MLB Yet To Expand Satellite Radio Deal To Include Sirius
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Under Current Arrangement, About 9 Million
Sirius Subscribers Will Not Get Live MLB Games |
MLB and Sirius XM Satellite Radio are "sparring over whether to make MLB game broadcasts available to the entire spectrum of Sirius XM's 19 million subscribers," according to John Ourand in this week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. Since XM merged with Sirius last July, MLB and Sirius XM execs have spent "several months negotiating whether to expand the access of live MLB games beyond just XM subscribers," which have had exclusive access to games due to an 11-year, $650M deal signed in '04. About 9 million Sirius listeners will not have access to MLB game broadcasts this season, and league execs want to maintain their exclusive platform "unless a new deal can be worked out." Sources indicated that the NFL and NBA, which originally signed exclusive deals with Sirius, "allowed their game programming to be broadcast on both for the same rights fee they had been getting." But MLB is "holding out, unless it can work a better deal, which almost certainly means a higher rights fee." MLB believes that the "volume of its game programming and its traditional appeal make it more valuable to satellite radio" than other sports properties. However, Morgan Joseph & Co. analyst David Kestenbaum said that Sirius XM "does not have the money to keep paying so much in rights fees." Kestenbaum: "I thought the original MLB deal was a foolish one for XM. I don't think enough new subscribers signed up to justify paying $60[M] per year." MLB's deal with XM expires in '15, and industry experts believe this the could be baseball's "last chance to have leverage with Sirius XM." Kestenbaum: "There definitely won't be any bidding wars for these sports rights next time" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 3/9 issue).
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