“This is a gentleman who knows what he is doing, that has been able to be very successful in the past by building businesses, so we feel very confident that he is going to be able to continue to grow this franchise and make it more valuable,” Zook said, “which will benefit us a great deal.”
The Bally Sports bankruptcy accelerated the urgency of determining how you can watch your team on television, with about $1 billion in annual revenue at stake for the 14 teams —“The main reason we’re involved is cord-cutting,” he said.San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado poses with owner Peter Seidler after a news conference to discuss his 11-year contract extension on Feb. 28 at the team’s spring training baseball facility in Peoria, Ariz.
The baseball boom has been financed by cable and satellite companies that charge every subscriber for a regional sports network, even when most subscribers do not watch that channel. Cord-cutting means only those people who want to watch baseball will pay for it, and Manfred said the league could not make up for the ensuing lost revenue.“The RSN explosion that has happened is going to be a little bumpy,” Zook said.
“We expect mlb.tv to be the primary beneficiary from this. We expect significant additional pricing power that will be available to the league, and to the teams.” On Wednesday, for instance, the New York Yankees’ YES channel announced fans could stream games — without subscribing to YES via cable or satellite —“We really believe,” Zook said, “when all of this reset is finalized, it is going to drive more profitability to the firms and to the teams over the next three to five years. The next three to five months are going to be a little bit bumpy.”