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hang on to your tooks hockey fans. Apparently the writer’s strike is bringing new reality TV. This article has a payday (fair notice). Last week, Bally lost as many as 5 more MLB teams in the bankruptcy. Keep in mind, this is being done now because it’s in season. Hockey is coming next. In a move that made me laugh out loud, Bally is now suing Diamond Sports (their parent company) for lack of fiduciary responsibility. I.E., it’s somebody’s fault that the money isn’t there to honor contracts.
The hilarity turns to a stark reality and mimics the actors and writers on strike. The writers are past a month and so A.I. is cranking out material. The actors are telling people in a recession that they’re the victims. Most actors don’t make millions, but the spokespeople do. It’s just bad timing and a bad look. For Bally to turn and make a public spectacle of the infighting isn’t great either. To me it’s a signal that last week’s ruling is going to trickle into most of the markets. For the NHL, it’s a place where viewership is down and both partners (ESPN/Bally) that were touted 2 years ago are in trouble. The blue light is on and NBC may be waiting with a groupon.
On to ESPN. Here’s the link from CNBC. First, notice that the NHL isn’t even mentioned in the title. Here’s the gist. We know about 330 million in revenue gets paid from ESPN to the NHL (about 220 was from Bally). Now, ESPN is floating the idea that all the leagues buy a piece of ESPN as a partnership. So, of the 330,000,000 you’re paying the NHL, how much do you want back to “strengthen the partnership…. If this was suggested in any other business realm it would be laughed at.
What ESPN would get is relief from payments owed, and what the leagues would get is a network with fewer talking heads, less (and declining) value, and less money. Not your typical win-win.
In all of the scenarios I’ve been presented with, these surpass them in both absurdity and lack of rational thought. Both the NHL and NBA are looking to boost numbers and revenue. The NFL could basically be its own country. 70k per game attendance (more than 3 x the largest NHL arenas) and I’ve gone through the viewership. It’s staggering.
Here’s where this hits my entry yesterday. The Olympics are seen by the league as a cost, not a benefit. This is not good news on that front. It is my sincere hope that the offices are doing their homework on new partnerships without adding several more logos to the jerseys. (We’ve already crossed the line, it gets easier to add more than to get going). Pay close attention to your cable bills (if you still have it). The company I used to use for Bally keeps trying to add “free subscriptions… that I can cancel any time. Even unpaid subs count as subs. It was just revealed that the Hulu product in India costs roughly .49 to $1.00 but it still hurt when they lost 4 million subscribers.
I no longer have a road map on this one. Someone who is passionate about sports with a lot of money has to step out and take control. Today’s reads were a big shift to a completely new direction.