Let's take it one by one:
KOMO is owned by Sinclair and the company has been in the midst of a bankruptcy debacle with the ill-fated Diamond Sports plan. I find it hard to believe Sinclair would invest in local baseball, even though the ARC Seattle channel (KUNS) is available. KOMO has the Storm and that may be all they want for now. I don't see it.
KIRO has been cut to the bones, so it's hard to picture owner Cox/Apollo being interested, especially when the station has no sports department. An investment in personnel and telecasts would be a big step and big reputational boost, but as a CBS affil with strong network programming and no duopoly, I don't see the station pre-empting primetine for night games, even in rerun season. Maybe a weekend package?
KSTW is a CBS-owned independent but even though there is a side deal to carry a handful of Portland Trailblazers games, would it be interested in a baseball package. I wouldn't rule it out, because in another playoff year, it would bring major attention and sampling to the station, which always seems to be running in place. They carry a handful of Portland Trailblazers games, but this would be a far bigger strp. The bigger question is, would CBS be ready to invest when the company is starting to make cuts at the network and maybe its O&Os? On the the other hand, could there somewhere be a localized Paramount Plus component to this??
Fox 13 has been gobbling up local live sports, the Torrent, the Reign, the Thunderbirds et al, and they were very aggressive on the Seahawks coverage at the Super Bowl. The station positions itself as FOX Local, has a duopoly (KJZO) and are big into streaming. If there was a front runner, KCPQ would seem to be the one. It fits their MO. And the Fox mother ship does have a nationl baseball contract.
Which brings us to KING. They have a Kraken deal and a Seahawks partnership and a duopoly (KONG) to telecast games, with selected ones going to KING, just like hockey. The possible sale to Nexstar looms large here, but if they did a deal in the next little while, while still under Tegna, it would be a big ratings get during spring and summer (with NBS having Sunday Night Baseball, too), when a sale deal would likely still be in progress. Plus, once the Olympics are over, KING could jump in front of the pack and make a surprise announcement.
Please offer your thoughts on this. We know there will be games streamed for $20/month on Mariners.com and we know MLB will produce linear games, but who is the distributor for them? A seperate Xfinity channel? So the broadcasters need to get involved for some kind of free TVpackage.
This is all above my pay grade. Just speculating.
KOMO certainly has the airtime to accomodate Mariners games on ARC Seattle/KUNS. But do they want to spend the money? I won't rule them out, but it does seem to be less likely. If arrangements can be made to air some of the games on KOMO's sister station in Portland, KATU, then it could be an easier pill to swallow financially.
ReplyDeleteKIRO is the least likely option. No sports department. No second channel like ARC Seattle/KUNS thst needs programming. A network (CBS) with plenty of programming to fill timeslots. And a parent company running on the cheap. It would be shocking to see them do it.
KSTW is an intriguing option as they could certainly do with having more local programming. But does CBS want to spend the money on a station that is largely an afterthought these days when they are in budget cutting mode? I won't rule it out, but it does seem about as likely as KOMO, which is to say not very.
Fox 13 has cemented itself as the top sports station in town. On that basis alone, they are the most likely option. But do they have the airtime needed to take it on? Between Fox network programming and their existing sports packages, they might not have enough suitable timeslots. Would they be willing to make the necessary adjustments, whatever those may be, to open up some timeslots? Perhaps. Moving the 8pm and 9pm weeknight hours of Seattle News Tonight on Fox 13 Plus exclusively to the Fox Local app would help, and Fox isn't opposed to making such moves for even lower tier programming than this. The midday news on their Houston station, KRIV, recently moved to Fox Local to make way for a second daily airing of a local chat show.
If KING wasn't already the second most likely option due to its strong sports commitment and availbility of timeslots on KONG to air games, NBC adding Sunday Night Baseball to its lineup certainly makes it so. Having Mariners games would be a great way to compliment the new national offering. Plus, going with KING opens up the possibility of also bringing some Mariners games to KING's sister stations in Portland, Spokane, and Boise, which has to be a tempting prospect.
There's got to be an announcement coming sooner than later. The Tegna station network is a real tempting plus, for sure.
DeleteAs I think I have mentioned before, the way this is going to work is the same as it is for the other MLB teams working directly with the league for local TV. MLB will establish a dedicated channel and provide that to all providers. It will be up to the provider if they want to carry the channel (which will only be active for games and pre and post). Dish Network around the country is not carrying any of the other teams so expectation is they probably won't here in Seattle either. But that leaves the rest of them, and if they say yes, whether that will be on basic (as I'd expect the M's and MLB would hope) OR if the channel will be part of an expanded tier similar to what Comcast did with Root that was I feel the seed that resulted in the current state of affairs for the TV broadcasts. What happens there probably dictates how many games get shown on linear in simulcast form. The other teams doing this have done around 10-15 games a season on linear so it can be expected that will be the case here. My guess is 11 probably gets them especially if the M's/MLB are willing to do it as a time buy which is what I suspect is also the case with their package of Blazers games
DeleteYes, makes sense. Good take as usual.
DeleteKIRO carries the Ms back in the late 1980s. The frequent CBS preemptions were a sore spot with the network — an issue some thought contributed to the station losing the affiliation to KSTW in 1994. Ratings were poor as the team was pre-Griffey and pretty bad.
ReplyDeleteI knew KIRO aired many Mariners games back in the 1980s. But I didn't know that CBS had taken issue with it. That historical context makes KIRO carrying the Mariners now even less likely.
DeleteI don't think this is even a topic for conversation this year. The team is already taking subscribers for it's product at 20 bucks a month and 100 for the year. If there was any hope of a free over the air deal would they be doing that? And if something did come to fruition, they would have to deal with refunding some people. Maybe next year? Other thing is, the Kraken tv crew I believe are all actual Kraken employees so no need for additional personnel which could work in favor or KSTW
ReplyDeleteLooks like we're all in the on deck circle waiting for a deal just before the opener.
DeleteTo respond to the anonymous poster, refer to my post above. The streaming that the M's are offering (which BTW you can also get with MLB.TV and all of their out of market games for $200 for the year along with a free month of ESPN Unlimited, do not make me go there) is aimed strictly at cord-cutters. Those who are reliant on seeing the games on TV there will be that option as well. I should also add that the spring training stuff now is free to watch via MLB.TV with a login to that website. And blackout free too which means today's M's game w/the Dodgers will be available there for Seattle fans to watch despite the M's not broadcasting the game (LA is and that will be in the clear here in Seattle).
DeleteToo busy watching and enjoying the Olympics to give baseball much thought yet!
ReplyDeleteAtlanta News First has reported just this morning (2/24) that the Atlanta Braves will be launching their own television network to produce and host the vast majority of their games. Some of their games will also air on stations owned by Gray Media (the company that owns KPTV Fox 12 in Portland) in the Southeastern United States. Pethaps its not too late for the Mariners to make a similar anmouncement.
ReplyDeleteBraves have made the announcement official. What this looks like is what everyone else is doing except they are handling the whole thing themselves. There had been a thought of them possibly working with someone such as Apple or Amazon to go stream exclusive with an eye on making those games national broadcasts similar to the old days of TBS Superstation. Alas.
DeleteI wonder if the Mariners could have simply made Root its own station on the higher tier, getting rid of all the excess junk programming on the channel? Maybe just be on the air for say eight hours a day, using game reruns and such to fill.
ReplyDeleteThey had many years to do exactly that Wayne and clearly chose not to do it. The good RSN's around the country (Boston, NY, Houston I know do this) fill some of that dead airtime during the day with simulcasts of local sports radio talk shows. Why Root and the Mariners didn't do that who knows. Because there's quite a few shows in both Seattle and Portland they could have simulcasted like this if they wanted to do it
DeleteTotally true and baffling.
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