Report: Rockies will remain on AT&T SportsNet through this season
Apr 10, 2023, 11:19 PM | Updated: 11:20 pm
The Rockies may not go anywhere but a battle for fourth place in the National League West. But fans will have no issues watching them play.
As first reported by Sports Business Journal, AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain is expected to stay in business throughout the 2023 season, then will cease to exist, ending a Rockies run on various iterations of that channel that endured more than two decades.
After the 2023 MLB campaign ends, Warner Brothers Discovery — the parent company of AT&TSN RM — is expected to exit the RSN business.
Per the report:
The deals being discussed would have WBD continue to pay its rights fees and produce/distribute games for the entire season. At the end of the season, WBD would walk away, and the rights would revert back to the teams.
This answers the question of how Rockies games would air for this season. In late February, word broke that WBD planned to exit the regional-sports-network business.
According to The Wall Street Journal and Sports Business Journal, WBD planned to file for Chapter 7 liquidation if it could not reach deals with the teams with which it had contracts for them to reclaim their own broadcast rights.
With WBD owning networks in the Rocky Mountain region, Houston and Pittsburgh, that affected seven different clubs among the NBA, NHL and MLB.
Beyond the 2023 season, SBJ reported that Major League Baseball is expected to assume control of producing and distributing Rockies games starting in 2024. MLB would produce the broadcast, and then distribute the games.
How the distribution model would work starting in 2024 is unclear. Every game is expected to be available in some form or fashion. But whether the delivery would be via streaming only or through a third party — such as a local over-the-air station — is to be determined. KTVD-Ch. 20 and KWGN-Ch. 2 aired Rockies games during the first half of the team’s existence.
AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain also broadcasts the NBA’s Utah Jazz and NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights. Neither of those teams’ games air in Colorado, per terms of each league’s regional broadcast contracts. Overall, AT&TSN RM has a 10-state footprint, stretching from the Black Hills of South Dakota to inland portions of California.
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