OLN Worries Seem Short Term
When the NHL signed a deal with OLN many in the media and blogging worlds were wondering if anyone would take notice to the channel that previously only got attention by airing live coverage of the Tour de France. However, it’s been long known that Comcast didn’t just want the NHL, but the NFL as well (as mentioned a few times throughout the media section here).
Comcast doesn’t plan on stopping at just two major sports though. Mediaweek is reporting that Comcast is also looking to sign a deal with Major League Baseball.
Not only did it snatch away cable rights for the National Hockey League for the next several years last week, but now Comcast/OLN has set its sights on landing Major League Baseball’s Sunday-Wednesday-night cable package, the rights to which expire at the end of the current season.
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ESPN’s exclusive negotiating window expired in June, and sources inside and outside of MLB confirmed that TV rights discussions have taken place with Comcast/OLN.
Another factor in the negotiations is MLB’s plan to start its own Baseball Channel, possibly before the start of next season. Were Comcast to include a provision to carry the Baseball Channel in any rights offer it proposed, it could be a sweetener that might lure MLB.
The potential Baseball Channel is similar to Comcast’s deal with the NHL to bring the NHL Network to the US.
If you think there’s no chance ESPN would let Comcast into the picture, remember the above - the exclusive negotiating window is over, and Comcast certainly has money to throw around (remember, Comcast was looking to takeover Disney, ESPN’s parent company, but the bid was rejected). ESPN wasn’t looking to add any more baseball games to its lineup either. Back in June Variety reported ESPN was going to concentrate more on original programming.
And [Mark Shapiro, executive VP of programming and production for ESPN] is negotiating a new contract with Major League Baseball but says, “I’m not interested in carrying five games a week unless I get full network exclusivity,” a concession baseball seems unwilling to grant except for the traditional ESPN game of the week on Sunday night.
I added in Shapiro’s full name title in the brackets for quote awareness. Also to note: Shapiro will be leaving ESPN Oct 1st, so there could be an attitude change at the network with his departure.
Steve Zipay’s Newsday column today, A hockey lockout to hockey blackout, brings up a huge NY negative about the OLN-NHL deal: Cablevision customers may be blacked out for all OLN games.
“In markets where OLN is offered on a digital sports tier, which includes Cablevision, we are required through our contracts to black out the games,” an OLN spokesperson confirmed yesterday. “There will be alternative programming in that time slot. We are working with our affiliates on the situation. We believe OLN should be included on expanded basic, not a sport tier.”
However, with Comcast bidding for MLB and NFL games, the channel may not only get out of expanded basic, but put into basic itself as a real ESPN counterpart. Of course, only time and at least one more signed deal will put pressure on some cable systems to make the switch, but Comcast seems very likely to push hard to get at least one of these deals done, if not both.
A company like Cablevision, which has had feuds with the YES Network and Time Warner, may be hard to budge, but concrete programming should go a long way to create real customer and possibly corporate pressure to move the channel into a different tier, allowing its customers to not be subject to constant blackouts.
A broader complaint about OLN’s exclusive games - that all other games will be blacked out across the US on Monday nights, OLN’s exclusive night - should disappear by the 2006-07 season, when the NHL has stated they will schedule only one US game on a Monday, if possible.
Comments:
The thing that really gets me, David, is seeing Comcast go the way of ESPN to become the new ESPN potentially while ESPN follows the MTV plan (at least from Shapiro’s comments) and tries to become a male-driven pop culture entity.
I haven’t been a fan of ESPN since shortly after ESPN the Magazine and their news division started to clearly lurch towards athletes and the glamour of the game instead of news content and actual coverage of the game. I thought this years home run derby in baseball made it clearly evident how far away from it’s roots ESPN has come and how it’s detrimental to it’s future success.
We don’t want ESPN for movies and game shows! We were watching it because fo credibility given to the network through their Sportscenter broadcasts…. That credibility is gone seeing they seem more concerned aobut trying to re-capture the Big Show catchphrase aura and sensationalism isntea dof reporting the news and covering the news in full (and well).
Posted by John F on Aug 23, 2005 at 08:10 PM
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