NFL’s latest money grab; get used to it

Why ruin the suspense?

Good morning, all! I hope your week is off to a terrific start.

It is on to the post season for the NFL, but unless you have a subscription to NBC’s (Comcast) Peacock streaming service, you will not be able to watch Saturday’s wild card game between Miami and Kansas City. That is because Peacock has exclusive rights to the contest. If you do not pony up and subscribe to Peacock, you will be __it out of luck as far as watching the game.

Word is Peacock paid $110 million to televise the game. Criticism over this latest money grab by the NFL will get louder as we get closer to Saturday, says sportstalk icon Mike Francesa on his podcast. Francesa, who loves the NFL, went off on the league for the Peacock game. He made some great points about the NFL’s greed, but beyond the league’s quick payday lies the reality that streaming to view our sports is in the immediate future. In many cases it has not only arrived but been around for a while.

According to one report, another 800,000 cable TV subscribers cut the cord in November. Another report had ESPN losing 4 million subscribers in the last year and the MLB network losing 11 million subscribers too. Are subscribers suddenly being turned off by sports? Some might be, but the majority are being turned off by higher cable TV fees. Younger demographics, which all sports need in order to maintain their monetary infrastructure, do not subscribe to cable. They follow sports via streaming over their TV sets or on their smartphones. The future is in streaming. The legacy media and sports know it. Saturday’s playoff game is a money grab for the NFL, but the future of following sports lies in the palms of most fans’ hands and that is where the real money will be found.

Yankees and Knicks unite?

There was once a time when the MSG Network televised New York Yankees games. Then the Yankees went off and formed their own network, YES, and suddenly MSG lost a lot of programming content.

Last week YES, which televises the Yankees and Nets, and MSG, which televises the Knicks, Rangers and Devils, caught the media scribes off guard by announcing they are teaming up to launch a streaming service. Entitled GAME, an acronym for Gotham Advanced Media and Entertainment, the two networks hope to combine forces to offer content that is delivered to - you guessed it - the palm of your hand.

It is not a coincidence that these two New York media giants are entering this collaboration. Regional sports networks are in trouble. Some have gone bankrupt. Others backed out of paying rights fees to the teams they covered. The San Diego Padres, Minnesota Twins, Colorado Rockies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks and Phoenix Suns were among those teams impacted. MLB, more than likely, will be assuming the TV rights of some of the clubs who do not have a regional TV partner and will offer a streaming service. They actually undertook such a venture with the Padres midway through last season, when San Diego’s TV rights holder reneged on its contract.

Again, those cutting the cord have led to this action, as changing revenue streams have a ripple effect. If you tell me five years from now, if not sooner, that YES and MSG will merge into one and the only way you can watch Yankees and Knicks games is via GAME, I will have a hard time disagreeing with you.

Why do writers do this?

On January 23 the Baseball Writers’ Association of America will announce its ballot results on the latest entrants to the Hall of Fame. A candidate must receive 75% of the vote to make it. For some reason numerous members of the BWAA find it necessary to publicly reveal how they voted. Far be it for me to tell them what to do with their vote but why do they feel it necessary to release their votes before Jan. 23?

Talk about removing the suspense. You even have a website tracking the results, before the official announcement. The BWAA members are going to do what they want, I just wish the writers could hold off on revealing their ballots until after the announcement on Jan. 23.

That is it for this week’s newsletter. As always thank you for subscribing and have a terrific week.

SPORTSCASTER DAN