Good. I want to see these broadcasters fail and the leagues take a hit. I feel like I can just copy and paste my comment from when rumblings of this started 2.5 years ago.
Quote:
I feel like nobody on the industry side has stopped and asked “what are the medium term impacts of maximizing short term sports revenue”?
Sports franchises/leagues have been more than happy to see tv deals skyrocket in value. Sports broadcasters like Sinclair have historically seen good advertising / cable carriage cost returns on these deals so have been happy to pay. Cable companies recognized that sports fans are going to be the last of the cord cutters so they seem content paying $5-7 a month for a sports channel to be in their cable packages.
I could make the argument that their greed is going to screw all of them in the long run.
Sports teams are losing the next generation of fans because their product is not as accessible and affordable as the competition (E-sports, Youtube, Netflix, Non-American sports streaming)
Sports broadcaster are stuck with expensive contracts that they cannot make a profit from
Cable companies are losing their subscriber base because they have tied themselves to carrying overpriced sports channels
There is a naïve belief that consumers will be continually content with increased sports costs and an even naiver belief that young people will just magically become sports fans.
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Even in the 2.5 years since then, I've gotten even more bitter with the general direction of sports leagues and television stations. Jersey ads. Gambling ads. Moving board ads. Ever increasing cable tv carriage costs.
I get that we live in a relentless world and that this is an optional sports product that I don't need to buy. It is just depressing knowing that something I've sunk irrational fandom into is objectively getting worse. So maybe I'm the naive one, but I'm hoping these bankruptcies are a wakeup call to sports business world. I still think that they will regret taking the short term greed route. Just ask the CFL how well that strategy worked for them.