A panel of sports media execs at the Cable Show in Boston had a sobering message for the crowd of cable operators who gathered to listen to them this morning: sports rights will continue to grow for the time being. "We will make a bet on the value of sports rights continuing to appreciate," said ESPN President John Skipper. "There's all this discussion about, 'Gee, aren't you concerned about sports rights going up?' We would love it if sports rights would come down. I would like to buy some houses at the beach that are depreciating in value. But sports rights are going up because the value of sports rights are going up. It's not free floating and abstract."
On the panel, Skipper rose to the defense of MLBAM, which has been criticized for pulling its clips from YouTube. "We all want to take advantage of what (MLB does). But that does not excuse YouTube or anybody else from the necessity to protect the integrity of intellectual property. That really is what baseball is engaged in when they are asking them to take down video because they do not have the rights to display that video."
