One month after the 2021 Major League Baseball regular season threw out its first pitch, virtual multichannel video programming distributors YouTube TV, Hulu Plus Live TV and Fubo TV are still without Sinclair Broadcast Group’s regional sports networks.

About 19 of Sinclair’s RSNs, rebranded under the Bally Sports Networks name this month, went dark to YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV customers in the fall (Fubo TV dropped the channels in January 2020), but there were hopes that the networks would return in time for opening day of the Major League Baseball regular season. That didn’t happen. 

Pricing appears to be the reason for the decision to do without the channels, and apparently there has been little movement on either side regarding negotiations. 

In addition to the Bally Sports channels, YouTube and Hulu also passed on carriage for another RSN in which Sinclair owns a minority interest -- YES Network, TV home of the New York Yankees. Marquee Sports Network, owned by the Chicago Cubs and also minority-owned by Sinclair, reached a carriage deal with Fubo TV on March 31, but still doesn’t have a deal with YouTube TV and Hulu. 

Despite the impasse, the networks have enjoyed strong ratings, according to people familiar with the channels. The YES Network, which launched a new authenticated app in March, said its opening week TV audience was its largest in nine years.

YouTube dropped the Sinclair RSNs in September, Hulu in October and Fubo TV in January 2020. Back in March, Sinclair said that it was working toward an agreement with the streamers, but so far that hasn’t been successful. Sinclair did not return a request for comment. 

Sinclair is scheduled to release its Q1 financial results on May 5, so they are likely to field a few questions about the dispute on its quarterly conference call with analysts. 

According to sources familiar with the negotiations, Sinclair and the streamers haven’t met for months. And as the impasse continues, the prospect that a deal will be reached this baseball season, seems farther from reality. 

At the beginning of the month, sports consultant Lee Berke, CEO of LHB Media & Entertainment, guessed that maybe one of the streamers would reach a deal with the Sinclair RSNs, but not all of them. His reason: streamers just don’t see sports as the glue that holds the bundle together, like traditional distributors do. 

At the time, Berke said that regular season baseball would be the litmus test for the streamers. If their subscriber rolls weren’t materially affected by the loss of games, then they probably could do without the channels all-together.   

“It’s difficult to see all three of them coming back in,” Berke said a month ago. 

Today, his mind hasn’t changed. 

“I don't think it’s a good sign for the RSNs,” Berke said Friday (April 30) of the continued impasse. “That being said I don’t think a month alone will do it,” adding that baseball fans get more engaged later in the season as pennant races heat up. So there is still some time left to figure out the true impact of not carrying the networks. 

YouTube TV, Hulu and Fubo TV are not devoid of sports without the Sinclair RSNs. The vMVPDs carry ESPN and MLB Network, TBS and TNT that carry national baseball games. They just don’t have all the games of all the local professional teams, which are primarily carried on RSNs.

“They [the vMVPDs] are trying to see if that allows them to skate by,” Berke said. “You’ve got large numbers of younger fans that want to see these games through their virtual MVPDs. But if it’s not in numbers large enough or compelling enough to make them change their strategy then they are going to continue to go forward with it. The crunch point is going to be in the next couple of months.”

Sinclair purchased the RSNs in 2019 from The Walt Disney Co. for about $10 billion. Dish dropped the Sinclair RSNs in July 2019, shortly before it closed the Disney deal, and since then pay TV distributors have increasingly resisted big price increases from RSNs.  Although Sinclair has carriage deals for the RSNs with most major traditional distributors, the streaming channels, which have a younger audience, are starting to fight back.

Also Read: Sinclair RSNs Face ‘Tumultuous Period, Analyst Says 

YouTube TV has been in the news lately for a different battle with streaming box maker Roku. Today (April 30), YouTube let its Roku deal expire. 

Current YouTube TV customers would continue to be able to access their subscription via the Roku device. They just won’t be able to download the YouTube TV app from the Roku store, which would prevent new customers from signing up via Roku. Access to the free YouTube internet app would be unaffected. 

Also Read: Who Needs Roku? YouTube Already Dominates Worldwide Video 

Some fans have taken to social media to voice their displeasure, with several tweeting that the Roku impasse, coupled with dropping the RSNs could be the last straw. 

“Between this and losing the regional sports channels you used to have, and that I wouldn't have switched to you if you didn't have - Fix these problems or I'm gone,” said one YouTube TV user. 

So far, Sinclair doesn’t seem to have taken the usual path of a programmer in similar disputes -- asking fans to put pressure on the distributor either by calling and emailing the distributor or switching providers. The Bally Sports Twitter feeds are mainly focused on game highlights, although Sinclair did set up a dedicated microsite -- www.getmyhometeams.com -- in December that directs fans to other providers like AT&T TV, DirecTV, and Spectrum (depending on the market) to get access to the RSNs. Sinclair has had a reputation of being an aggressive adversary in distribution disputes -- look back on any of its major retrans battles for proof of that -- so its current stance is a bit unusual. 

Whether the current battle escalates or not, Berke said a lot of the controversies that have surrounded Sinclair and other RSNs are missing the larger point, which is the erosion of the current RSN model.

“The RSN model works extremely well when cable pay TV penetration is growing or is at least stable,“ Berke said. “But it was not set up to profitably handle the retrenchment of pay TV penetration. That is what needs to be addressed. And you address that by offering up your networks to as many platforms as possible. That’s easier said than done, but it’s imperative.”

It looks as if Bally Sports regional sports networks have failed to strike a deal with streaming providers YouTube TV, Hulu and FuboTV before the first pitch on Major League Baseball’s Opening Day April 1.

Bally Sports, the new name for Sinclair Broadcast Group’s former Fox Sports RSNs, failed to hammer out a deal with the streaming services before 1:10 p.m. ET April 1, the first pitch of the contest between the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers. Bally Sports Great Lakes, formerly Sports Time Ohio, is the TV home of the Indians and was scheduled to air the game at 1:10 p.m. The RSN home of the Tigers, Bally Sports Detroit (formerly Fox Sports Detroit) also is airing the game. 

The Bally Sports RSNs have agreements with most traditional satellite and cable TV providers. But streaming services, like YouTube TV, Hulu Live and FuboTV, which have a younger audience attractive to advertisers, have so far held out.   

Also Read: Changes at Sinclair’s RSNs Just Start With Name Change

YES Network, in which Sinclair owns a minority stake, also didn’t reach a deal with YouTube TV, Hulu or FuboTV in time for the first pitch in its 1:10 p.m. matchup between the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays. 

Earlier Thursday Dish Network officially dropped the three NBC Sports Network RSNs and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN).  Dish hasn’t had an agreement for the Sinclair RSNs since July 2019. 

Sinclair RSN spokesman Michael Padavano did not return a request for comment. 

Also Read: RSNs Scramble for Streaming Deals as Opening Day Approaches 

FuboTV dropped the RSNs in January 2020,  YouTube TV dropped them in September, and Hulu Live in  October. 

But there was still some hope that they could reach a deal before opening day. Alas, that doesn’t seem to be. 

As of 1:35 p.m. ET, the only streaming service that is carrying all RSNs is AT&T TV, through its $84.99 per month Choice Plan. 

Also Read: Sinclair RSNs: Timing is Everything 

Fubo TV reached a carriage deal with Sinclair’s Marquee Sports Network, a joint venture with the Chicago Cubs and separate from the Bally Sports RSNs -- on March 31. 

Sinclair bought the former Fox Sports RSNs in 2019 for $10 billion.  Last year gaming giant Bally Corp. agreed to pay Sinclair $88 million over 10 years for naming rights for the 21 regional sports networks.

Pricing of the channels appears to be the main culprit in the standoff. According to Kagan, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence, on average, RSN pricing ranges from a high of $6.85 per subscriber per month to the least expensive at 34 cents per subscriber per month. Overall, the average price of regional sports networks is about $3.53 per customer per month, Kagan said. 

According to website The Streamable, YouTube and Hulu also have another reason for holding back on the RSNs -- most of their subscribers don’t watch them.

In a March 10 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Streamable co-founder Jason Gurwin estimated that only 5% to 10% of streaming TV subscribers watch RSNs. 

"The 90% of subscribers who don't watch it are subsidizing the 10% that do," Gurwin told the newspaper.  "Given that an RSN is one of the most expensive channels in a cable bundle, it's just not sustainable for these packages. Even at a more expensive $65 a month, the services are more or less breaking even on the carriage fees that they pay to carry all the channels in the bundle." 

RELATED:Opening Day in Doubt in N.Y., L.A. [subscription required]

As dark clouds surrounded the New York area Monday, postponing the New York Yankees Opening Day game with the Houston Astros until Tuesday (April 5), hopes were even dimmer that the extra day could help unlock the impasse in negotiations between Comcast and the regional sports network that carries the games – the Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network.

Cold, rainy weather  threatened the New York area on Monday, forcing Yankee Stadium to roll out the tarp and hope for better conditions Tuesday. On the YES Network website, the regional sports network said the game would be rescheduled  to April 5 at 1:05 p.m., and would be broadcast on the channel, “except in areas serviced by Comcast.”

Representatives from both Comcast and YES Network said there are no current carriage talks between the two. Comcast has about 900,000 subscribers in parts of New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

Tuesday’s contest is expected to be a rematch of the 2015 American League Wild Card game, pitting Yankees fire-balling right-hander Masahiro Tanaka against Astros 2015 Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel.  The Astros won the AL Wild Card last year, only to be defeated in the Divisional matchup by eventual World Series winner the Kansas City Royals.

YES and Comcast have been embroiled in a carriage dispute since November. The YES/Comcast imbroglio is mirrored on the West Coast as operators other than Time Warner Cable, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks (all expected to merge shortly) have passed at carrying the regional sports channel – SportsNetLA – that airs the Los Angeles Dodgers. In both disputes, the high price of the networks is considered the main sticking point in negotiations.    

Typically, the first weekend in May is considered a big one for television sports viewers as the Kentucky Derby battles with the second round of the National Basketball Association Playoffs, the settling in of a new baseball season and a major pay-per-view boxing match — and all of that will, indeed, take place one month from now.

But for cable sports networks, the first full week of April is almost just as action-packed, as industry executives hope several major events will have viewers kicking back in front of their big-screen TV to watch cable-exclusive events.

Tonight (April 4), TBS will air the Villanova-North Carolina NCAA men’s basketball tournament championship game — the denoument of March Madness — marking the first time the title contest will not be televised by a broadcast network. (It had been a staple for co-rightsholder CBS since 1982.)

While TBS, TNT and truTV have been airing many of the early-round tournament events for years — and last year TBS set a ratings record with its telecast of the semifinal Final Four round — it’s still a feather in cable’s cap to have both the College Football Playoff championship, currently on ESPN, and now the college basketball finals on TBS.

As for the potential loss of viewers in moving the game from a broadcast channel to a network that viewers need a subscription to watch, Turner president David Levy said that, in the viewer’s mind, there’s no difference between cable and broadcast — sports fans will find the content they want to watch on whatever channel or platform it’s on.

Meanwhile, ESPN last night (April 3) threw out the first pitch of the new baseball season with its New York Mets- Kansas City Royals telecast — the first ever Opening Day rematch of the previous World Series participants. The telecast was one of three Opening Day games for the 24-hour sports programmer, which will join various regional sports networks around the country in televising a dozen opening day games on Monday, even as RSN carriage battles involving the New York Yankees (YES Network vs. Comcast) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (over SportsNet LA), continue to make headlines.

Finally on Saturday (April 9), HBO Sports will distribute the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley Jr. pay-per-view fight, which many ringside observers believe will be the last of Pacquiao’s storied career. Prior to Pacquiao’s fight last May against Floyd Mayweather, which earned a record-breaking $400 million in PPV revenue, the multi-division champion from the Phillippines had generated a whopping $741 million in PPV revenue over his career, according to Forbes — the second-most ever, behind Mayweather.

If indeed this is Pacquiao’s last time stepping into the PPV ring, he will leave some mighty big shoes to fill. Middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez will continue his climb to assume the pound-for-pound PPV championship mantle held by both Pacquiao and the now-retired Mayweather when he steps into the ring May 7 against Amir Kahn.

But that’s a month from now. This week is cable’s big sports play.

UPDATE:No Game, No Talks Between YES, Comcast

Barring a last minute — and unlikely — reprieve, the Opening Day games of two of the most popular teams in Major League Baseball — the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers — will be dark to more than 1 million pay TV customers on April 4.

The ongoing big-market disputes are a sign that perhaps sports programming, once thought to be bulletproof, is weakening in the era of skinny bundles and over-the-top video.

Comcast in November refused to pay what it called a 33% increase in fees charged by YES Network, the New York-area RSN that features most Bronx Bombers games. Comcast’s customers missed out on Brooklyn Nets National Basketball Association games, but many thought the operator would cave in by the start of the baseball season. YES, owned by Fox Sports Network Group and the Yankees, was carried in about 900,000 Comcast homes in parts of New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

L.A. FADEAWAY

Time Warner Cable’s SportsNet LA, home to the Dodgers, continues to be spurned by distributors in Southern California including AT&T, DirecTV and Cox Communications. Time Warner Cable, which carries the RSN in L.A. along with Charter Communications and Bright House Networks, even agreed to offer a one-year discount — later extended to six years — and was still rejected.

Distributors have complained about the high cost of sports programming for years, but as sports rights charges have climbed and fees for networks have hit the stratosphere, pay TV providers are pushing back.

Some analysts say sports programming, once thought to be must-have content because of its live viewing nature and predominantly young male audience, is vulnerable as operators attempt to create “skinny” bundles for price-conscious customers.

“Clearly, there’s an appetite for a lower-cost package with less sports programming,” Telsey Advisory Group media analyst Tom Eagan said.

Comcast executive vice president of consumer services Marcien Jenckes said he sees the YES dispute in simper terms: the operator’s perception of the value of the network doesn’t match the price. Comcast has claimed that its customers in the New York market aren’t big YES watchers and haven’t much missed the channel since it came off on Nov. 18.

At $5.93 per month per subscriber, according to SNL Kagan, YES is the priciest RSN in the country — and at about $2.50 per subscriber per month higher than another New York area RSN, MSG Network, according to Kagan.

“At a more reasonable price, they would be a great value proposition,” Jenckes said.

YES CEO Tracy Dolgin has taken Comcast’s argument to task. He said YES programming is rated No. 1 in Comcast’s New York area territories on game days. And he said YES also out-rated SNY, partly owned by Comcast, by a margin of 5 to 1 in its Connecticut footprint on game days.

About 40% of Comcast’s 900,000 subscribers in the New York area consider themselves Yankees fans, Dolgin said.

YES: RATE WAS NO SURPRISE

While Comcast has said it is looking for a lower price, Dolgin noted the operator had been paying the higher rate for more than eight months — its deal originally expired in February. Dolgin said it is misleading to say a price that it has been paying for nearly a year is suddenly too high.

Dolgin said that other RSNs vary in price depending on the market; operators on the fringes of a team’s territory usually pay less than those in the heart of the market. YES does not have so-called zoned pricing like others do, including Comcast-owned RSNs.

“What we charge for YES is less than what Comcast charges for some of their owned-and-operated regional sports networks in the intermarket where the Comcast subs are,” Dolgin said, calling the Kagan estimate “way over” what Comcast was paying.

YES will keep running ads urging Comcast customers to switch providers, Dolgin said.

“It’s not easy, but Yankee fans are very passionate. In the month of April there are 23 Yankee games and 20 are exclusively on the YES Network. If you’re a Yankee fan, you either feel like a victim, or you switch.”

The Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network turned up the heat a notch in its ongoing carriage dispute with Comcast, enlisting top New York Yankees players like CC Sabathia in TV spots urging fans to switch cable providers and even offering customers a few choice words to ask the cable provider when they call to cancel service.

Comcast dropped YES in November after what it called the regional sports network’s demands for an exorbitant price increase. The blackout affects about 900,000 Comcast customers in the New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Earlier this month, a group of 30 Connecticut state legislators wrote a letter to Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and YES CEO Tracy Dolgin to settle their differences and bring the network back to Comcast customers.

YES began a campaign earlier this month to inform Yankees fans of the dispute and to urge them to switch providers if they want to see the team’s Opening day contest, scheduled for April 4. the network has enlisted a few top Yankees in TV spots and print ads, including third baseman Alex Rodriquez, pitcher Dellin Betances and the latest, pitcher CC Sabathia.

In the spot, Sabathia tells viewers he’s getting ready for another exciting season of Yankees baseball, “But if you’re a Comcast Xfinity customer, you will not be able to watch any of the Yankees’ games this season.”

On its website – keepyesnetwork.com – the channel also offers links for customers to get YES from another provider, call Comcast and keep up with news around the blackout. In addition, the channel offers a list of seven questions to ask the distributor when it calls to drop service. Here are a few:

• “So you’ve made ‘steady improvements’ to your customer service but you dropped Yes Network, my rates went up and I’m going to miss the Yankees on YES this season !?!?
• “So you’ll keep the Mets on SNY, a network Comcast owns, but have no problem taking my Yankees away? That’s so wrong!”
• “Fans who receive YES Network through their provider can stream games on their mobile device for free. How come Comcast isn’t providing that option for me?”  

The high cost of sports has been an issue with cable, satellite and telco TV operators for years now, and as Major League Baseball’s regular season approaches — opening day was scheduled for Sunday, April 5, with the St. Louis Cardinals traveling to Wrigley Field to meet the Chicago Cubs — one major regional sports network continues to be out in the lurch: Time Warner Cable-distributed SportsNet LA, home of the Los Angeles Dodgers. While negotiations between the network and distributors in the market are nonexistent as of press time — the Dodgers home opener is scheduled for April 6 — Multichannel News senior finance editor Mike Farrell spoke with Cox Communications’s point man for programming negotiations, senior vice president of content acquisition Andy Albert, about sports costs and how cable operators can use programming deals to differentiate themselves from the over-the-top threat. An edited transcript follows.

MCN:Major League Baseball’s regular season is fast approaching. Where do you stand on your sports deals right now?

Andy Albert: A lot of those deals are long-term deals that are locked up. The one that is not locked up is the Dodgers. Not much has changed in Dodgers Land. The Dodgers asked for too much, Time Warner paid too much and we’re finding it really difficult to burden ourselves with the cost of the Dodgers. Right now, what they have talked about for the last year is a very inflexible deal that does burden non-sports fans with the very high cost of the Dodgers. I don’t see anything changing there.

MCN:Cox has owned RSNs in the past and has had to come up with a way to price and market them, so you know it’s not easy. Time Warner Cable is taking it on the chin, but at least with this network, they don’t own it, they’re just managing it for the Dodgers. Is the team the party that is being unrealistic here?

AA: There is no doubt that sports costs are high and getting higher on a regular basis. I think the Dodgers just set a new standard of unreasonableness. They [TWC] may not own it but they certainly crafted the economic relationship between themselves and the Dodgers.

MCN:Is there any hope that if the Time Warner Cable-Comcast deal gets done, there will be a new wave of reasonableness?

AA: [Laughs.] I have no idea. I would love to see something break there that would be good for our customers. We definitely know that there are Dodgers fans. We want to do everything we can to serve all of our customers as best as we can. Some are Dodgers fans; many of them are not Dodgers fans.

MCN:Do you think TWC and the Dodgers overestimated the market? When TWC launched the Lakers network [SportsNet LA], the Lakers were and are insanely popular in that market. But baseball has always seemed to be secondary to basketball in L.A.

AA: The Lakers are probably two or three times more popular than the Dodgers in L.A. And baseball is a long season — 162 games; basketball is 82, and football is only 16. There are a lot of baseball games on television. There are a good number of games on ESPN and some on Fox when they play other teams on the West Coast. Not enough for a real hard-core fan, but there are certainly a smattering of Dodgers games available.

MCN:Are distributors drawing a line in the sand against rising sports costs?

AA: I don’t know if there is a line being drawn in the sand. But it just shows you that there is a problem with sports. [Satellite-TV provider] Dish [Network], as far as I know, doesn’t carry any New York sports at all. More people have been choosing among sports networks that are affordable for customers. The Astros network is another one; it sat out there for a long time without any distribution before DirecTV bought it.

MCN:Let’s step away from the Dodgers for a moment and talk about programming in general. When you go into negotiations, is pricing still the main consideration?

AA: We want to pay the right price. We have expectations now that all of our deals will include the right to stream networks in and out of the home. If you look in the home, we are at about 100 networks that you can stream. And we have rights with a lot of networks where you can go to their websites and apps and, if you’re a customer, you already have out-of-home access.

MCN:When TV Everywhere first came into vogue, programmers were OK with in-home viewing on multiple devices, but they resisted out-of-home viewing. Now it seems like anything goes. What changed their minds?

AA: A lot of their reluctance for a long time was about ratings. But the ratings are starting to come around now. Look at some of the over-the-top announcements — networks are trying to figure out where the [audience] is shifting towards, and they’re trying to be there if they can. We have all of these rights today for our customers. We have the right to watch a lot of that stuff outside the home on an authenticated basis. And we do that within the home as a managed service, so there is a quality of service you don’t get necessarily with a Sony or a Sling or any of those guys.

MCN:The OTT services are starting to emerge — Sling TV is out, Sony is in three cities with its Play- Station Vue, and HBO Now is launching this month. Does this put added pressure on you to do more sports deals because that’s one of the few things left that viewers watch live?

AA: I agree with your statement, but we have a lot of sports. Our sports fans are pretty well-covered today.