• by Wayne Friedman , July 10, 2023

Looking to kickstart the weakening U.S. regional sports networks business, Charter Communications is launching two “flexible” sports programming services, giving consumers more pricing options.

One is Spectrum Select Plus, which is a full-priced, broad sports service that includes local/regional networks, as well as national and other sports programmers. 

The second service, Spectrum Select Signature, is aimed at sports TV consumers seeking lower-cost options. It will exclude certain sports programming.

Charter did not disclose explicit consumer pricing information for either product.

To encourage more sampling of sports programming, Charter will also launch its own  direct-to-consumer (DTC) service for its own existing regional networks -- Spectrum SportsNet and Spectrum SportsNet LA -- which will also be available to all Charter affiliate subscribers for free. 

For years, regional sports networks’ agreements have required pay TV providers -- cable, satellite, virtual, and telco distributors  -- to pay for, and make them available to a large majority of their pay TV subscribers, typically over 80% of their entire subscriber footprint. 

These were mostly mandatory contract deal points for regional sports network carriage “even if many of them never watch it,” according to Charter. Analysts say this ends up being a major expense for pay TV providers, and why many in recent years have cut back on the carriage, or elimination, of the regional networks.

“This new model paves the way for a more flexible approach to the outdated packaging model for sports, and it puts the focus where it should be, on the customer,” says Tom Montemagno, executive vice president of programming acquisition for Charter in a release.

Charter has been one of the few legacy pay TV providers to continue long term deals with regional sports networks.

A year ago in April, it made a multi-year deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group to carry its local TV stations, as well as the troubled Diamond Sports, which operate under the brand name Bally Sports.

Diamond, the largest group of regional sports networks in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy in March. It has had difficulty making sports rights payments to teams due to its inability to strike new carriage deals with legacy and virtual pay TV providers.