How Rising Sports Fees Imperil TV’s Business Model

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Here is an exceprt from a very interesting article:

There’s one baseball record that’s likely to be broken in the coming weeks, when no games are to be played.

News Corp.’s Fox Sports Net appears set to hit a new high mark for sports programming rights, paying an estimated $6 billion to $7 billion to air Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball games on its L.A.- area regional sports networks for the next 25 years.

That deal, expected to be announced before year-end, could have even broader implications than just being the most money ever paid for a single sports team’s TV rights. To some, it could be the final straw that forces a fundamental change in TV distributors’ overall programming-cost structure.

The Dodger deal isn’t the only reason the industry’s eyes are focused on Los Angeles. In the past year, two other major long-term rights deals — for the National Basketball Association’s Los Angeles Lakers and baseball’s Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim — were struck, totalling another estimated $6 billion.

http://www.multichannel.com/distribution/call-game/140630

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And people wonder why ticket prices are so high to go to the games and why the channels are asking so much for carriage fees.