It is no shocker to everyone these days our world of sports television is growing rapidly. You can't turn on the TV without at least flipping by sports programming. Even non sport stations like TBS, CNN, and HBO all give extensive time to sports every day. Now with new sports stations on the rise, questions are being raised on the effect of new sports channels on the market as a whole.
In an article released on Reuters this week, discussion is being brought to the table by one of televisions most powerful men. Chairman and CEO of Comcast Brian Roberts is worried about the rising cost to viewers from all the new sports media appearing on cable television. Comcast is in a unique position because not only do they hold the nations largest cable company, but they own a regional sports network and the Philadelphia 76ers and Philadelphia Fliers.
Roberts says in the article "I think we should have a dialogue on each team starting their own channel, every league starting their own channel, taking up a lot of bandwidth, a lot of consumer money...Everywhere out there you raise the question: who pays for that channel, and is that going to be all viewers or those who are sports fans?".
Roberts is bringing up questions in my opinion at the right time. We are on the verge of sports television explosion. We have discussed in class that the NHL is starting a new network to compete with the NFL network and NBA TV. The article says that the US Olympic committee is considering a television channel as well as several college outlets. In our region alone we are flooded with individual teams sports networks such as NESN, YES, Sports Net New York, MSG and so on.
How far are we away from every team having their own channel in every sport? Should there be a limit on the amount of new sports television stations? Can we go too far? Can they be profitable? And MOST importantly is it fair to the customers? While your Royal loving buddy Steve is loving the new Kansas City Baseball Network, who will pay? Cable companies will raise prices to offer more programming that your grandmother who loves knitting, not sports, will be forced to pay for.
I am interested to see what opinions everyone has about the possibility of being OVER saturated with sports television.
I think Brian Roberts should get a collective thank you from his customers and cable customers for starting this discussion. Clearly he is worried about the possibility of sky rocketing costs to his viewers, many who do not even watch sports.
3 comments:
The concept of sport specific and team specific television channels is already one that exists in Europe.
The results have been mixed but companies such as Sky (Fox), NTL, and Canal+ have made millions from their wall to wall coverage of soccer. Due to this coverage the popularity and profile of the game throughout most of the world has never been higher.
The sport's richest clubs known as the G14 have all started or are in the process of starting their own channels. Manchester United, arguably the world's biggest club have used their own MUTV to make in roads in markets across Asia, Africa and even here in the US where they have a working agreement with the New York Yankees and MSG.
The team specific channels provide additional exposure for the sport and the individual clubs in particular. These clubs are already the richest in the sport and with their own channel catering to potentially millions of supporters they will only become richer. The additional wealth will allow them to buy the best players guaranteeing even more success, but it will make for less competitive league and cup competition.
So while Red Sox TV might be an attraction to Boston fans do they really want the Yankees having their own channel too and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in extra revenue? The gap between the Yankees is already unbridgeable for some teams and to grant the Yankees access to this money will make for even less competition. This will apply to other major market teams in other sports too. It will almost ensure that the big city clubs will be successful at the expense of the teams such as the Green Bay Packers who cannot hope to compete with a team like the Dallas Cowboys for potential channel subscribers.
I think it would be better for MLB to own their own station so that they can generate the income. This wealth can then be shared by all the teams allowing some to be more competitive than they are right now. I can't see Mr. Steinbrenner allowing it to happen though.
I think that the companies with the big money like NBC Universal and News Corp and others will try their hardest to not let each team have their own channel. They want the revenue from these sports events. There will be conflicts with the airing games. I can see it now.
Also, if each team had its own channel and aired their own games, could everyone keep up?
As a Mets fan I couldn't agree more with this post. Starting this season the majority of the Mets games are on the launched SNY. Unfortunately, SNY is not carried on Cox in the Greater Hartford area and will not be anytime in the near future. The fact that I grew up watching the Mets on cable and all the sudden can no longer watch them really makes me mad. It's just not right that I can only follow my team on Sunday's when they play on WB11 or on the national telecast on Fox or ESPN.
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