World-wide Leader getting bigger

[Arkstfan]

Disney is doubling down on sports trying to buy all the Fox Regionals.

With ESPN's inventory I think you will see less Baylor-Kansas on 7 different Fox Regionals and a lot more of the local interest content that is on ESPN3 shifting to very local distribution.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/05/disney-fox-deal-to-include-rsns-cement-local-sports-tv-control.html

[TreeFiddy]

Will be interesting to see how ESPN tries to shape the conferences, especially the G5 conferences, based on the new regional distribution capabilities.  You would certainly think they will want some properties for national distribution and some for more regional distribution.

[Arkstfan]

15 minutes ago, TreeFiddy said:

Will be interesting to see how ESPN tries to shape the conferences, especially the G5 conferences, based on the new regional distribution capabilities.  You would certainly think they will want some properties for national distribution and some for more regional distribution.

And the capacity to "go local" has blurred the traditional lines. If you have Fox SW on cable in central or eastern Arkansas you get the Memphis Grizzlies, in western Arkansas the OKC Thunder and south Arkansas you get the Mavericks.

That used to be much harder to do.

[Wag Tag]

When ever there is a shrinking business model you tend to by the competition to only delay the inevitidable. I watch more games on my laptop this year than ever before. Fill the APP.

[Arkstfan]

53 minutes ago, Wag Tag said:

When ever there is a shrinking business model you tend to by the competition to only delay the inevitidable. I watch more games on my laptop this year than ever before. Fill the APP.

That's really the question here Wag.

Is Disney merely trying to buy market share? After all the regionals are nice leverage piece if you are bundling the various flavors of ESPN to sell to cable/satellite/internet bundlers (ie. Sling)

Or is Disney buying media rights and distribution?

If it is the former, this may be the start of the end.

But I think there is a real possibility that a year or two from now you are going to get an ad or email offering you ESPN+ and for X dollars per month you can watch ESPN+ Dallas online and get all the usual ESPN national content and get the Mavericks, Stars, and Rangers or some combination for that price.

[golfingomez]

boooooo... i like the Fox Sports regionals...

[jdennis82]

With the uncertainty in the air, time to start re-watching episodes of "Beyond the Green" on YouTube to demonstrate demand so that it's picked up in some capacity for 2018