Conform mlbtraderumors.com, Braves au anunțat astăzi lansarea BravesVision, o entitate media deținută de echipă, care va difuza meciurile clubului și le va face disponibile pe televiziune și prin streaming. Fanii vor putea accesa transmisia direct de la echipă, fără blackout-uri locale.
👉 Situația actuală a difuzărilor și impactul întreruperii acordurilor RSN
This will include all regular season games except those which are subject to national exclusivities. For those with questions about the details, the club released an FAQ page. Up until recently, Atlanta was one of several teams with a regional sports network (RSN) deal with Main Street Sports, formerly known as Diamond Sports Group. That company’s portfolio of MLB clubs has been shrinking in recent years as they have hit financial trouble, largely caused by cord cutting.
As of the start of this year, Main Street still had deals with nine MLB clubs, including Atlanta. The company missed some payments, which caused all nine teams to terminate their deals in January. Earlier this month, six of those teams pivoted to having the league handle the broadcasts. Atlanta was one of the three still undetermined, but with some signs they would launch their own broadcast network, which has effectively come to pass with this announcement.
👉 Impactul economic și reacțiile oficialilor echipei
It’s difficult to say how this will impact the club’s bottom line in the long run. As of a few years ago, Atlanta was getting more than $100MM annually from their RSN deal. Travis Sawchik of MLB.com has reported that clubs who have lost their RSN deals and pivoted to new arrangements have been bringing in about 50% less than before, on average.
Atlanta is going a slightly different route than most of the other clubs in this position. The majority of them have handed the reins over to the league. The Rangers have been an exception, as they launched their own network a year ago, with Atlanta now following in that example.
Evan Grant of The Dallas Morning News spoke to some team officials about the situation in October. Those employees spoke highly of the increased ratings of the new arrangement but were more cagey about whether the club made as much money as they had on their previous RSN deal.
Down the line, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has a goal of marketing a streaming package that includes the rights of as many clubs as possible. It will be challenging to get them all on board since many of the large-market clubs have healthy RSN setups that they own or co-own. They will have some reticence about joining a more centralized arrangement that would see them sharing TV revenue with smaller markets.
For fans, today’s news seems to largely be a positive. Due to a dispute in 2024, there were times where the club’s games weren’t even available to some cable subscribers in the local area. Now the majority of the club’s games should be accessible to fans everywhere.
Photo courtesy of Brett Davis, Imagn Images