2023-2024 Offseason Thread

[Nick]

https://nypost.com/2024/01/17/busine...teams-sources/
Amazon is poised to stream the games of five Major League Baseball teams (Marlins are in these 5) this season after extending a roughly $100 million lifeline to help broadcaster Diamond Sports emerge from bankruptcy, The Post has learned.

Diamond, which broadcasts under the Bally’s brand, will continue to televise the 11 MLB teams for which it has rights, including the World Series champion Texas Rangers, on cable. Though it may dump the Rangers and the Cleveland Indians before it emerges from bankruptcy, sources said.
The network’s streaming rights for NBA and NHL teams ends after this season. Diamond, which may not emerge from bankruptcy until after the current season, is expected to negotiate for the 2024-25 streaming rights so Amazon can air local basketball and hockey games going forward.
...
Bally’s has agreed to drop its name from Diamond broadcasts after the 2024 baseball season, a source said.

Wait a minute, meaning Amazon broadcasts all Marlins games and Bally none?

[lou]

https://nypost.com/2024/01/17/busine...teams-sources/
Amazon is poised to stream the games of five Major League Baseball teams (Marlins are in these 5) this season after extending a roughly $100 million lifeline to help broadcaster Diamond Sports emerge from bankruptcy, The Post has learned.

Diamond, which broadcasts under the Bally’s brand, will continue to televise the 11 MLB teams for which it has rights, including the World Series champion Texas Rangers, on cable. Though it may dump the Rangers and the Cleveland Indians before it emerges from bankruptcy, sources said.
The network’s streaming rights for NBA and NHL teams ends after this season. Diamond, which may not emerge from bankruptcy until after the current season, is expected to negotiate for the 2024-25 streaming rights so Amazon can air local basketball and hockey games going forward.
...
Bally’s has agreed to drop its name from Diamond broadcasts after the 2024 baseball season, a source said.

Thanks for posting. But why not quote this gem!


It would also include the rights to stream all 162 games of the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals, the Miami Marlins, the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays as Amazon looks to expand into the lucrative sports market........Fans of the five baseball teams would have to get an Amazon Prime membership, which costs $14.99 a month, to stream their games. It is not clear if fans in those markets would need to pay more than the Prime membership to get access to those games.


If this is an included in Amazon Prime, that is 200 million subscribers (167m in USA) having access to those games. This is national distribution and a huge footprint foundation for Amazon to really get into sports if they are carrying 700+ baseball games all of a sudden every night April through September?


Are we getting good news?

[Nick]

Thanks for posting. But why not quote this gem!


It would also include the rights to stream all 162 games of the Detroit Tigers, the Kansas City Royals, the Miami Marlins, the Milwaukee Brewers and the Tampa Bay Rays as Amazon looks to expand into the lucrative sports market........Fans of the five baseball teams would have to get an Amazon Prime membership, which costs $14.99 a month, to stream their games. It is not clear if fans in those markets would need to pay more than the Prime membership to get access to those games.


If this is an included in Amazon Prime, that is 200 million subscribers (167m in USA) having access to those games. This is national distribution and a huge footprint foundation for Amazon to really get into sports if they are carrying 700+ baseball games all of a sudden every night April through September?


Are we getting good news?

I'm pretty sure they would limit the availability of Marlins games to only those within their market still.

[rmc523]

Wait a minute, meaning Amazon broadcasts all Marlins games and Bally none?

It seems Ballys still has the TV rights (though I guess the Ballys name will be taken off?)

amazon I guess is getting the streaming rights….whether that means they’ll be on both that and Ballys app I don’t know for sure.

[rmc523]

I'm pretty sure they would limit the availability of Marlins games to only those within their market still.

How does the current Ballys streaming thing work? Is it limited to in market, or can anyone buy it? I’d imagine it’ll be the same as that setup until the whole thing gets renegotiated.

[Nick]

How does the current Ballys streaming thing work? Is it limited to in market, or can anyone buy it? I’d imagine it’ll be the same as that setup until the whole thing gets renegotiated.

I'm not sure I've only ever logged in to the app with my DirecTV credentials.

But I imagine it's market restricted, or else there would be little reason for MLB.tv to exist, and I do know for a fact that MLB.tv restricts based on location because I'm not able to watch Marlins and Rays games on MLB.tv.

[Namaste]

Noble Meyer made MLB Pipeline’s Top 10 RHP prospects

Thomas White made MLB Pipelines Top 10 LHP prospects list

[Namaste]

. Let’s see what he does

Agree 100%

[lou]

If I were Amazon, I'd broadcast the Marlins on prime spanish language and see what happens. Just a thought here. Unique city market for spanish language content and they could prop up the Marlins for that demo for them. Or maybe this is me having renegotiating next "TV" deal dreams with the Marlins developing an emerging spanish language viewer group that triples their audience as only they can do for major american cities. So maybe Bruce can afford literally anyone.

[Todd]

Staff idea...to ease Rogers back in and help limit the innings for Perez, Rogers pitches predominantly out of the pen but takes every 3rd start in Perez's place.

[fish16]

Staff idea...to ease Rogers back in and help limit the innings for Perez, Rogers pitches predominantly out of the pen but takes every 3rd start in Perez's place.

i see shit like this posted all the time, and while it's not a bad idea, outside of the rays, how many teams actually pull shit like this off? In the flow of the season it is very hard to do.

[nny]

How does the current Ballys streaming thing work? Is it limited to in market, or can anyone buy it? I’d imagine it’ll be the same as that setup until the whole thing gets renegotiated.

Bally worked anywhere without blackouts, it assumed you were an "in market" person even if you were streaming outside the market.

But it also costed quite a bit if it didn't come from your cable provider, like $30 a month IIRC. So MLB.TV was still better if you were out of market by a long shot - since it includes all out-of-market games and especially since you can get it for free from T-Mobile...which just looked it up and they'll be having that deal through 2028. Don't even have T-Mobile but thankfully can bum the deal off other people

I'm assuming the Amazon thing will be like they're "Showtime" and whatever modules, where you have to pay an additional fee on top of the Prime membership fee (but likely waived if your provider carries Bally). But Amazon could just do it for free (w/ Prime membership) to get sports brand recognition, since so many companies do seem to be pushing their streaming services for sports (as it's basically the last reason to have cable)

[nny]

Also yes, what an annoying offseason. Really wanted a Luzardo extension - get the Miami guy who's been a fan since he's a kid locked up man. And obviously Arraez.

Really feels like the offseason after Jose died where it was "we're not going to do anything to make the team better than use that as an excuse to blow it up". Given a lot of different circumstances, but this is not a team you can just run it back and expect to do well just like that one.

[lou]

Bally worked anywhere without blackouts, it assumed you were an "in market" person even if you were streaming outside the market.

But it also costed quite a bit if it didn't come from your cable provider, like $30 a month IIRC. So MLB.TV was still better if you were out of market by a long shot - since it includes all out-of-market games and especially since you can get it for free from T-Mobile...which just looked it up and they'll be having that deal through 2028. Don't even have T-Mobile but thankfully can bum the deal off other people

I'm assuming the Amazon thing will be like they're "Showtime" and whatever modules, where you have to pay an additional fee on top of the Prime membership fee (but likely waived if your provider carries Bally). But Amazon could just do it for free (w/ Prime membership) to get sports brand recognition, since so many companies do seem to be pushing their streaming services for sports (as it's basically the last reason to have cable)

This is my hope at least initially to maybe get some more brand interest for Bruce so he'll spend a dollar

[rmc523]

Also yes, what an annoying offseason. Really wanted a Luzardo extension - get the Miami guy who's been a fan since he's a kid locked up man. And obviously Arraez.

Really feels like the offseason after Jose died where it was "we're not going to do anything to make the team better than use that as an excuse to blow it up". Given a lot of different circumstances, but this is not a team you can just run it back and expect to do well just like that one.

I get the new guy has to evaluate, but it’s sad they’ve done literally nothing.

good work to kill any momentum from a playoff appearance.