FuboTV has reached a carriage deal for AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain ahead of the NBA season tipoff but a recent report points to a bleak future for regional sports networks.
The new agreement with AT&T means fuboTV subscribers will have access to Utah Jazz, Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Rockies games when the channel launches in the next few days. It makes fuboTV one of the only virtual MVPDs beside DirecTV Stream to carry the network. The RSNs will initially launch on fuboTV in Nevada, Utah and the surrounding areas with additional markets to roll out in the future.
“We are thrilled to announce this deal with fuboTV,” said Nina Kinch, vice president of affiliate relations for AT&T Sports Networks, in a statement. “We know that fans in this region have been asking for more ways to get access to the Utah Jazz, Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Rockies and are particularly interested in streaming options. This deal now means that fans in all four of our regions now have access to stream their favorite teams with fuboTV.”
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The fuboTV deal comes just a week after Dish Network announced that its satellite TV customers will no longer have access to AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh and Root Sports Northwest.
"The current RSN model is fundamentally broken," said Brian Neylon, group president of Dish TV, in a statement. "This model requires nearly all customers to pay for RSNs when only a small percentage of customers actually watch them."
Indeed, a new report from Sports Business Journal’s John Ourand, who spoke with several media and league executives, paints a picture of an RSN industry in shambles with AT&T and NBCUniversal seeking buyers for their networks and Sinclair subsidiary Diamond Sports—owner of 21 Bally Sports RSNs, recently rebranded from Fox Sports—teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
Sinclair has found carriage deals for Marquee Sports Networks--its Chicago Cubs RSN--with distributors like fuboTV but has struggled to get its Bally Sports networks on platforms like YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV, both of which dropped the networks last year. The company's local sports segment took an estimated $4.2 billion impairment loss during the third quarter of 2020.
According to the report, Fanatics—a company specializing in licensed sports apparel, equipment and merchandise—has been meeting with executives from leagues, teams, distributors and networks about potential deals for Fanatics get involved with the RSN business. Professional sports leagues apparently like the idea of partnering with Fanatics, which already operates as a direct-to-consumer brand and has built up a massive database with relevant information from more than 80 million sports fans.