E.W. Scripps has agreements to place in several markets to broadcast games where teams are worried that their games will no longer be telecast by Bally Sports regional networks.
The local sports market is entering a potentially chaotic phase, with the Major League Baseball season ending and the National Basketball League and National Hockey League about to start play for 2023-24.
With Diamond Sports Group — the Sinclair subsidiary that runs the Bally Sports RSNs — in bankruptcy, teams are concerned that Diamond might opt to drop the teams rights and many have made plans, including signing contingency deals with Scripps Sports, Scripps Sports president Brian Lawlor told Broadcasting+Cable.
“Every team associated with Bally is concerned about the future,“ Lawlor said. “As a result they are all doing contingency planning for the short term and the longer-term. We’ve been able to advance discussions about contingency plans all the way to actually written contracts that if Bally were to go away, we have agreements already in place that we would be the partner to be able to take over distribution and production and begin immediately.”
With Diamond and its creditors in bankruptcy court, the situation in many markets is very fluid for the teams and the leagues.
“We’re talking to the leagues every week. I don’t think any of them are hoping it’s all going to blow up,” Lawlor said. “People would like to see existing contracts get to the end of those contracts and have time to thoughtfully figure out what’s the right next step.”
Since starting Scripps Sports in January, Scripps has signed local broadcast deals with the Stanley Cup Champion Las Vegas Golden Knights and just last week, the Arizona Coyotes of the NHL. It also made a deal to put WNBA games on Friday nights on its Ion network.
Lawlor said the biggest obstacle Scripps has been facing is resistance by distributors to carry independent and digital channels that are now carrying the games of teams that are popular locally.
“They’ve had the same way of distributing local sports teams for 30 years and its been through an RSN,“ he said. “Suddenly, the RSN is losing the business and now it’s going to local broadcasters who are standing up independent stations.”
Some distributors have policies not to clear independent stations. They only carry —and pay retransmission consent for — network-affiliated stations.
“We’re saying we understand, but there’s no station in America that looks like our station,” Lawlor said. “We have a full-powered independent station now in Las Vegas that has the Stanley Cup champions, every one of their regular season games that’s not on a network.”
Vegas Golden Knights games generate huge ratings and fans want to see those games.
“I think the distributors need to lean into serving the fans and putting these games on their platforms instead of staying with their archaic rules of not clearing a multicast station or an independent station,” Lawlor said.
Lawlor said the move of local sports to broadcast is going to continue and distributors have to get on board.
“Fans are going to demand that they have access to their sports,” he said. “They need to get on board.”
Of course, Scripps isn’t giving away those stations for free. “We’re not looking to break the bank, but we’re paying for the rights. We deserve to be compensated for those rights.”
Sports Is Good Business
Lawlor said the business opportunities that Scripps saw when it launched Scripps Sports are proving out.
“Every thesis that we developed at the beginning of this about what broadcasters could do to help expand the reach of teams and leagues” has panned out, according to Lawlor.
“Live sports, especially live, local sports, deserves and gets a premium,” he said. “It’s one of the few things that drives live eyeballs in large masses and it’s really valuable to advertisers.”
In the markets where Scripps is delivering sports advertising, it is commanding premium pricing, there are significant sponsorship opportunities and Scripps is talking to and signing clients that are different than those its local television stations already works with.
With the WNBA regular season over, Lawlor said putting games on Ion introduced a lot of viewers to the league.
“We were really happy,“ he said. “We had 6 million viewers over 16 weeks. Our ratings were better than ESPN and ESPN2 combined,” he said, adding that over 30% of viewing was over the air.
“We’re really excited to continue to build out our visibility and women’s sports,“ he said. “The more people that start to realize that there’s a franchise and a consistent place where they can find women’s sports, I think it’s going to continue to push this success of the league.”
