Would Braves and Hawks fans pay $20 per month to watch their teams’ games on a new direct-to-consumer streaming service being launched by the owner of Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast?
Hawks fans apparently will have that option later this year. Braves fans, maybe not.
Sinclair Broadcast Group, the owner of 19 Bally-branded regional sports networks across the country, on Wednesday announced pricing for a long-planned app that will allow fans to watch the RSNs in-market for a stand-alone fee. Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley said on a conference call with investment analysts that the fee will be $19.99 per month or $189.99 per year. He said the service will have a “soft launch later this quarter” and a full rollout in September.
The need for such an offering has grown as major live-TV streaming carriers, including YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, have dropped the Bally networks from their lineups because of contract disputes with Sinclair. The only streaming service that currently carries the Bally RSNs is DirecTV Stream as part of an $89.99-per-month package. The RSNs, which remain available through traditional cable providers, have been off YouTube TV, Hulu and several other streamers since fall 2020, upsetting many Braves and Hawks fans across the Southeast.
Here’s the complication with Sinclair’s direct-to-consumer plan and why the Braves and Hawks telecasts could be affected differently: The Bally networks have local TV rights to 14 MLB teams, 16 NBA teams and 12 NHL teams, including the Braves and Hawks, but in order to include a particular team’s games on its streaming service, Bally also will need to have a deal in place for said team’s streaming rights.
Bally has reached league-level deals with the NBA and NHL that will allow it to include teams in those leagues on the new app next season if Bally holds the local TV rights. That takes care of the Hawks. But in MLB, Bally has had to negotiate on a team-by-team basis and so far has reached direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming deals with only five teams. The Braves confirmed Thursday they are not among those teams. The deals reportedly are with the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays.
“The rest of the teams, we’re having constructive dialogue on,” Ripley said Wednesday. “Given the status of where we are in our launch, there isn’t really a huge timing rush on that, but we are having constructive discussions on it.”
“And we’re also having constructive conversations at the league level as well, so both with our teams and with MLB itself,” Sinclair chief operating officer Rob Weisbord added.
Will the Braves eventually join the DTC service, which Ripley referred to as “Bally Sports Plus,” and offer their cable-cutting fans a streaming alternative?
Greg Maffei, CEO of Braves owner Liberty Media, expressed skepticism on a conference call in February. “Frankly, the way it is structured, I don’t think it’s attractive for most (MLB) teams to do that,” Maffei said at the time.
The Hawks, meanwhile, have enthusiastically endorsed the concept, with CEO Steve Koonin recently saying on the AJC’s Hawks Report podcast that the new app will be “good news” for the team in terms of attracting young viewers. “That’s something we’ll promote to our fans and encourage to our fans and hopefully maybe even be able to create discounts with Bally’s for our fans,” Koonin said. “The TV business is so rapidly changing.”
