If you're a baseball fan and a Comcast subscriber, chances are you've had to watch the game the old-fashioned way: listening to the game on the radio instead of watching it on TV. That's because a transportation contract between Comcast and Diamond Sports Group, a media company that owns 18 regional sports networks, expired this week.
This left Comcast customers in more than a dozen markets unable to watch their local Major League Baseball team.
The business model for local sports media that was common from the 1980s until about five years ago was for sports teams to sell rights to regional sports networks, which in turn sold broadcast rights to cable companies.
“Consumers will then buy in bulk,” said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College.
But now, streaming gives consumers more options. You can choose to buy only what you need instead of the entire bundle. Zimbalist said some people choose to pirate the game instead.
“There are some stations that are stealing the signal. It's something that a lot of young people know how to access,” he said.
Brian Wieser of consulting firm Madison & Wall said some sports teams currently sell rights to local broadcast affiliates rather than regional sports networks.
These can be accessed via cable or even rabbit ears.
“Being free to broadcast broadens the potential appeal of the sport and has the added benefit of making these games available to non-subscribers,” Wieser said.
This is like bringing back the way we watched sports in the '70s and '80s, he added.
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