With Opening Day less than a week away, nearly half of Sirius XM Radio Inc. subscribers will not be able to listen the 2009 regular season games, unless a deal can be worked out between the satcaster and the MLB. And according to an Orbitcast source, the possibility of an extension of the MLB programming contract isn't looking too promising.
In late February, Orbitcast reported that MLB Spring Training and Regular Season games seem "unlikely" to air for Sirius subscribers, according to sources. And with Opening Day ready to kick off on April 5th, that fate appears to remain unchanged.
Perhaps the most telling is a recent promotional email sent out last week which gave no indication of MLB regular season games airing on Sirius.
While the stalemate continues, Orbitcast sources still say that Sirius XM and the MLB remain in "heavy" negotiations. But for this season it doesn't look promising for Sirius subscribers.
The MLB remains one of the priciest sports contracts on satellite radio's roster. The 11-year deal with XM averages about $59 million annually. Compare that figure to Sirius' deal with the NFL for an average of $31 million a year, or its deal with NASCAR for an average of $21 million annually.
XM subscribers with the "Best of Sirius" package get access to NFL and NASCAR though, while Sirius subscribers are left hanging.
For immediate future, the only option for fans who want to listen to all the sports that satellite radio has to offer is to buy the MiRGE radio, which is only available direct from Sirius XM.
Perhaps the most telling is a recent promotional email sent out last week which gave no indication of MLB regular season games airing on Sirius.
While the stalemate continues, Orbitcast sources still say that Sirius XM and the MLB remain in "heavy" negotiations. But for this season it doesn't look promising for Sirius subscribers.
The MLB remains one of the priciest sports contracts on satellite radio's roster. The 11-year deal with XM averages about $59 million annually. Compare that figure to Sirius' deal with the NFL for an average of $31 million a year, or its deal with NASCAR for an average of $21 million annually.
XM subscribers with the "Best of Sirius" package get access to NFL and NASCAR though, while Sirius subscribers are left hanging.
For immediate future, the only option for fans who want to listen to all the sports that satellite radio has to offer is to buy the MiRGE radio, which is only available direct from Sirius XM.
I've said this before: There's absolutely zero chance that enough Sirius subs could be convinced to pay for an MLB add-on package to make profitable the well-into-eight-figures sum MLB wants from SXM to extend the contract to the combined service. You'd need a good ten percent of the Sirius subs to pony up five bucks a month for a pure MLB package -- and to keep that package for the full eight-month (preseason, regular season, postseason) schedule of games just to have a chance at breaking even on such a deal.
And that has no chance of happening for one simple reason: People who want to pay for MLB games on satellite radio have already chosen XM. Indeed, the MLB-XM relationship has been the most heavily-promoted programming relationship on the service for many years. The MLB offering may be the single greatest force historically driving the adoption of XM. (Other than, maybe, the auto deals -- but at far less upfront cost and resulting in far more actual paying customers.) It's the only programming option XM had for which Sirius had no answer. XM had NCAA sports; so did Sirius. XM had a variety of music options; so did Sirius. (Yes, wildly inferior options, but options nonetheless.) XM had news and information and talk and comedy and drama; so did Sirius.
But XM had MLB. Sirius had... nothing. And that drove millions who wanted MLB to XM. If you wanted MLB, you signed up with XM. If you didn't care about MLB, you didn't. And if you didn't care about MLB as a part of the basic service when you signed on to satrad, why on earth would you care about it as an added-cost add-on now?
i don't blame mel for this not happening.
100% of the blame for this lies with baseball. the nhl managed to negotiate having their games on sirius. the nba managed to negotiate having their games on sirius (again). the nfl managed to negotiate having its games on xm. nascar managed to negotiate having its races on xm. the crapwagon league miraculously found a way to get its head out of its ass and negotiate having its races on sirius. how in the world can baseball NOT find a way to make it happen?
am i really surprised by this? no. after all, this is the league that ignored, and in fact implicitly encouraged steroid use by its players, gave us a tie in an all star game, and made it so the league that won the all star game got home field advantage in the world series instead of the team with the best record.
baseball is a great game. it's too bad that those in charge don't seem to care how to make it more available to the people.
MLB is quite greedy...they just came out with an iPhone app that costs $9.99 to see pitch by pitch results of each game...but that is $9.99 per season! Their attitude is that if Sirius XM doesn't pay, f&%k 'em.
Good call YKW... I considered XM when I was shopping for SatRadio but chose Sirius. They seemed to have more to offer. I didn't really care about MLB because my favorite team is the home team so I just listen to them locally. This would have been a benifit to me if I moved to another city and wanted to keep up with my favorite team. Just my 2 cents...
I think the iPhone app isn't to bad. You also get all the game day radio broadcasts from both home and away teams.
Problem is that $9.99 App for the Iphone also provides all the gameday Audio for both the home and away teams. With that it becomes a pretty good deal for Sirius Subs who can't get baseball (may still be a good deal vs. the best of XM package if it did have baseball too)
This is a smaller example of a larger problem with Baseball. They are making a killing off the XM deal (way overpriced) and even knowing that most Sirius' subscribers won't want baseball (they would have opted for XM)they want a huge sum of money to allow it on Sirius.
Its a joke. Baseball would be smarter to allow their games on Sirius- making the game available to more casual fans who normally wouldn't pay for it. But baseball doesn't understand that.
The larger problem is that baseball doesn't understand its losing market share every year. They should do whatever they can do to get their game to people who otherwise wouldn't be interested.
At this point, MLB has little incentive to renegotiate. They have an existing deal in place giving them a nice revenue stream. XM and Sirius are no longer bidding against each other, so MLB would not have any real competition for the deal. With the economy in the dumps right now, SXM would be looking for a lower contract price, I would suspect. So from the MLB's perspective, why do anything right now on this?
The iphone mlb app is a free advertisement for why you shoul get XM instead. 9.99 just for that - look at XM's offerings which includes MLB as one small part of the overall content.
Ummm...that iPhone app does a hell of a lot more than let you get pitch-by-pitch results: it gives you live streaming audio (choice of home or away broadcast) of every MLB game, precisely what XM does. So if I'm only subscribing to XM to listen to live MLB games, I can either pay $10 for the entire season to listen on my iPhone, or roughly $100 in sub fees for the six months of the regular season + October to do the same on XM.
Plus, I don't have to worry about line of sight or repeater issues when I'm portable or listening in the house.
If MLB wanted to be greedy, they could have charged $20 for this app and it would still save me big $.
RE: "But XM had MLB. Sirius had... nothing. And that drove millions who wanted MLB to XM. If you wanted MLB, you signed up with XM. If you didn't care about MLB, you didn't. And if you didn't care about MLB as a part of the basic service when you signed on to satrad, why on earth would you care about it as an added-cost add-on now?"
Well, I for one went with Sirius over XM for Howard, however I would jump at the chance to have baseball---
And my brother and father feel the same way-- in fact, we are considering dumping Sirius in favor of XM + best of Sirius... Just the cost of hardware and the hassle of switching are holding us back...That and the fact that as soon as we switch, with my luck, Sirius and MLB will ink a deal..
What in the hell was the merger for? Aren't they one company now? Why is this even an issue? There should be no best of XM or Sirius. If it's one company then everything should be available. If they want to charge a little extra, fine, but at least make it available. BS!!!
The only reason I stuck with XM was to get the MLB games. Now that the iPhone app is out, that reason is gone. It may turn out to be unreliable in which case I will reconsider, but short of that, I won't be renewing.
Both services are basically the same since they merged the music channels. So if you like sports just get an XM. Their portable devices get better reception than Sirius because of the geosynchronous orbit and more ground transmitters. And if you get the best of Sirius package you get every NFL game and NASCAR. The NBA and NHL are already on XM too.
MLB has little or no use for XM or Sirius as high speed wireless networks become more common. Everyone talks about the iPhone app, but you can also access the gameday audio package via a WinMo phone and the website advertises a new Blackberry program, presumably to be released before the season.
I signed up for XM for 2 reasons: MLB and Tony Kornheiser. Kornheiser's show is done. MLB Homeplate was a great channel, but now is absolutely horrible. It's sad when Kevin Kennedy and Rob Dibble are the biggest draw talent wise on a radio network.
With all the cash XM is shelling out for XM, it's quite obvious, XM needs MLB more than MLB needs baseball. The games alone provide 6 months of programming for a rabid fan base.
It's TRULY a shame. Yes, MLB is at fault here. But so is Sirius. By not fully combining the channels, this becomes an issue. If they had unified channel numbers, and had to leave off baseball simply because you had an old XM receiver instead of a Sirius receiver, MLB would have caved.
But no... continue the kludge, and you get what you get.
Yes, 9.99. Per season, not $12.99 a month for Baseball and a bunch of other junk you may not want, including a lot of stuff that's already available from other apps for free. Since DISH got rid of MLBEI sometime ago, and I've been unsubscribed from XM for 2 years, this will work out nicely. No additional hardware to buy, no worries about sound quality, or having to pay Howard Stern's salary. Just baseball, Home and Away feeds.
correct me if i'm wrong: wasn't baseball on sirius at one time? if so then what about those people who wanted baseball and signed up with sirius?
btw: making all of the channel numbers uniform would have been a logistics and p.r. nightmare. think how bad that sirixm has fucked up (p.r. wise) with the best of packages, and the content merging, and the "save sirius" whackjobs, and the stock price. now imagine throwing in channel uniformity at the same time with the company's lack of letting people know what's going on. baseball would not have caved to that.
Why do Sirius customers continue to get shafted? Censorship, shitty Best of XM, no MLB, the list goes on & on. If Howard goes, so goes Sirius. As will I. Good job, Mel!
A complete merging of the services with identical channel numbers wouldn't have fixed this at all. MLB never would have bought into that, and if Sirius XM had tried to claim they were entitled to give the MLB feeds to twice as many listeners, they'd have wound up in court, and they'd have lost.
The better solution would have been to maintain the separate services, continue MLB to XM, and start promoting dual-service radios and a $19.95 deal for both services, which would offer listeners 300 channels in all.
But they chose instead to trash one of their services, XM, angering many customers in the process, and putting themselves into the position of having listeners feel they're entitled to all the premium services that were on both the Sirius and XM platforms at no additional charge.
Siriusxm does have a dual radio for $19.99 (or 19.95) a month that gets both services. its called the MiRGE . its available online only they really should push it more but they dont seem to willing to market it.
Xcountry makes a good point. I suspect that's exactly what they'll end up doing, but they needed to start saving money right away, so they combined some of the channels to cut cost.
What Sirius should do is offer a base deal of $50 million that will allow all XM subscribers to listen. Sirius subscribers should be offered an add on for $10, portion of which will go to MLB.
If 2 - 3 million people (20% - 30% of subscribers) add the package, MLB will pocket 10 - 15 million on a 50-50 split.
Basically, you give them an upside potential for an upfront discount. It also allows you to get a somewhat of a feel as to what the contract should cost per user and you can use that in future negotiations.
This is precisely why when the best of sirius became available for XM, I dropped my sirius and got XM with best of sirius.
I understand that what I am about to post has nothing to do with this topic, but I wanted others to see where this ongoing nightmare with XMRO is currently at. Below is the most recent response from XMRO technical support. Now they are sticking with the story that if you locked in prior to March 10th, you will have 32k not 128k. You'd still have to pay for the upgrade. I can only guess that they really just don't care. Could they really need the $2.99 a month so badly that they would risk the chance of losing existing subscribers over it? Has anyone that was an existing subscriber and extended thier contract prior to 3/11 getting the 128k as no charge?
Dear Mr. Baxter,
Thank you for contacting XM.
We understand your concerns as it relates to the implementation of an XM Radio Online service fee.
In response to your email, the XM Radio Online service fee was explained in the offer which is paraphrased below:
"On March 11, 2009, we will upgrade the online listening experience to near CD-quality digital audio. Satellite radio subscriptions will no longer include internet radio at no charge. If you upgrade your monthly, quarterly or semi-annually subscription to a 1 ? 3 years annual savings plan, prior to this date, you will continue to get online listening for FREE for the length of your subscription.
This is your chance to keep listening online at no charge. After March 11th premium online listening will cost $2.99 per month".
If we can be of further assistance, please feel free to send an additional email or you may contact a Listener Care Representative directly at 1-800-XM RADIO (800-967-2346). Our Listener Care Centers hours of operation are as follows:
Monday - Saturday: 8AM ? 11PM EST
Sunday: 8AM - 8PM EST
Thank you,
Nadine
XM Radio Inc.
1500 Eckington Place NE
Washington, D.C. 20002
www.xmradio.com
XM Listener Care: 1-800-967-2346
With the current channel lineups being all but identical between XM and Sirius, a dual-service radio has little point -- so I guess I can see why they're not promoting it. As others have said, someone who had Sirius and wanted MLB would do best just to dump Sirius and get XM, adding Best of Sirius if he/she wanted Howard Stern.
They threw away so much opportunity with the channel merger. I'd have been one of the first in line to get a Mirge if the services were still separate, but instead I've cut four radios to one.
The MLB commishiner and/or the owners can stick it up their a** with my express written consent
i think they should just broadcast baseball get the hell outty with the bullshit..