Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
$14 million per year to that franchise sure seems like lot, I don't see how they can earn that back. It also shows how the regional networks model was likely doomed as there is no way those rights were ever worth that.
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Twenty years ago or so, RSNs were willing to pay silly amounts for rights to second-tier sports because they had too much airtime to fill and not enough local content. They could afford it because cable companies were willing to pay silly amounts to add channels so they could brag about the size of their bundles.
The cable companies didn't much care if channel 492 was showing the Uruguayan tiddlywinks quarter-finals, as long as it was showing something. What mattered is that there were channels all the way up to 492 and they weren't showing test patterns. This helped them rope in new subscribers; if those subscribers eventually cancelled because there were 492 channels and none of them worth watching, that was someone else's problem down the road. The quarterly financials looked great even though the business model was unsustainable.
Now cable is dying and the silly amounts of money have migrated elsewhere. There's a storm brewing. The weird thing is that the NHL, which has always taken flak for being too gate-dependent and not cashing in on broadcast rights, is probably in a better position to weather that storm than the other major team sports.
But the Coyotes had better find themselves a real arena fast if they want to survive.