MLB's Pirates Join NHL's Penguins as Owners of Warner-Abandoned SportsNet Pittsburgh
One more portion of the roiled regional sports networks ecosystem has been resettled.
Major League Baseball's Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday announced that they will become joint owners, along with the National Hockey League's Pittsburgh Penguins, of RSN SportsNet Pittsburgh, starting Jan. 1.
New England Sports Network (NESN), which like the Penguins is owned by Fenway Sports Group, will oversee day-to-day management of the channel
The agreement comes after media giant Warner Bros. Discovery abandoned several local sports cable channels, branded as "AT&T SportsNet," that it reluctantly inherited amid the $43 million spinoff and merger that created the conglomerate two years ago.
The Penguins already agreed to purchase the channel late last summer. The Pirates had been working with MLB to explore alternative broadcast options, with the league already dealing with a number of RSN refugee teams cast out amid the bankruptcy of Bally Sports channels operator Diamond Sports Group.
“Above all else, this was the right thing to do for our fans,” Pirates president Travis Williams said in a statement. “From the outset of this process, the most important thing to us was to ensure that our fans have the same level of access to Pirates game telecasts and the same high-quality production that they enjoy today. This agreement accomplishes that and more as we enable Pittsburgh sports fans to continue to enjoy a two-team, 24/7 sports channel.”
Added Sean McGrail, president and CEO of NESN: "We are thrilled that the Pirates are joining the SportsNet Pittsburgh partnership. Over 150 Pirates games in addition to the Penguins telecasts makes SportsNet Pittsburgh a must-have destination for Pirates fans."
According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the channel's on-air, live-game crew will remain the same, with play-by-play announcers Greg Brown and Joe Block, as well as the rotating cast of color commentators including Bob Walk, John Wehner, Neil Walker, Matt Capps and Kevin Young.
The channel will continue to operate out of the same North Shore studios that were used for AT&T SportsNet, as well as previous iterations of the channel that include "Root Sports" and FSN Pittsburgh.
The Pirates are still figuring out how to program all the pregame and postgame time slots, as well as the abyss that is the rest of the day.
The Pirates generated a reported $50 million - $60 million from their legacy relationship with AT&T SportsNet -- a local TV rights revenue figure that was considered high, given the team's market profile.
It's considered unlikely they'll match that with the new configuration.
