Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley says his company is still poised to launch a Bally Sports streaming app for cord-cutters in the second quarter. The executive says the initial launch will include at least five Major League Baseball teams with NHL and NBA teams added in the second half of the year.
Ripley made his remarks in an analyst call yesterday following the release of the company’s fourth quarter report.
Sinclair has secured the in-market digital rights to the 16 NBA and 12 NHL teams in the markets where the Bally Sports channels are available. But the company has only acquired the in-market streaming rights to 5 MLB teams: Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. (Bally Sports has the in-market cable/satellite rights to 14 MLB teams.).
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But Ripley says the five MLB teams are enough for a “soft” launch of the app sometime between April 1 and the end of June.
“Our current expectations are for the launch of streaming services with content currently available on our RSNs for 5 Bally Sports RSNs with MLB teams in the first half of 2022,” Ripley said, adding that he expects to sign up more MLB teams. “We expect to launch our remaining Bally Sports RSNs in the second half of the year, as well as features only subscription.
“With our recent renewals of the NBA and NHL, we currently plan on launching in 2022, a D2C product that includes at least 33 teams, all of the NBA and NHL teams for which we have digital rights (and) 5 MLB teams.”
It’s still unclear what Sinclair will charge for the standalone app which would enable sports fans to subscribe directly to Bally Sports for its coverage of an in-market team. The New York Post has reported Sinclair is considering a price tag over $20 a month, but Ripley has discounted that report.
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One word: cannibalism
Yeah…assuming there is even a MLB season!
Well, since I cannot afford both internet and cable TV I’ve not been able to watch a Tigers game in 4 years. In the 30 years before that I only missed a handful of games a season. I NEED a standalone app!
I miss the days when sports was on broadcast TV. Thanks, however, to the ridiculous salaries paid to players these days the games – in person or over cable – have become impossible to afford. I used to go to around 20 home games a season at Tiger Stadium: I’ve only ever been to 1 game in the first season of the terrible replacement stadium, partly because of the cost. Pitch clocks, 3-batter minimums, universal DH, robo-umps, players with .240 avg./7HR/23RBI lines getting multi-year deals at 3 million per, ever-expanding rounds of playoffs (Christmas World Series, anyone?) and asinine draft lotteries that consistently screw the actual worst teams aren’t gonna save the game. Rather, these are the things destroying it. Pro sports are all destroying their true fanbases with idiotic decisions and whiny millionaire players crying about how they deserve more while driving the cost of fandom to unaffordable levels for many of us. At least this would be a (very small) step in the right direction – for once.
In my case, we still have Molina, Wainwright, and now our hero Pujols is back. Had I known I wouldn’t get to watch the games, I never would have gone back to Dish. They actually told me that I would get the games when I specifically asked. Imagine that! They lied to me! I especially don’t want to miss this season, and I am so mad that the bastards lied to me.