Google-owned YouTube TV will drop SNY, the last remaining New York City-area regional sports network on its lineup, as of July 1, the virtual MVPD said Thursday.

In an email  to subscribers, YouTube TV said that SNY — which televises New York Mets baseball games and offers coverage of the NFL’s New York Jets, among other programming — “will no longer be available on YouTube TV.” The move also eliminates all library content recorded from SNY. 

YouTube TV also said its subscribers will be able to continue watching select national Mets games on other networks such as Fox, ESPN, and TBS.

SNY on Thursday confirmed the move in a Tweet, stating that “despite our good faith efforts, YouTube TV is preparing to drop SNY and our exclusive live Mets games on July 1.” 

YouTube TV’s removal of SNY comes after the service dropped New York-based YES Network in 2020. Earlier this year the service also dropped MLB Network from its lineup.

YouTube TV will add the NFL Sunday Ticket package this fall to its offerings after Google in December purchased the distribution rights to the out-of-market package formerly distributed by DirecTV.

The New York Yankees are reportedly in talks to buy the remaining 80% interest in regional sports channel YES Network from 21st Century Fox, and have been talking to potential backers to help finance the estimated $4 billion price tag, according to a report in the New York Post.

Fox agreed to sell its 22 RSNs, including YES, in July to The Walt Disney Co. as part of a larger deal valued at $71.3 billion. But one of the regulatory conditions on the deal was that Disney agreed to divest of the RSNs within 90 days after closing the larger transaction. The larger Fox-Disney deal is expected to close in the first half of next year.

Related: The Curious Case of the RSNs (Guest Blog)

Books on the RSNs went out in October, according to reports,  and interested parties were said to include Fox itself, tech giants like Google, Facebook and Amazon, Sinclair Broadcast Group, private equity firms and even rapper and entrepreneur Ice Cube.  It has long been speculated that the Yankees would move to buy the remaining interest in YES. The Yankees, which own 20% of the channel, have had the right of first refusal in the event of a YES sale ever since Fox increased its ownership stake in the network from 49% to 80% in 2014.  According to some estimates, YES is worth about $4 billion, which would mean the team would need to attract several partners to finance a deal.

According to the Post, the Yankees are willing to divvy up ownership of the network among several different parties.

Fox declined comment.

Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network CEO Tracy Dolgin is stepping down as CEO of the network to become its non-executive chairman, a voluntary move that caps a decades-long career in the sports business with YES, Fox and HBO. Dolgin will effectively take his new role tomorrow (June 2), but he said the transition will be gradual.

“This is not goodbye,” Dolgin said, adding that he will continue to provide the continuity, advice and stewardship for YES as needed.  

The move comes at a time when many long-serving Fox executives sought and accepted a buyout package offered to employees in the film and TV businesses units with 15 years or more of service. YES, Fox and Dolgin declined comment on whether or not Dolgin opted for a buyout. 

READ MORE: Fox Sports Southwest GM departure leads to executive moves, RSN consolidation in Southern California.

Dolgin joined YES in 2004 from investment bank Houlihan Lokey & Zukin, but had spent several years as president of Fox Sports Network and chief operating officer of Fox Liberty Cable, then parent of Fox Sports, FX and other cable channels. He also served stints as executive vice president of marketing for Fox Broadcasting and senior vice president of Home Box Office’s HBO Video.

Early on Dolgin was in the front seat for YES oversaw Fox’s growing interest in the regional sports network. But about three years ago, Fox purchased effective control of the network and took over many functions that had previously been handled by executives at the network.

“When you are a CEO you run the entire business by yourself, not part of a larger, great, organizational platform,” Dolgin said. “At the point we started transitioning to the Fox platform, as that happened my job started to change from being a CEO to being a corporate executive, which is what I was in my previous life. That process has worked very well.”

Dolgin said he convinced Fox and the Yankees to allow him to transition once again into a broader organizational role. “To be able to focus on those and less on signing bills, that’s my goal and I think that’s why Fox and the Yankees were excited for me to be able to do that and remain with the company,” he said.

Dolgin said as non-executive chairman, he will be able to focus on big picture items – like OTT, global and strategic issues – rather than the day-to-day operations of the business. And it also allows him to pursue other opportunities as they present themselves.

Fox Sports generally runs its regional sports networks with a senior vice president who's also general manager at the helm. Fox Sports regional sports networks president Jeff Krolik said YES’s ultimate structure hasn’t been worked out yet. “In our world, we don’t have a job ‘CEO of a regional sports network,’ ” Krolik said. “How we’re going to organize YES is still under consideration.”

Krolik, a friend of Dolgin's who's known him for more than 20 years, said he was excited that his new role allows the company to continue to draw on Dolgin's expertise.

“Tracy is just a terrific resource,” Krolik said. “He’s built a great business at YES; it’s the preeminent regional sports network in the country. I am happy we will continue to have his service.”  

Dolgin’s transition also comes as YES is embroiled in a carriage stand-off with Comcast in the New York area. Comcast dropped YES in November for what it called exorbitant rate increases, which YES disputed. The blackout has affected about 900,000 Comcast homes in parts of New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania and Comcast has said it hopes to resolve the impasse but could live without the channel.

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.”

A group of 30 Connecticut state legislators have crafted a letter to Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network chief Tracy Dolgin to put aside their differences and work out a deal to bring the regional sports network back to viewers in the state by April 4, the start of the New York Yankees regular season.

YES and Comcast have been at an impasse since Nov. 28, when the RSN’s contract with the cable operator expired. The blackout has affected about 900,000 Comcast customers in New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

In the letter, authored by State Rep. Sean Scanlon (D-Guilford), the legislators pointed out that the Yankees are Connecticut’s most popular baseball team – 44% of state resident claim an allegiance to the pinstripes, according to a Quinnipiac University poll – and viewership of YES was up about 20% last season, according to Nielsen.

“Hundreds of thousands of our constituents rightfully expect to have the ability to watch Opening Day from the comfort of their homes on April 4, 2016 and we hope you will put aside your respective differences between now and then to ensure Connecticut’s Yankees fans – including all of boys and girls who are just learning to love the game – are not denied access to the 2016 season,” the letter stated.

The legislators’ lament comes just a day after YES stepped up its campaign to encourage Comcast customers in the affected markets to switch providers, encompassing a print, radio and TV blitz that urges “Xfinity Strikes Out. Drop Comcast Today.”

In a statement, YES network said it was more than willing to restart talks with the distributor.

"YES Network sincerely appreciates the efforts of Connecticut legislators and leaders across the region to help get our network back on the Comcast lineup," Dolgin said in a statement. "We are particularly grateful for their recognition of the indisputable fact that the New York Yankees are extremely popular with viewers and that the YES Network's ratings are consistently among the highest of any channel on television when the Yankees are playing. For our part, we were extremely surprised and disappointed when Comcast unilaterally dropped YES in the dead of night last November, and we stand ready to negotiate a deal with Comcast immediately.:

Earlier this week Dolgin made the local media rounds, offering little encouragement that a deal could be reached in time for the first pitch of the regular season.

“Hope is not a strategy,” Dolgin told the New York Times. “You have to find another provider.”

This isn’t the first dispute between YES and a New York area distributor. YES was dark to Cablevision Systems customers for more than a year before reaching a deal less than 30 minutes  before the first pitch on Opening Day in April 2003. And Dish Network, which has balked at high sports charges, has never carried the channel. It also has never carried MSG.  

Comcast has held that price is the main issue – according to SNL Kagan YES is the priciest RSN in the country at $5.36 per subscriber per month – and that it can’t justify what it says is the network’s demand for a 33% increase in affiliate fees. In the past Comcast has said its subscribers in the New York metro area don’t watch YES, and haven’t complained that the network has gone dark.

But that was during the NBA season – YES carries the Brooklyn Nets, which have had a difficult year. The startup of the baseball season may raise the hackles of die-hard Yankees fans.

Dolgin told the Times that Comcast had been paying the increased price for more than nine months – originally its carriage deal expired in February 2015, but continued to carry the channel through a series of short extensions.  

In an interview, Comcast Cable executive vice president, consumer services Marcien Jenckes confirmed that Comcast had agreed to pay the increase, but was only during the extension period. The operator, he said, had hoped to work out a more favorable long-term deal.

“Our intention going into that discussion was to bridge the value gap,” Jenckes said, adding that Fox’s recent moves weren’t surprising given the network has been off Comcast systems since November.

When it became apparent that wasn’t going to happen, Comcast dropped the channel.

“The important thing to note is in the history of Comcast Cable, this is the first cable network we ever dropped,” Jenckes said.

Some observers have hinted that Comcast may have been more willing to absorb the increase early last year when it was still moving forward with its planned merger with Time Warner Cable, which has more than 1 million subscribers in the New York market. But that doesn’t explain why the company would continue to pay the increase past April, when it officially backed away from the TWC deal.

Jenckes admitted that Comcast’s priorities changed after it abandoned the TWC merger.

“The dynamic with Time Warner Cable does change what we feel we have to do in the New York market,” Jenckes said.  

Cable operators have increasingly pushed back at rising programming costs, and YES isn’t the only RSN that has lost carriage as a result. In the Los Angeles market, several operators have refused to carry Time Warner Cable’s SportsNet LA, which carries Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games, because of high fees.

Operators have been able to partially offset high RSN fees through monthly surcharges and Comcast, which had implemented a $1 per month RSN surcharge recently raised that fee to $3 per month. Jenckes said that increase had nothing to do with the YES dispute, adding that the increase does not come close to recouping the fees the operator doles out for sports channels. There are four RSNs in the New York market including YES – SNY, MSG and MSG-Plus.

Comcast, like other distributors, also raised rates across its footprint by about 4% this year, mainly to partially offset overall programming costs, which were up 7% in 2015.   

YES has disputed Comcast’s claims – it insists that Yankee fans are loyal watchers of the telecasts and cited Nielsen data that say ratings in Comcast households were up 21% in the second half of the 2015 season. According to YES, the network is the most-watched RSN in America and in the New York market the channel’s audience has been 69% greater than rival network SNY (home of the New York Mets) which Comcast distributes and in which it owns a minority interest.

While the battle appears to be over rates some people familiar with the network say other issues are involved as well, including most-favored nation status, which would ensure that no other distributor would get a better rate than Comcast. MFNs are usually given to the largest distributors in a market and Comcast, which is the largest cable operator in the country, doesn’t have the biggest footprint in New York. That designation would belong to Time Warner Cable and Cablevision Systems.

Jenckes said pricing is the main issue in the dispute adding that Fox Sports Networks Group, which owns a majority interest in YES and is heading up negotiations, is also attempting to “tie in things related to other networks.” He declined to elaborate.

YES denied that any other networks are being tied to its carriage negotiations.

“There’s no connection whatsoever,” YES said in a statement. “That’s just a smokescreen by Comcast to hide the fact that it broke its promise and dropped YES after agreeing to pay the fair market rate.  In fact, when Comcast dropped YES last November, its statement made no mention of anything other than YES.”

Jenckes said the parties had been negotiating as recently as three days ago, adding that Fox must have felt the talks weren’t going the way they expected, hence the ad campaign.

“Our intention going into that discussion was to bridge the value gap,” Jencks said, adding that Fox’s recent moves weren’t surprising given the network has been off Comcast systems since November.

About 900,000 Comcast customers are without regional sports channel Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network after their carriage deal expired at midnight on Wednesday.

Comcast and YES reached an impasse in their carriage negotiations, which have been ongoing for months.

News of the impasse was first reported by the Scranton-Times Tribune.

According to SNL Kagan, YES Network is the most expensive RSN in the country at $4.89 per subscriber per month, offering New York Yankees Major League Baseball games, Brooklyn Nets National Basketball Association contests and MLS soccer games from the New York City FC.

YES is one of four regional sports networks in the New York area – SportsNet New York (co-owned by Comcast), MSG and MSG Plus are the others – and the only one with rights to both baseball and basketball. SNY airs New York Mets MLB games while MSG and MSG Plus has rights to New York Knicks NBA basketball and NHL hockey from the New York Rangers, New York Islanders and New Jersey Devils.

The standoff comes after months of negotiations – Comcast’s YES deal officially expired in February and the network gave repeated extensions, through the baseball season and into the first weeks of professional basketball.

While Comcast may not have wanted to ruffle any regulator feathers earlier in the year when it was still moving forward with its since-abandoned deal to acquire Time Warner Cable (it withdrew its offer in April), the cable powerhouse has apparently taken a harder stance – like its other peers – when it comes to programming negotiations.

Its resolve also may be bolstered by the Nets’ poor record so far this year – they have one win and nine losses. 

Other operators have cited low ratings and high-prices when deciding whether to drop networks – Cable One and Suddenlink have been without Viacom networks for more than a year and DirecTV and FiOS TV have done without The Weather Channel for weeks at a time during contentious negotiations. Even YES has gone dark in the past – Cablevision Systems refused to carry the network for more than a year after it was first launched (and lost about 30,000 customers as a result), before restoring the channel in 2003. And Dish Network has never carried the RSN, and stopped carrying MSG and MSG Plus in 2010 and dropped SNY in 2011.

21st Century Fox’s Fox Sports Network Group bought a 49% interest in YES in 2012 (increasing it to 80% last year) and has been leading the RSN’s carriage negotiations for the past few years. During that time Fox has negotiated several big deals for the RSN, many with a larger New York metro area subscriber count than Comcast.

Comcast carries YES in Northern New Jersey, parts of Connecticut and the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre, Pa. area. While not exactly a hotbed of Yankees fandom, Comcast has said in a statement that its 900,000 customers in those areas hardly watch the channel at all.

"YES Network carried approximately 130 baseball games this past season and well over 90 percent of our 900,000 plus customers who receive YES Network didn’t watch the equivalent of even one quarter of those games during the season, even while the Yankees were in the hunt for a playoff berth,” Comcast said in a statement. “Viewership of the network in the baseball offseason is even lower. FOX and the Yankees are asking all of our customers to pay them hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years to continue receiving the channel. The price FOX and the Yankees are requiring from our customers is not acceptable given the Network’s minimal viewership, which is why we have decided we can no longer justify continuing to carry the Network. YES simply does not present an appropriate price-value proposition for our customers.” 

YES, the most watched RSN the country, took exception to Comcast’s characterization. The network has also set up a web site where customers can go for more information.

“As of midnight, Tuesday Nov. 17, and just weeks after the end of the baseball season, Comcast has decided to drop YES Network, home to the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets and New York City FC, with no advance notice to its subscribers,” YES said in a statement. “Comcast’s reputation for poor customer satisfaction is well known, but this surprise development represents a new low.  YES and Comcast reached an agreement in principle on the key points of a new contract many months ago, and YES continued to operate in good faith under that arrangement through the entire Yankees and NYCFC seasons and into the Nets season.  Unfortunately, because YES will not yield to Comcast’s demands for special treatment and anti-competitive terms, Comcast has decided to drop YES Network and its coverage of the NY Yankees, Brooklyn Nets and the New York City FC.” 

Officials at YES Network said the channel widened its lead as the most-watched regional sports network in primetime and total-day during the third quarter.

The RSN, the cable home to the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, averaged 73,000 households in the New York DMA during the third quarter, according to Nielsen data, a 26% jump from the 58,000 in the second quarter of 2014.  

As such, YES expanded its primetime delivery edge by 33% over the second-ranked RSN, FS Detroit, in the third quarter, versus a 23% advantage over NESN in the second quarter.

That primetime performance also gave YES an 87% lead over the 39,000 average for the next most-watched New York-based RSN, SNY, in the quarter. YES’s 73,000 average household mark nipped the combined 72,000 for SNY’s and MSG in the period.

Relative to total day, YES averaged 28,000 households in the New York market, up 17% from its second-quarter average of 24,000 in the second quarter. Those tallies pushed YES ahead of FS Detroit by 47% in the most recently completed quarter, up from 41% in the second quarter, when NESN placed second with this measure.

In New York, YES’ total-day delivery outpaced SNY and MSG’s 25,000 combined average through the third quarter.

YES’s prime product, New York Yankees game telecasts, averaged 223,000 households in the New York DMA during the 2014 season -- the last campaign for future Hall of Famer, Derek Jeter (pictured) --  a 15% year-over-year increase from the 194,000 for Bronx Bombers’ games in the 2013 campaign.

On the demo watch, 2014 Yankees’ telecasts registered a 28% advance among men 25 to 54; 20% against guys 18+ and adults 25 to 54; and 18% versus persons 2+ and those 18 and older.  

YES viewers said hello to Derek Jeter in his Yankee Stadium farewell in record numbers.

The regional sports network home to the Bronx Bombers connected on a 10.84 household rating in the New York DMA on Sept. 25, translating into 1.25 million viewers, YES's most ever, according to Nielsen data.

YES officials said they believe the tally made it the most-viewed game telecast ever for any New York RSN

The entire game telecast was the most-viewed program on any single network in the New York DMA on Sept. 25, including the competing New York Giants’ victory over Washington which drew 1.225 million viewers on New York’s CBS affiliate, WCBS The NFL Network garnered 218,000 viewers for its portion of the simulcast.

The Thursday night telecast of the Yankees' 6-5 win over the Baltimore Orioles on Jeter's walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth (pictured) peaked with 1.99 million watchers from 10:15 to 10:30 p.m. (ET), making it the most-viewed quarter hour in YES history.

The pregame show averaged a 2.97 rating and 304,000 viewers, the third most ever for the prorgram.  For its part, the postgame show posted a 3.68 rating and 400,000 watchers, connecting on its fifth-largest audience.

For one man's take on the proceedings at Yankee Stadium, click here.

The Bronx Bombers are only even on the field at the All-Star break, but YES Network’s audience with New York Yankees telecasts grew by almost a quarter during the first half of the 2014 Major League Baseball season.

Averaging 283,000 viewers in the New York DMA with its Yankees games, YES concluded the first half of the 2014 MLB campaign as the most-watched regional sports network in both primetime and total day.  That was up 24% from the 228,000 watchers in the first half of last season, according to Nielsen data. Interest in the club no doubt has been stoked by the final season of Yankees captain Derek Jeter and the performance of Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka, who is now on the disabled list with an elbow injury.

Yankees game ratings were up by double-digits in key demos:  29% for males 18 to 49; 31% for males 25 to 54; 16% for persons 18 to 49 ; 23% for persons 25 to 54.

Additionally, total viewership for Yankees pregame show was 28%, while the postgame grew 19% among total viewers.

Officials at YES, which has been the most-watched RSN in the country 10 of the past 11 years, said its performance also benefited from solid ratings with its simulcasts of ESPN Radio New York's Michael Kay Show. Since debuting on Feb. 3, the Kay simulcasts, hosted by YES’s principal play-by-play man on its Yankees telecasts, averaged 19,000 viewers in the New York DMA. That was 36% greater than the 14,000 average for its predecessor, The Mike Francesa Show during the same span in 2013.  Francesa’s show is now simulcast on FS1 and FS2.

During the first half of 2014, YES averaged 58,000 TV households in the New York DMA from Dec. 30, 2013 through June 29, 2014 during primetime (7 p.m. to 11 p.m.), a 16% gain over the corresponding period in 2013.  The delivery was 23% more than NESN’s 47,000 in its hometown market of Boston, according to YES officials.

Gauged on a total-day basis (6 a.m. to 2 a.m.), YES posted a 14% gain to 24,000 households from 21,000 a year ago, to stand 41% of second-place NESN, which scored 17,000 homes in The Hub on average.

YES’s digital properties have also scored well, registering a 96% surge in video views, year-over-year, with an 18% gain in unique visitors to YESNetwork.com