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Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner
What are you basing this on?
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There were comments when announcing this about embracing broadband and a la carte. With the move to more a la carte offerings in Canada
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...98I0T020130919 vs the US, Canada broadcasters can't strong arm themselves into the high hidden carriage fees like the US RSN's do. In the US, it basically goes like this, fox (or whatever) sportsnet will say give us $5 per subscriber, put us on your most basic tier or we won't give you the channel at all, and we'll also withhold Fox News and possibly the local fox station. That is how team's like the Dodger's are getting $300 million a year when less people watch them than the Flames.
TV deals like this don't pay for themselves with advertising dollars. Advertising dollars pay nothing compared to carriage fees. The way that Roger's has bought up out of market (center ice), national coverage, and already owns most of the local coverage in Canada, suggests they have a grand plan to disrupt the current way Canadian's watch hockey, and how they pay for it.
Now that they own out of market, they can sell Flame's (and Leaf's) coverage across the country. The Jets already do the $10/month a la carte model. And they probably see that as the starting point of their model. They'll create Sportsnet Flames, Sportsnet leafs, etc for $10/month with cable tv or $20/month standalone (they are a cable company after all) that they will sell across the country. They'll keep some national games on free tv to allow NHL to market themselves. And I'm sure they'll work with the nhl to block out US game center workarounds from Canada.
Just my guess of how it will play out.