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Updates:
Carolina has pulled Brind’amour’s extension offer at a very odd time (according to Dreger). Rod, as a player, was everything you want to see. As a coach, that carried over. He’s rumored to still hit the weight room with the team and can outbench the roster. This is a culture building coach whose players make their own ice time. If there’s any chance that Rod is available, I hope Yzerman and co are all over that opportunity.
Apart from the Griffins playing in the post season, one of Detroit’s first rounders Axel Sandin Pellikka got to hoist a championship and at Yzerman’s season ending presser the GM said that ASP would remain overseas for next year.
Ansar Khan reiterated the likely overseas stay for the young D man even as fans took to instagram with hopes of his appearance on North American ice. More than anything, I’d like to see the young player sign his ELC. Things can change, and it would be great to see him skating the thinner sheets in Grand Rapids, but make sure he’s in the fray and things are going well.
The Bally Sports saga was set to come to an end after this year’s MLB season. Anyone who has followed this blog for the past year+ is well aware that both Bally Sports and ESPN are going through major changes, Bally’s was in bankruptcy court.
The last update I gave was that Amazon had stepped in and injected finances into the company in exchange for streaming. Diamond Sports (Bally’s parent company) took the Bally name and shut down the division. So, in reality, Diamond sports is the negotiator but the name Bally will now be applied to their partnership and remaining markets.
The Charter strike last year was devastating for the ESPN brand as it revealed only 1/3 of customers were using the service. Even after restoration, the numbers continued to fall off and ESPN is committed to be fully streaming by next year. For Bally, something very different happened. You can now do the stand alone local subscription (around $20 where I’m at) or pay $8 to add to your cable package. With Comcast doing a shut down it’s fair to assume Bally wanted higher rates. That, or do what DirecTV has done.
At the end of Red Wings season I cancel Bally’s and reduce my channels. To get the channel you had to have tier 3 or higher, pay $35 for sports plus $8 for Bally. Now DirecTV won’t allow you to cancel the $8 for Bally unless you go down to tier 1. It made no sense. I made the change and was then told, “but you’ll only have 2 ESPN channels now”. There it was.
The earnings calls are becoming disastrous for some companies. Bally/Diamond got DirecTV to refuse to let customers unsubscribe which would artificially boost numbers and revenue into the summer. ESPN has done this for years. So, what now?
This signals that Comcast isn’t willing to either make Bally’s an included channel instead of an option or that the company asked for a raise beyond what Comcast values. Back to that streaming service. The subscription came right after Amazon jumped in. This likely means the “good will” investment from the retail giant was step toward more sports exclusively on PrimeTV (along with Thursday Night Football) and the provider didn’t have to bid for it. They came in the back door. But, the MLB may not play ball this time.
Baseball needs a solid partnership and is trying to create their own hub, free from relying on RSNs and other partnerships. What about hockey? Well, the finals are pretty much all on ESPN/TNT/ABC etc and next season ESPN and ABC may both be part of Hulu/Disney. That merger still isn’t complete but is getting closer.
It isn’t fun covering this, but for Bally not to stay quiet and let the baseball season run its course seems misguided. As for the NHL, we’re heading toward what looks to be a fully streamed product unless NBC comes back to the table and Bettman can give ESPN the boot. I didn’t expect to be writing any of this before the finals were finished but it seems like Bally/Diamond is in a hurry. Updates will come as they are made available.
Detroit Red Wings Blogger • 
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