Can’t Tell the Players Without a Scorecard

Mapping the Changes in a Shifting Regional Sports Landscape

By Kevin T. Czerwinski -- Multichannel News, 2/6/2012 12:01:00 AM

With the thirst for round-the-clock coverage of sports — at the professional, collegiate and even high-school levels — the rise of the regional sports network continues apace. New entries are on tap in 2012 with a host of RSNs preparing for bows this summer and fall.

California and Texas will be home to new regional sports networks this year. Time Warner Cable is making the biggest splash, launching two new regional sports networks built around the Los Angeles Lakers. NBC Sports Group, a unit of Comcastcontrolled NBCUniversal, is launching the newest Comcast SportsNet, in Houston.

Pac-12 Enterprises is gearing up a new national network and six regional channels. And Major League Baseball’s San Diego Padres are close to completing a deal with Fox Sports that will bring another new regional network to Southern California.

Here’s a closer look at what to expect this year.

LOS ANGELES RSN

Time Warner Cable, looking to manage programming costs and construct assets, seized the opportunity to secure Los Angeles Lakers rights a year ago as the building block for two new networks. Fox Sports West had televised Lakers games for 20 years and, though it was looking to continue its relationship with the long-time National Basketball Association power, the cable operator was able to swoop in and pay a reported $3 billion, nearly double what Fox Sports West had offered over the pact’s 20-year span.

TWC’s Lakers networks — one in English, the other in Spanish and both helmed by former Fox Sports and DirecTV network executive Mark Shuken — are set to launch this fall, with ex-Comcast SportsNet executive Dan Finnerty overseeing distribution talks.

The RSNs also have secured the rights to the Los Angeles Galaxy, the defending Major League Soccer champions with David Beckham and Landon Donovan on the team’s roster. That 10-year pact is for a reported $55 million.

Because the network won’t launch until the fall, the Galaxy must secure another local TV option for the 2012 season. The temporary answer is a local, independent station in Los Angeles, accompanied by a promotional campaign alerting viewers of the RSN’s upcoming launch.

Time Warner Cable senior director of public relations Maureen Huff said the Lakers’ networks “will be ready to go some time in October.” As for the Galaxy, she said TWC is still in the process of finalizing broadcast plans. Website ESPN Los Angeles reported last week that independent station KDOC (channel 56) in Orange County and Spanish-language KWHY (channel 22) in Los Angeles will broadcast 18 games, running from the March 10 opening match against Real Salt Lake to a Sept. 30 game against the Colorado Rapids.

A continued licensefee battle with the Madison Square Garden regional networks in New York — where New York Knicks basketball and Rangers National Hockey League games have been blacked out on Time Warner Cable since the beginning of the year — puts the MSO in a potentially awkward position, as it is expected to be seeking $3 to $3.50 per subscriber combined for the two new networks, according to reports and sources. Huff said plans have not yet been finalized.

PAC-12 NETWORK

The Pac-12 will launch its new national network and six regional channels in August. The holding date is Aug. 15 as the network expects to be on the air well before the 2012 collegefootball season begins.

The college-sports conference has signed carriage deals with the cable-operator owners of In Demand: Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks, Comcast and Cox Communications. The pay-per-view and videoon- demand content aggregator will provide operations and programming services.

Gary Stevenson, president of Pac-12 Enterprises, said the network is in talks with DirecTV and Cablevision Systems, as well as other cable companies, satellite TV proviiders and telcos to get them on board before the launch. The network has hired former MLB Network distribution executive Arturo Marquez as senior vice president of affiliate sales and marketing.

“We have a terrific business model with our four cable partners, and we would love to have any affiliate that wants to carry us,” Stevenson said. “We know we have significant distribution at launch. We’re going to do everything we can to work with Cablevision, the satellites and the telcos to do a deal and we think we eventually will. We believe our content is strong, very strong.”

In addition to the national network, the Pac-12 will be launching six regional networks consistent with the geography of its member schools and charter affiliates. Those will include Pac-12 Arizona [Arizona and Arizona State], Pac-12 Los Angeles [USC and UCLA], Pac- 12 Bay Area [Stanford and Cal], Pac-12 Oregon [Oregon and Oregon State], Pac-12 Washington [Washington and Washington State] and Pac-12 Mountain [Colorado and Utah].

“We believe we have very compelling content,” Stevenson said. “We will have 35 live football games and likely feature every team in the conference twice a year. We believe it is very compelling in the majormarket cities west of the Rockies. We have football, basketball and a bunch of Olympic sports from the most successful conference in the country.”

The content would be on basic cable in the network’s footprint regions; outside of the footprint, it would likely be on a tier, similar to the model set by the Big Ten Network (partnered with Fox). Stevenson said the networks will provide access to 850 live Pac-12 sporting events: 350 on television and 500 streamed on broadband. Non-game programming will include archive shows, studio shows, coaches’ shows, spring football games and “Midnight Madness” coverage of each school’s first college-basketball practice. “Keep in mind that, this fall alone, we had two national champions in women’s soccer and volleyball,” Stevenson said.

HOUSTON RSN

The newest RSN in the Comcast SportsNet stable is expected to launch this fall in time for the beginning of the 2012-13 NBA season. CSN Houston will carry the Rockets this fall, as well as Major League Baseball’s Astros beginning in 2013. The Rockets and the Astros will partner with Comcast, with each team having a major equity stake (combined, it’s just under 80%) in the NBC Sports Group-run network.

Sports media veteran and longtime Houston- area resident Matthew Hutchings has been tapped as the president and general manager of Comcast SportsNet Houston, which will also carry other regional sports action and studio programming. NBCUniversal will be handle distribution talks. Comcast is the major cable provider in the market but, as with other sports networks, distribution on DirecTV and Dish Network will be essential, as will carriage on AT&T U-Verse. NBCU has not commented on distribution other than Comcast.

PADRES SHIFT

The Padres have been seen on Cox-owned 4SD, the de facto regional sports network in San Diego, since 1997. Beginning this season, the games are expected to air on a new channel, Fox Sports San Diego, though the agreement in principle between the club and the network has yet to be finalized, formalized or announced. Still, sources familiar with the plans expect the Padres’ April 5 opener against the Dodgers to be seen on the new network. Former Fox Sports Ohio senior vice president Henry Ford is on board as president and general manager, unofficially.

Cox spokesman Todd Smith said, “Fox Sports is creating a new San Diego network that will produce the Padres games, and Cox anticipates adding this new channel to our lineup upon completion of our final negotiations with Fox.”

According to Forbes, the team’s owners are expected to have an ownership stake. Either way, the Padres will see TV-rights payments escalate over what Cox had paid to carry the games: 4SD was not carried on satellite-TV providers DirecTV and Dish Network or telco TV platform AT&T U-verse. Time Warner Cable also operates in the San Diego market and carried 4SD.

Kevin T. Czerwinski is a contributor to Multichannel News.