Fox Sports NY Done?

The Mets have announced they’re looking to start their own television network, similar to the Yankees YES network.

The Yankees left MSG and the Nets left FSNY to go to YES.  YES is also scheduled to have the Devils soon, who are currently on FSNY.  Cablevision, who owns both MSG and FSNY kept the Mets on FSNY primarily, but also had them on MSG to keep the channel’s worth up for other cable systems to keep carrying it.  After the Mets leave Cablevision will be left with three teams: the Knicks and Rangers, mostly shown on MSG, and the Islanders mostly on FSNY.  I say “mostly” because Cablevision also puts some games on their Metro channels when games coincide, and a few other random times, once again, to make the channels more valuable for other systems.

However, after the Mets leave Cablevision should stop spreading themselves so thin and just pack it in on Fox Sports.  It’s been written in the press that Rupert Murdoch (who owns part of FSNY) hasn’t been happy with their management, and when Cablevision was going to move a lot of Mets games to MSG, something they own wholely, Fox Sports was not thrilled, and that’s why the amount of games were limited.  So now what?  The NY Islanders certainly don’t have enough of a following to support their own channel (as much as I’d like it personally), and they’d be able to sell MSG much better with the Knicks, Rangers and Islanders.  Of course, the three have overlapping schedules, so who knows how well only one channel would work, but they routinely bump games to the Metro channels all the time (to the dismay of local with satellite tv who have no way of watching the game at home).  Certainly it’s not the ideal situation.  Then again, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Islanders follow the Mets to their new channel whenever their contract expires, which I don’t think is for quite some time.

Note: I read this Newsday article about the Mets new network and the most interesting part to me was this:

The Mets channel also could seek to add the New Jersey Devils once the hockey team’s contract with Fox Sports New York ends after 2006-07.

I guess things aren’t set with the Devils going to YES.  Despite the Devils being the more successful teams, I’d think geographically and fan-crossover-wise, a Mets-Islanders pairing makes more sense.

Posted by David M Singer on Oct 13, 2004 at 09:10 PM

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