Comcast continues to take a hard line in negotiations with regional sports networks. But this time, the telecom giant is even taking a hard line against…itself?
That appears to be the case, at least. On Tuesday, California sports fans with an Xfinity subscription that watch their teams on NBC Sports Bay Area or NBC Sports California will have to shell out an extra $20 per month to upgrade from the “Popular” package to the “Ultimate” package.
NBC Sports Bay Area broadcasts the Golden State Warriors and San Francisco Giants while NBC Sports California airs Sacramento Kings, San Jose Sharks, and Oakland A’s games.
The fascinating part about this move is that Comcast, who owns Xfinity, is forcing the NBC Sports regional networks also owned by Comcast to capitulate to the demands of the cable provider. In turn, the regional sports networks will receive less in carriage fees as fewer Xfinity subscribers pay for the higher tier.
To put it more simply, Xfinity is paying less for NBC Sports Bay Area and NBC Sports California because fewer customers will receive the channels. This means the two networks are making less money. But everyone is still owned by Comcast in the end.
Comcast recently made a similar move with one of its other owned and operated regional sports networks. Last week, per Chad Finn of the Boston Globe, Xfinity customers in Boston were met with a re-tiering for the Comcast-owned NBC Sports Boston, the television home of the Boston Celtics.
According to Puck’s John Ourand, the only Comcast-owned regional sports networks that haven’t yet been hit with the tier bump are NBC Sports Philadelphia and SportsNet New York. Both networks are in the middle of multi-year deals.
As Ourand suggested in his most recent newsletter, this is “Brother vs. Brother,” and a clear representation of how dire the economics of regional sports networks currently are.
The days of sports programming being subsidized by non-sports fans are long gone. And now, sports fans are paying the piper.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.