The Pirates and Penguins may not be without a regional sports network in the coming years after all. It just might be a very different arrangement than fans are used to.
The Athletic’s Daniel Kaplan citing a source close to MLB reported Tuesday that joining up with the Boston area’s New England Sports Network, or NESN, could be an option for the teams if and when Warner Bros. Discovery walks away from its AT&T SportsNet RSNs as it reportedly plans to.
The reason? Common ownership with the Penguins via Fenway Sports Group, which holds an 80% stake in the channel.
NESN is currently the exclusive home of FSG’s Boston Red Sox as well as the NHL’s Boston Bruins, which has separate ownership.
It makes sense, then, that the network would want to add the Penguins, in particular, if their TV rights became available. That would give the Penguins’ FSG management the ability to work with advertisers and cable systems directly rather than hand its rights to a third party like WBD.
The relationship wouldn’t be quite as direct for the Pirates, to say the least. In fact, they’d essentially be selling their TV rights to a competitor since FSG has a direct interest in the Red Sox.
The two teams rarely face each other, however, as members of separate leagues. And the Bruins seem to be doing just fine while selling their rights to the entity that owns the Penguins.
The big perk for the Pirates would be a port in the storm while more than a dozen other teams are grappling with the impending bankruptcy of Diamond Sports, which operates RSNs in many cities.
NESN, by contrast, is profitable and not going anywhere because of its ownership’s direct interest in MLB. So the Pirates could go back to relying on money from appearing on cable bundles continuing to roll into their coffers, at least until the cable bundle really begins to fall apart.
How the arrangement would work practically is an interesting question. Because all four teams could, theoretically, play their games at the same exact same times during the spring, it’s hard to imagine four broadcasts woking through one channel beamed through two cities.
The most obvious solution would be for NESN to simply acquire the existing AT&T SportsNet operation and rebrand it. Some back-office jobs might disappear where there are redundancies with NESN. But the public-facing product could be pretty similar to what we fans are getting from AT&T SportsNet currently.
In a perk for younger fans, games could become more available via streaming, as well. NESN is one of the few RSNs nationwide that has a direct-to-consumer streaming option that bypasses the cable bundle.
The price is hefty — $329.99 for a year or $29.99 per month. But it’s more consumer friendly than the teams’ current deals with AT&T SportsNet, which force fans to pay for unwanted channels within the cable bundle to be able to watch their teams.
Overall, it wouldn’t be a bad arrangement for either team. At least for now. The collapse of the cable bundle is going to continue changing the business of sports in the coming years. But at least with NESN, the Penguins and Pirates would have a chance to wring as much as they can out of what the bundle has left to offer.
Other teams in other markets may not be as fortunate if Diamond collapses. So it’s a development to monitor as WBD’s reported deadline to exit the business approaches on March 31.
Adam Bittner: abittner@post-gazette.com and Twitter @fugimaster24.
First Published: March 15, 2023, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: March 15, 2023, 10:12 a.m.
