The sports broadcasting industry has been in flux for the past few years, from local networks all the way to the top networks in the field. The embers of this change began when regional networks went out of business due to the financial strain from cord-cutting. In an era where increasingly, viewers are stepping away from cable TV, sports broadcasters, especially on the local level, are having to look for alternative ways for revenue. Most of the time, this leads to larger networks buying up these local networks or them being put into streaming services.
However, a similar type of squeeze is even happening to the bigger sports networks as well. More and more mainstream news reporting networks are delving deeper into sports broadcasting. While networks like CNN and others have had a lengthy history covering sports events, more news companies have seen sports broadcasting as a viable industry to expand their brand.
It’s the latest effort in attempting to curb audience fragmentation. Many businesses, especially online news sites like Yahoo News, are eager to bring in and maintain much of the audience that watches sports. It’s sparked a massive wave of competition, but unfortunately, given the current state of the economy, this push towards consolidation won’t be going away anytime soon.
Local networks simply don’t have a revenue stream that can match some of the top networks in the industry. As the costs go up, and without government intervention, these networks will continue to be bought up.
