The carriage dispute between Comcast and the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN) has ended on a mostly positive note.
Comcast will continue offering MASN on its cable systems in the region, though it will be moving to a more expensive tier.
Per the Baltimore Sun, Comcast will shift MASN away from its basic tier, dubbed Popular TV, and move it to the more expensive Ultimate TV tier. Without access to MASN, Popular TV customers will not pay the regional sports network (RSN) fee on their cable bill.
“We’re pleased to have reached an agreement with MASN to continue carrying its networks and making them available on our Ultimate TV level of service before MLB’s Opening Day,” a spokesperson for Comcast said in a statement. “We appreciate MASN working with us to find a solution to maintain MASN and MASN2 on our platform that also provides our customers with a choice.”
MASN is the RSN home for both the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals. Discussions were progressing positively last week, leading to a short-term extension between Comcast and MASN.
This has been a strategy Comcast has employed before. Last fall, the company moved Root Sports Northwest to a higher tier, also removing the RSN fee from the bills of customers on the lower tier. While some carriers are simply dropping RSNs from their lineup (looking at you, Dish), Comcast (possibly due to its ownership of the NBC Sports RSNs) is instead moving them to a higher tier and only passing the costs onto those subscribers.
Is either strategy better or worse? That remains to be seen. There are pros and cons to both, but if an RSN doesn’t have a direct-to-consumer (DTC) option (which neither MASN nor Root Sports Northwest do), keeping it on a system no matter the tier is crucial.
