Latest / Halo Territory: A Los Angeles Angels Podcast / Angels still scrambling to secure a local television rights deal

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Angels still scrambling to secure a local television rights deal · Halo Territory: A Los Angeles Angels Podcast

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, Angel fans, and welcome back to Halo territory. I'm
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Mike di Giovanna, former LA Times baseball writer and host
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of the show. I'm going to start out today with
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: a quick question for Angel fans, but it might seem
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: more like a trick question. What channel will you be
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: watching your Halo's on this year? Have no idea me neither.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: In the regular season is two months away. The Angel's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: TV situation right now is about as muddled as this
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: team's plan to get back to the playoffs. But hopefully
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the two guys on the show today will be able
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to shed some light on it. Evan Drelich of The
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Athletic and Bill Shakin of the Los Angeles Times. Welcome
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: to the show, guys, how are we doing today?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Hi?
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Yadiej Good to see you man all right? That really
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: appreciate you both joining us. A little background on these
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: two fine scribes. Evan covers the business of baseball with
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a special emphasis on the Commissioner's office for The Athletic,
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: and he's written extensively about MLB's TV situation. He has
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: also written an outstanding book on the Houston Astros sign
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: stealing scandal called Winning fixes everything, and if you haven't
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: read it, I strongly urge you to go buy it
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: download it. It's a great read, especially for you Dodger
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: fans who are still ticked off about that twenty seventeen
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: World Series. Bill Shakin is the national baseball writer for
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Times, a two time California Sports Writer
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: of the Year winner, and he also focuses heavily on
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the business side of the game. And I was lucky
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: enough to call Shake a colleague for almost three decades
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: at the Times. Thanks again both of you for joining us. Evan,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: let's start with you. The Angels in twenty eleven signed
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a twenty year, three billion dollar deal with Fox Sports
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: West when that paid them one hundred and fifty million
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: dollars a year, and now they're among tutors in Major
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: League Baseball, NBA and NHL teams scrambling for TV partners.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: How the heck did we get here?
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: People stop watching? I think is the short answer. Ditch
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: everything I write about, or ninety eight percent of what
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: I write about. And I think it's true for Shake
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: as well. Comes back down to money, and the money
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: has just started to dry up for these regional sports networks.
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: You know, there was a time less than a decade
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: ago when the channel that the Angels are on now
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: and a group of other regional sports networks for valued
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: at ten billion dollars uh, and they've lost I don't know,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: maybe ninety percent of their worth since then. People stopped
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: subscribing to cable and TV packages, satellite. You know, there's
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: been some cord cutters, some people jump to YouTube, TV
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: and other digital packages, but there's just fewer people regularly subscribing,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: which means that there's less money going to these stations,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: the third party regional sports networks, and then there's less
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: money going to the teams. And what's going on right
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: now is that for basically the second time in a year,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: the channel that the Angels are on fanduels networks, which
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: are owned by this company called main Street, are trying
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: to pay less to the teams and renegotiate all the
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: rights fees that they are contractually obligated to pay. We
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: will see if any of these teams actually go back
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: to FanDuel. Major League Baseball's taken over the broadcast for
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: several of its teams. Right now, there's at least seven
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: teams that Major League Baseball itself is going to be
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: the broadcast partner for in twenty twenty six, which you know,
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: if you had said to somebody five years ago, hey,
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: MLB is going to effectively be the regional sports network
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: for you know, a fifth of the teams in the
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: league or more. I think people would have thought you
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: were pretty crazy. But that's the world we're in now,
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: where some teams feel that they're going to get more
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: money from Major League Baseball than they will from the
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: traditional third party partner. And there's a difference in the
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: way it works whether you're with the third party traditional
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: ARSON or you're with MLB. A third party, traditional ARSON
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: guarantees you some amount of money going into the year.
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: They're going to say your right season worth thirty million
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: or forty million or fifty whatever. MLB saying, we're not
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: promising anything. Whatever you bring in, whatever we're able to sell,
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: that's what you're going to get. So it's this slowly
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: crumbling third party regional sports network environment that the Angels
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: are one of many teams swept up in.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Shake. Let's hone in on the Angels. It seems like
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: they've been TV nomads now for the last few years,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: can you sort of clarify how they went from Fox
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Sports West to Bally Sports West to fan Duel Sports
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: West and who knows where they'll be next.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: Sure, so, as a lot of things do in Southern
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: California baseball, it all goes back to Frank McCourt. When
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Frank McCourt was selling the Dodgers in bankruptcy court Fox Sports.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Remember they have two rsns, Fox Sports West in prime
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: ticket and while they had both the Dodgers and the Angels,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: what they were really worried about was having none. What
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: if Frank McCourt took the Dodgers somewhere else or then
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: their new owners did, and the Angels decided, we'll go
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: somewhere else too. So Fox took the three billion dollars
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: it was marketed for Frank mccurt, and since that was
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: in limbo and bankruptcy, gave it to Artie Marino and said,
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: here's your new contract. Great, you're the Angels. You have
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: lots of money. And they went out inside Albert Pools
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: with that money. Fast forward a few years and now
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Fox Entertainment, which is much bigger than Fox Sports, gets
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: sold to Disney and the Justice Department says, you know what,
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: ESPN and all the Fox regionals sports channels. That's too
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: much sports in one place. So they had to sell
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: the regional sports channels to a company called Sinclair. So
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: now Fox is out time passes. And then we go
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: to what Evan had started to talk about, which is
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: the audience just keeps joindling, and the money in regional
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: sports networks is getting people who don't watch them to
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: still pay you for them. You bought a bundle, you
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: don't watch fifty three of the channels, you watch your four,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: but you pay for all fifty seven. So that's collapsing.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: So as it turns out, as Evan indicated, like the
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: Sinclair product, which was sold later as Balle's is a
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: product name has evolved into the main street product, which
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: is sold as FanDuel has evolved into we just don't know.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: So that's kind of where we span. And the twenty
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: year contract that looks so good for the Angels back
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: in twenty eleven, it's already been blown up. It's worth
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: less than it was then, it's about to be worthless.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: And as Evan indicated, if the Angels end up going
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: with Major League Baseball, there may be zero guaranteed revue entirely.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: Well, that was kind of going to be my follow
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: up question. There's shake at the time. That deal in
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: twenty eleven for a granted, a major market team, but
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: the second team to the Dodgers in that market, that
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: had to be a pretty darn good deal for the Angels.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Right, Oh yeah, it sure was. And again it was
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: just out of desperation. If you have a regional sports
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: network and you don't have baseball, you got nothing all summer.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And Fox was looking at two regional sports networks with
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: no baseball, so that was the price they had to pay.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Wow. Evan, how have major league teams, specifically the Angels
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: been impacted by this? We've mentioned some of the financial implications,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: but I assume they've been huge.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: It's always money. Everything comes down to money this world,
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: and they're you know, the exact amount of money the
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Angels have lost. Bill would probably know better than me,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: but I think twenty thirty percent for any team that
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: was with this company, main Street Sports, which operates these
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: fan dual sports networks, at a minimum, they've lost that
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: in the last year alone. And the way these owners
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: think and operate that that very often will translate into well,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: we're not getting the money we expected to get from TV,
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: so we're going to spend less than x y Z areas,
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: And often x y Z areas means yeah, we're not
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: signing that next reliever, or we're gonna, you know, stay
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: out of free agency, or not going to make that trade,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: or at the very least, if you're a cynic, you'll say, well,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: there's an easy excuse for a team not to participate
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: in a certain way. But I do think there is
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: a real matter of uncertainty that they're all dealing with
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: here and not knowing what their actual TV revenue will
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: be in twenty twenty six. Now, I want to hedge
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: you out a little bit by pointing out that any
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: team that is with this company, main Street Sports Group
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: that operates these FanDuel networks, there are nine MLB teams
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: that were slated to be partners for twenty six. They
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: all ran back to FanDuel after FanDuel was in bankruptcy.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: A FanDuel Sports network in a previous name of the company,
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: Diamond Sports Group that Shak was talking about. They were
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: known as Bally's back then, so they were already crumbling
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: and a bunch of teams looked at it and said, well,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: I still think I could make more going with them,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: And so you kind of that empathy for the position
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: of the team's are in not knowing what's coming in.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: But also they chose to go back to a network
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: that had just emerged from bankruptcy, and during that bankruptcy,
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: MLB was by far the most vocal critic of the plan.
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: Of the projected numbers that Main Street Sports Group was saying,
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: we could hit. So it's not good all around, is
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: how I would sum it up.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Shake. We've seen some numbers thrown around regarding the Angels.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: How much do we know how much they've lost over
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the last few years, and how much did they stand
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: to lose in the next few years because of the situation.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Ardie Marie now said last spring before the start of
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: the season that he was looking in the fifty million
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: dollars a year range. That was not necessarily all because
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: of the TV deal, But when you've got a guy
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: who's taken pride in running a break even operation, that's
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: probably not what you want to hear if you're a
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: fan of the team. I think the bigger problem is
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: that when the fan Duel slash Diamond slash Main Street
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Sas Valley's group got out of bankruptcy, the teams made
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: their new TV deals about the time the regular season
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: ended last year, not exactly, but close enough to where
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: the teams could go into their winter Baseball shopping mode
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: with that idea of what the television revenue was going
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: to be. The bad news is it's going to be.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: The good news is at least you know what it is.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: This is coming up now so close to spring training
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: that teams are kind of paralyzed. And I don't think
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: it's just the Angels because you don't have that certainty.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: You have absolutely no idea. As Evan indicated, if you
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: go with MLB, you may have zero guaranteed revenue at
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: this point. You can't even count on taking a discount.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: You may be counting on taking nothing. And that makes
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: it really hard, certainly for any general manager to get
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: a budget.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Well the Angels GM Perrymansium has been pretty coy about
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: his plans and for this winner and how his budget
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: is impacted by all of this. But as we know,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: actions speak louder than words, and it's clear these financial
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: losses have impacted the Angels. The projected payroll for twenty
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: twenty six is one hundred and seventy eight million. That's
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: forty three million dollars less than their two hundred and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: twenty million dollar payroll to end twenty twenty five. They
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: did say twelve million this past winner by trading Taylor
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Ward to the Baltimore Orioles, but they've spent seventeen million
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: total on five free agents this winter. Shake how long
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: can the Angels continue to operate this operate like this?
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I can't say it's a whole lot different than what
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: we've done in the previous few winters. The plan, as
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: best we can tell, has been rush a lot of
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: young kids into the team, sometimes with very limited time
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: in the major leagues, hope for the best, and then
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: if enough of them turn out. By the time the
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Angels are rid of Anthony red Doones contract, the general
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: manager can go back to Artie Marina and say, okay,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: now can we start spending. But the Angels renegotiated the
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: last year of red Doones contract already, and as you see,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: they're not spending now. The question is that because of
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: the TV, Is it because of other business losses or frankly,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: is it the young core has not developed up the
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: way I think the team leadership hoped it would. So
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: if you're to look at the Angels right now and say,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: are there any of those young guys who would sign
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: to a long term contract, there's one zach Netto, there's
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: nobody else. That's where you could say, the next time
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: the Angels win the American League West, this guy will
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: be part of it. So I think all those things
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: play together.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Heavan are other teams around the league that are caught
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: up in this situation as impacted as the Angels appear
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: to be.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I talked to general manager with a different team
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: who's also part of the Main Street Sports group FanDuel
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Sports Network family, and that general manager was quite blunt
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: that they just don't know what they can spend. And again,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: there are cynics who or even skeptics who will say, well,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: they weren't going to spend anyway, and is this just
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: a shield to avoid spending. But at the same time,
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: you know, if you entered this past offseason at the
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: end of the regular season in twenty twenty five thinking
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: this a certain rights fee was coming your way, and
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: then in late December, everything starts to crumble. You can
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: have a little bit of use the word again, empathy
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: for that position and again hedging it against well, you
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: went back to a company that was financially unstable. And
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: the reality is there's not a great alternative at the moment.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: And I think we could talk more about the future here,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: but you're stuck between MLB or another third party regional
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: sports network, and many markets there isn't another one, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: so your only other choice really is to try to
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: start your own venture, which we've seen the Rangers do,
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: We've seen the White Sox do it. Nobody's lighting the
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: world on fire by doing it, and so it really
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: becomes everybody's just trying to get by until some sort
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: of dam breaks and you get a longer term solution
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: where everybody doesn't feel like they're always on pins the needles.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: That was my next question, what are the immediate plans
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: of these teams, especially like the Angels who are impacted.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: The immediate solution is just make as much money as
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: you possibly can. And you can argue that that's shortsighted
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: in the sense that there is one other option that
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: people have, which is to go over the air you know,
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: instead of having your your games be on cable and satellite.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: You know what if you went with less money coming
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: into you but reaching more people. There's always this trade
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: off in the land of sports television between reach and revenue.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: You'll reach more people if you're basically given away free
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: over the airwaves, but you'll you'll make less money, at
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: least in the short term. It doesn't seem like any
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: Major League Baseball teams are going to aggressively pursue over
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: the air. So in the short term, and I'm talking
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: about twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, you're trying to
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: maximize what you can. And then twenty eight going into
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: twenty nine is a really key year in baseball. The
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: national media rights deals in baseball, so that the contracts
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: that allow NBC now to host the Sunday night game,
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: that the Fox Saturday games, all those national contracts Fox
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: with the World Series expire after twenty eight, and so
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: twenty eight there's gonna be this renegotiation of national deals.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: What the league would like to do is essentially sell
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: more local inventory, you know, so most teams have let's
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: say one hundred and thirty games, one hundred and forty
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: games that they give to their RSN, sell more of
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: that to national big streaming companies that might pay more
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: and also not only just take more games national literally
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: have some of these major streaming companies potentially become essentially
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: the RSN. So at ESPN starting next year has the rights, well,
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: they have the rights now, but we're not going to
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: see this take off until next year. But they any
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: team that MLB is handling the broadcast for right those
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: seven teams, there might be more. ESPN will soon stream
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: those on its services. And so you already have a
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: major streaming company that's saying, you know what, we'll just
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: act like like the RSNS used to. And there could
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: be big money in that. And the question is can
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: baseball get its media rights system in order? There's changes
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: that would have to be made to who controls the rights.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Potentially there's changes to revenue sharing between owners, and that's
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: something that actually has to get collectively bargained with the players.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: There's a big shift that can happen in the next
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: couple of years. And the interesting thing will be can
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: baseball can Rob Manford pull it off? Shake?
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Can can baseball pull that off? And I got a
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: hunch there's going to be some roadblocks to a deal
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: like that with teams like the Dodgers, the Mets, and
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the Yankees who have these ridiculously humongous TV rights steals
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: in their local markets.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely. I mean the pitch of putting everybody's rights
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: into one bundle and going out whether it's ESPN or
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: YouTube or some technology we've not even heard of yet,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: and saying you can have all the games. That sounds
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: great in a way for a fan, because there are
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: weekends now when you're like, Okay, the Angels are on
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: Fox one day, in ESPN the next. You need Amazon
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: Prime to follow the Yankees. Evan mentioned you know NBC
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: is involved. Now, Boy, wouldn't it be great if a
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: fan could just get up and say, whatever team I
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: want to watch, I'm just going to go to this
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: one place. It doesn't matter where I am. There's no blackouts.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: That sounds great, but you need every team to be there.
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: So if you're the Dodgers, for example, and you're making
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: hundreds of millions of dollars a year in television revenue
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: from your sports and at la deal at a time,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: a lot of these teams are making nothing or next
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: to nothing. You're gonna say, huh, competitive disadvantage for me.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: So Rob Manfred, what are you going to give me
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: if you want the Dodgers' rights in that package? And
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: that's sort of what they're working for. There's all sorts
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: of things they could do. Maybe they adjust the Dodgers'
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: revenue sharing, Maybe they give Dodgers TV rights in Japan,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: where they're obviously such a huge attraction already. You know,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: who knows what. And again, as Evan pointed out, a
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: lot of that comes back to collective bargaining in the end.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: You know, can major League Baseball do it with something
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: less than thirty teams? I mean probably, you know, it
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: may not be as attractive if you don't have your
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: marquee teams, but you know, if you're looking for a template,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: it's what Major League soccer did. They went to Apple
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: and every game went to Apple and you had to
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: subscribe to Apple if you were a Major League soccer fan,
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: and it was great. It's one place to go. There
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: wasn't the kind of financial interest in watching Major League
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: soccer that there would be in watching Major League baseball,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: So maybe that would pay out, but again.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: We don't know.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: What hasn't been tried. MLB thinks it's the pot of gold.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: It may or may not be.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Evan, Is there enough time this season for teams to
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: get these deals done. Is there a chance any of
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: these teams gets left out in the cold.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: I don't think there's any chance. Certainly, MLB projects full
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: confidence that everybody will be broadcast somehow, some way. We
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: haven't had a situation yet where truly people have have
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: been left out in the dark in this run of it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: In twenty twenty three, the prior version of Fan Dual
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Sports Network, when it was under Bally and Diamond Sports
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Group as a parent company, they dropped two teams. It
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: might have been three baseball teams in the middle of
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: the season, Diamondbacks and Padres, And that's when MLB first
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: stepped in. So one way or another, people are going
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: to be able to access their games. It is possible
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: that if you have kind of a last minute decision
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: here where some teams leaving Fan Duel for MLB. You know,
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: when somebody goes over to MLB, MLB that has to
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: negotiate all the different carriage agreements, meaning MLB goes to
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: the cable company in a satellite company. In some of
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: these markets, there are a lot of different little cable companies,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: and is it possible that you know, one of those
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: deals isn't quite done on time. Yeah, it's totally possible.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: My understanding is MLB and we've seen it does have
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: good relationships, you know, standing relationships with the major cable companies,
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: and so it would be I think very unlikely that
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: any team that goes to MLB wouldn't have a deal
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: in place with you know, whatever charter spectrum go down
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: the list. But again, the longer this drags on, the
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: less time you have to sell. You have less time
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: to sell streaming packages. You know, every team that goes
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: to MLB you can pay probably about twenty bucks a month,
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: and you can bypass signing up for a bundle and
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: just get what they call direct to consumer. You can
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: get that your team's games just through that subscription. But
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: you don't want to start selling that an opening day.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: You want to start selling that now. So you know,
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: I think in the next week here, it just would
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: be surprising if this drags much into February. And you know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: the big question is can fan Duel find more cash,
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Can they find a buyer, whether it's de Zone spelled
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: da z n, or is it somebody else that can
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: kind of come in and keep this thing standing up.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: And we're going to find out the history of this
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: is that some teams when Diamond excuse me now, main
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: Street tries to renegotiate, some teams stay, some teams go.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: And if I if I were a betting man, and
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: thankfully I'm not, that would be my guess as to
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: what happens here. So long is that company remains viable.
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: There's at least, you know, a non zero chance that
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: Main Street Sports Group after the basketball hockey seasons decides
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: to wind down and basically fold, and you know, we'll see,
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: we'll see if that actually comes to pass.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Is there as fault go ahead shake that's going to
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: jump in.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: The teams are pretty much asked main Street like, hey,
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: by the end of this week, we got to know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: and we don't want to know how much of a
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: discount you're giving us. That's the bad news. We're already
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: used to the bad news. We want to know how
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: you're going to guarantee that we get paid that money,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: so if you decide to go bankrupt again, we're not
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: stiffed on even that little bit of money you're giving us,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: and if they don't get an answer by the end
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: of this week, my suspicion is just about everybody goes
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: MLB because I don't think the league is going to
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: encourage teams to take an offer where you don't even
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: know if you're getting all the money in this bad offer.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Wow. Well, that was going to be my closing question
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: for both of you, guys. I want you to finish
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: this sentence. It's Opening Day twenty twenty six. You can
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: watch the Angels game on Shake. What do you got?
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I think probably MLB will put together a package because
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: if they're serious about needing to know this week, that
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: gives them, you know what, a month a month and
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: a half to get it up and running, and they
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: can do that. As Evan indicated, they've had plenty of
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: experience with these other teams by now. So Bill with
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: something you know is going to be there at the
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: end of the season, versus take some money from an
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: entity you don't know whether they're going to be there
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: at the end of the season.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: I haven't spent enough I've spent enough time on sports
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: talk radio, so you know that I'm better off taking
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: a counter position here, and I actually this is speculative,
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: and I want to put out this is speculative on
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: my part, but I think it's somewhat telling that they
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: are waiting the fact that they are, that they have
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: not just said screw this, we're out at this point,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: and we expect some teams have basically said that, and
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: they probably want to make a collective decision, make one
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: announcement at once. But it tells me that they would
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: prefer that FanDuel still exists and that they could get
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: their so called guaranteed right sees. And so for the
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: sake of the argument, I'll say that somehow, some way,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: vanduels still round come opening day, and I think teams
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: want that. I don't think teams want to go to
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: NLB because they would have done it a year ago.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: They would, you know, it's they still like that guaranteed money.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: So I'll say the opposite of shape, they're on fans.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: I'll just say a wild is that for the other
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: team in Anaheim, the Ducks hockey team, they're on free streaming.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: They're on a service called Victory Plus, which I think
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: the Texas Rangers are also so you can watch every
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: game and you don't have to pay anything, And they're
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: trying to gather eight i'ms right to gather as much
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: possible what they call reach the greatest possible audiences they
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: can and try to sell advertising based on that. They
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: also have a number of games that are on low
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: over the air TV at Channel eleven and Channel thirteen.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: So I wouldn't be surprised if the Angels have at
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: least talked to the Ducks to see how that works.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: And now that the hockey season is well underway, are
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: you making money from that? Is it feasible? Does it
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: seem like you know there's a long term path there,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: but in the end, I don't know that that's the
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: route they're going to take.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Well, that'll do it for this episode of Halo Territory.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: You want to thank Evan Drelich and Bill Shaken for
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: joining us. Really appreciate your input. Please like and subscribe,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and we're going to try to put together mail bag
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: here at some points, so if you want to leave
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: some questions on the Halo Territory X site, please do.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Until then, we'll see you next time on Halo Territory