News Disney and Fox come to terms -- announcement soon; huge IP acquisition

Sirwalterraleigh

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
jakeman said:
Maybe.

I would say the market is too young to make that determination.

From an anecdotal perspective, I buy the MLB.tv package every year because I like baseball. I don't come from a region of the country that is inundated with sports teams (being from the area of your namesake). However, we have a metric crap ton of transplants in NC. I could see folks from say...Detroit...who don't have routine access to their teams but don't want to pay for total league streaming services from the major sports when almost all the games are shown on Fox Sports Detroit.

MLB.tv has started single team packages but those are still around $80 a season (versus about $120 for the whole package). Taking the Detroit example, extrapolating that out to every major sports league (MLB, NBA, NHL, NBA, and the Big Ten Network), you're looking at about $400 to keep up with your "local" teams. That's a pretty large range of a price point under that.

The obvious counter to all this is the leagues taking their games away from the regional sports networks and making them exclusive to streaming services. I can't see that happening in the foreseeable future. While our local boogeyman ESPN may or may not be struggling depending on which agenda you believe, regional sports seem to be, from my very quick Google search, doing well.

People are majority regionally aligned still, not league aligned. I just can't see that behavior changing and because of that, there will be a place for regional sports networks.
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I'm out of market and have bought mlbtv and NHLtv for years...

Just from my perspective...that's better to me at the price than paying disney for my rsn, lifetime and free form.

It really depends on how they structure it. Bundling is dying but that's EXACTLY how they made money off espn and i think their belief is they can force people into it again with "content"

My guess is they're wrong.
 
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Nubs70

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
the.dreamfinder said:
Good post, but I’m not sure if the Fox RSNs are a good business to get into. Disney, the Walt Disney part, has been successful because it created content so beloved, so valuable that they were able to get deals that no other company could. Recall RKO Pictures, Disney’s longtime distributor of features and shorts like “Snow White”, “Pinocchio”, “Fantasia” and “Peter Pan”? RKO’s long dead, but back in the fifties, after they balked at having to distribute certain Disney films like the “True Life Adventures”. Well, Disney was now capable enough to self distribute and thus Buena Vista Distribution was born. Distribution is meaningless without content. “Content is king”, as Sumner Redstone liked to say. And if content is king, it’s doubly so if combined with wholly owned distribution.

We’re going to reach that point with sports. ESPN, and FSN, don’t own their most valuable content; live sports. Live sports will continue to demand value in a way the rest of the cable bundle won’t. Problem being, however, if fewer people want to buy cable and sports fans don’t want to pay for the rest of the cable bundle, then sports teams/colleges have to make a decision. Why have a middle man like FSN distribute your content when they don’t necessarily provide added value to you, but skim off your broadcast revenue $$$? If you build your own cable channel with the other local teams, it’s not so hard. The technical hurdles aren’t that big and can be easily overcome. And you know what they can do once they don’t have to go through a distributor? They can offer streaming rights to their games by themselves without a cable subscription, which they can’t do now because of blackout restrictions.

Disney needs to stop distributing other people’s content, especially live sports. The Fox deal is all about distributing other people’s content. It’s a deal that’s optimized for today, not tomorrow. Disneh doesn’t need the expensive overhead of a company like Sky. Disney doesn’t need the Fox film studio or the cablers, they can reactivate Touchstone and produce prestige television for Hulu through ABC Studios. Disney doesn’t need largesse to compete, it needs quality and it needs to own all its content because content and distribution are a powerful force and they already have the building blocks to do so.
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Very good points, however, this would.require reliance on organic growth which involves risk. The preferred method of increasing market share is sadly growth by aquisition.
 
HauntedPirate

HauntedPirate

Park nostalgist
Premium Member
So, this has been picked up by nearly every major news outlet (I tend to check the BBC first, it seems they still know what "journalism" means), so can those saying, "This isn't happening unless I see it on a major news outlet" stop now? The NYT even puts the price tag at $60+ billion USD.

And to hopefully clear up what is and isn't included in this potential deal:

"The assets being sold by Fox include its FX and National Geographic cable channels, 22 regional US sports networks and the company's stake in the Hulu streaming platform in the US.

It would also add to Disney's extensive film and television library, with movies such as Avatar and Deadpool, as well as small screen hits including The Simpsons and Modern Family.

The Fox broadcast network, Fox News and Fox Sports would remain under the Murdochs' control."

This deal would still be subject to government scrutiny and approval, and it's not a guarantee that it will pass regulatory muster.
 
Sirwalterraleigh

Sirwalterraleigh

Premium Member
HauntedPirate said:
So, this has been picked up by nearly every major news outlet (I tend to check the BBC first, it seems they still know what "journalism" means), so can those saying, "This isn't happening unless I see it on a major news outlet" stop now? The NYT even puts the price tag at $60+ billion USD.

And to hopefully clear up what is and isn't included in this potential deal:

"The assets being sold by Fox include its FX and National Geographic cable channels, 22 regional US sports networks and the company's stake in the Hulu streaming platform in the US.

It would also add to Disney's extensive film and television library, with movies such as Avatar and Deadpool, as well as small screen hits including The Simpsons and Modern Family.

The Fox broadcast network, Fox News and Fox Sports would remain under the Murdochs' control."

This deal would still be subject to government scrutiny and approval, and it's not a guarantee that it will pass regulatory muster.
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It's done...in the business world, this much discussion doesn't happen unless it's in legal review...because they can't risk the volatility on the stock market. The deal is done...coulda been last week or even last month. Money men keep secrets...unlike bus drivers
 
smile

smile

Well-Known Member
an expanded arsenal never hurts...
just throwing in that the reasons for this should be quite obvious, and it has little impact on the well-being of the parks - for a while, at least.

my apologies, however - please don't allow me to derail the back and forth in regards to the Hans Gruber meet-and-greet opening in 2034
 
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Ismael Flores

Ismael Flores

Well-Known Member
hopefully they integrate some X-men into the Marvel area. I'm guessing that previously they were staying away from adding things that promoted other studios properties but now if this happens they will own them so no issue with that
 
jakeman

jakeman

Well-Known Member
Sirwalterraleigh said:
I'm out of market and have bought mlbtv and NHLtv for years...

Just from my perspective...that's better to me at the price than paying disney for my rsn, lifetime and free form.

It really depends on how they structure it. Bundling is dying but that's EXACTLY how they made money off espn and i think their belief is they can force people into it again with "content"

My guess is they're wrong.
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I don't pretend to know what the long term strategy is, but a lot of the counter argument in this thread seems to be centered around the major sports league some how yanking all of their sports off the regional sports networks and distributing them themselves. I just can't see that happening.

You and I might pay for those streaming services, but what are they streaming from? The regional sports channels. Filtering that down to even the college level: Fox Sports distributes the Big Ten Network, ESPN does the same for SEC and eventually ACC. The only one who manages themselves right now is the PAC-12 and they are missing their revenue targets as of July of this year.

Most of the basis for the hand wringing is this overwhelming narrative that Disney is not competent in streaming market. That might be true (history would provide evidence in this regard). Or perhaps they are slowly positioning themselves to be in a position of influence with multiple avenues into the streaming market when they are ready to move.

I could be wrong, but I'm just looking at this from the perspective as a casual consumer.

EDIT: This isn't a criticism or defense of this deal. Just a response to a post.
 
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