When Las Vegas’ new NHL team negotiates its first local media rights deal by next spring, it will find either a tepid market that yields around $10 million per year, or a bustling one that pays double that amount.
I’m in the tepid camp. While the team’s rights should draw interest from more than one media company, the team, which is scheduled to debut in the 2017-18 season, is hitting a cable TV market that is moving aggressively toward smaller, lower-cost program bundles that don’t have sports channels. I can’t see Cox, the market’s dominant cable operator, being pressured to carry a high-priced regional sports network centered on just one NHL team.
Warm weather teams generally draw the NHL’s lowest local TV ratings, which makes it even harder to pressure Las Vegas-area distributors to carry the channel.
Longtime media consultant Lee Berke, president and CEO of LHB Sports, Entertainment and Media, offered a more optimistic scenario for the new team’s media rights, however. He believes a bidding war between two or three media companies could develop, which would push the team’s rights fees higher than normal.
The key rests not with hockey but with baseball, Berke said.
“Several baseball teams can claim the Nevada territory, and I could see a number of RSNs looking to enhance their footprint in the market,” Berke said. “There are a variety of potential RSN competitors.”
Six MLB teams lay claim to the Vegas market, including the Angels, Diamondbacks and Padres, whose rights are held by Fox Sports RSNs; the Dodgers, whose rights are held by Charter, which bought Time Warner Cable earlier this year; and the Giants and A’s, who are on NBC Sports Group RSNs.
Berke suggested that this could lead to the possibility of a two-team RSN with baseball and hockey, which would be easier to sell to cable operators than one with just hockey.
Team executives have not had serious talks with potential RSN partners yet. The most likely bidders are Fox Sports, which previously had carried Ducks and Kings games in the market and operates FS West and Prime Ticket in the market; Root Sports, whose parent companies — AT&T and DirecTV — operate in the market; and Charter, who could be looking to grow the Dodgers’ SportsNet LA channel.
Comcast does not operate a cable system in the market and is not expected to be a serious bidder. As for Cox, it gave up on its RSN business four years ago and is not expected to bid.
— John Ourand
