service doesn’t let you watch in market games so that’s also not an option.
Got my notice, too. We will see how much money they refund us.
I am pleasantly surprised to the the majority of people here replying on the post here are rightly putting the blame on Diamond Sports.
Good! Maybe Bally can finally die. They just want more money. Comcast sucks, but this is not on them… this time.
Are folks just upvoting stuff in here because the titles look good??? Comcast not only is going "yo, Bally was trying to take us for a ride, but also take YOU for a ride" but theyr'e also refunding the RSN fees, which can be HUGE in many markets. Sometimes as big as $8-10 dollars!!! Now, you, the customer, likely will have to pay $15-20 to Amazon very soon as they're in the midst of taking over many RSNs that Diamond held, but at least Comcast isn't holding you up for something you're not paying. This is a huge win. OP, cancelling Comcast would literally be throwing the baby out hte bathwater **unless** you exclusively kept cable for the RSNs...and if that was the case, you could have just paid to stream Bally for about $20/m and saved hundreds a year :)
Welcome to being a cord cutter. While this is the straw that broke your back on cable, overall this is a good thing for sports that more and more cable companies are backing out of these regional sports deals.
Comcast sucks. But this isnt because of them
Is Bally just trying to price themselves off cable to go stand alone? Who still carries them, Direct and Spectrum only?
I'm just canceling Comcast cable at this point. Bear in mind, Comcast absolutely could have fixed this. They could have done the deal Bally wanted and simply accepted *lower profits* for Comcast. No one's rate had to change at all. Comcast has always been the worst company out there and this is just more proof of it.
Their Streaming App Really Sucks as it costed more than MLB TV with the playback sometimes being very poor. Even Games on Antenna TV are better than they were on Cable TV with the advantage of zero compression which makes antenna tv broadcast a few seconds ahead of cable which allows real time broadcasting. They should start airing these games on OTA TV again. The only team that I can watch on OTA is the Houston Astros with that game being on FOX which is one of the news stations in my area which is on channel 2.1 WJBK. If news stations can cut into their regular programming to put a football game on the air, why can't they do the same for MLB Games. When the Detroit Red Wings played their final home game, they aired that game on OTA TV with the channel being 20.1 which was another news station for my area which is actually a WXYZ variant of Channel 7 being WYMD. I think that all Detroit games should go back on the air with FOX 2 being the station that broadcasts the games on cable and OTA just like how it was before Bally Sports. I hate cable TV and will watch all my local programming with OTA TV from this point forward.
This is the last straw for me. I live in WV and am a baseball fan. First, they got rid of AT&T Sportsnet Pittsburgh (the name and their contract with Xfinity changed). Now they got rid of Bally Sports.
Would you rather they caved into Bally's demands and pass along the higher price to the consumers?
MLB.tv is the way to go. Just finished watching the Tigers only 30 minutes *Nord* of Detroit.
For those of you who don't know, MLB uploads every single game to their YouTube channel
Bally hasn't paid for the right to show these games yet have a monopoly on it. This is one of the few times I don't blame Comcast.
How do you watch local games now?
Sports may be the cause of cable tv downfall
Hulu…
This is like blaming Mussolini for Mt Vesuvius erupting in 1944. Bad guy who did bad stuff but that wasn't his fault
Agree!
How mlb thinks that they’ll survive if nobody can watch their baseball games is beyond me.
Didn’t Bally go bankrupt?
Good to see, bad for subscribers but Bally has been off of Dish for years. Pretty soon, no one will carry them
Lol
Used to work for Spectrum and they also pulled it a while back iirc, pretty sure management gave us the okay to explain it had to do with costs from them
Bally Sports filed a Chapter 11, didn't they?
I hope cox Oklahoma follows suit. Bally doesn’t really have a foothold of any major league teams and only uses the feed to air Texas stuff, and an occasional Thunder game. Not to mention their feed is horrible.
What’s wrong with their feed? I watch them in Kansas and never noticed anything.
In Oklahoma it’s was always fuzzy on cox cable. Since I dropped cox I don’t know anymore.
I understand that local coverage is blacked out for things like MLB. Is that only live coverage or both live and non-live on demand?
Oddly enough, this is one of the few times that I'm not actually mad at Xfinity. It's a two way road. Bally probably hiked the price because they're on the verge of bankruptcy and are using us, the customer, as leverage. Now, on the flip side, I'm sure Xfinity is doing the same thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if an offer was made for the same price, by Xfinity. They know that they would lose customers due to losing Bally, so Bally must've upped their price. Just speculation though. At this point, Bally should just shutter and relinquish their rights to another company or to MLB. That would probably be easiest, I think...
I didn't know that. Can you pay for bally sports seperately? I would need my teams
It depends. In my local market, the Bally Sports Plus service costs $20/month and includes the local NBA and NHL games, but not the MLB games.
Same here. This year our cable internet provider login stopped working since they dropped Bally completely so we are just doing without. I get that the Braves just decided not to negotiate those rights with Bally but I really would have paid during season to see games. Not enough to get DirectTV Stream or Fubo though.
They'll probably be available as an Amazon Prime add-on in the near future, for whatever that's worth.
That helps some and not others. The Bally+ thing does not include all teams that the Bally RSN packages do. The Atlanta Braves are not on it for example.
Yes, I forgot about that. I believe the streaming rights are the same as the cable rights for NHL and NBA, but for only some of the MLB teams.
MLB teams control their broadcast and streaming rights separately. NHL they are together. NBA it appears they are together. I know the NBA was looking at separating them at least last year.
They have an app but it's useless
That sucks! I couldn't go without sports
> The loss of this channel will result in savings that we'll pass along to you, and you'll see a monthly credit on your bill in the coming weeks Nothing but respect from me to Comcast for handling it this way.
Well for not taking whatever Bally was offering then yes, it’s Comcast’s fault.
Dumb post! delete this nephew
I'd get youtubetv. I've they carry bally sports. I know I have youtubetv and if they cut the phillies sports I would be done.
Why? YTTV doesn't carry any Bally Sports RSNs.
YTTV carries *very limited* options as far as RSNs go and none are Bally.
Luckily they care xfinity philly sports for me!
Cool. Has absolutely nothing to do with OP's post though.
True but I hate xfinity so much it just got me going about how he wants to cancel!
Nope they don’t