As someone who has always been deeply self-conscious of the regional nature of American culture and indeed my own regional identities, such as they are, and the influence of one’s region on one’s experiences within larger nations like the United States (but certainly not only there), I have always been interested in the regional nature of sports. By and large, local sports teams on any level have had fierce relationships with regional rivals who were close enough where it was possible for travel between the two communities could occur but where there was a separate identity and frequently a great deal of rivalry and contention, and even outright hostility. As a student at the University of Southern California, I remember that during rivalry week we would have to stand guard to protect our dearly beloved Tommy the Trojan statue in the center of campus from being defaced and vandalized by disrespectful and dishonorable UCLA fans. As a Yinzer, albeit part of the diaspora of this community, I have long had to defend the honor of Pittsburgh sports from the insults of hostile fans of other teams. And as a current resident of the Pacific Northwest, I appreciate the regionality of sports fandom in this area as well, which is typified by the successful regional sports network in the area, which is called Root Sports Northwest, at least for now.

Yet even if Root Sports Northwest is itself a relatively successful example of a regional sports network, by and large regional sports networks in the United States have suffered greatly over the past few years. Problems of profitability as well as access have plagued various regional sports networks, which have fought over the rights to show certain teams. Root Sports Northwest, for example, acquired the right to Blazers games shortly before the network itself was dropped from Dish Network altogether, thus leaving customers of that particular network unable to even add the network to view local sports from the Seattle Mariners (who are majority owners of the network), the Portland Trailblazers, the Seattle Kraken, or the West Coast Conference with college basketball powerhouse Gonzaga. Other regional sports networks are in even worse shape given the financial status of Bally’s Networks, a Las Vegas casino-driven network which bought the rights to a wide variety of regional sports networks only to find itself going belly up. Root Sports Northwest is itself part of a different and smaller family of regional sports networks that is also facing problems because owner Warner Discovery is seeking to get out of the regional sports network, leaving their affiliates (aside from Root Sports Northwest) struggling to find partners to help them stay broadcasting.

There are a variety of reasons why regional sporting networks are struggling financially. With many media and entertainment companies seeking to move to a streaming-based sports model, to date streaming has not proven to be very successful as a means of broadcasting sports to a local audience. If the fandoms of many successful teams are nationwide, the rules of various leagues tend to enforce a starkly regional pattern on the exclusive rights to show such games, often tying terrestrial broadcasts of teams, at least in the past, to the sales of tickets to live games. Likewise, even college sports which once prided themselves on regional identity, or professional leagues that had a strongly regional set of rivalries have seen their regional identities threatened by the need to compete for players and fans across the country. This has led a conference like the Big 10 to, in order to keep up with the growing SEC, to accept Pac-12 powers USC and UCLA to bolster its roster of teams to preserve it as a major conference to television networks for those all-important broadcasting contracts, even if there is no regional basis whatsoever for two California teams to play in a conference based mainly in the Rust Belt of the Midwest along with other peripheral teams like Rutgers and Maryland from the east coast.

It appears that, as is often the case, money is at the root of the problem. Having the right television contracts can earn teams many millions or even tens of millions of dollars on even the collegiate level. This is only possible when there is a demand on the part of fans locally and nationwide to see these teams play in the biggest games, and that is only possible if the colleges have the right amount of prestige. For a sports network to keep a year-round audience, it needs to include teams from a variety of different leagues and levels, and these teams have to be good enough and have enough passionate fans to drive consistent viewership to those networks. Advertising requires viewership to increase the price that companies are willing to pay to sell their products and services to potential customers. In turn, this advertising income (as well as fees paid by viewers), is what allows the sports networks to successfully bid on the exclusive contracts to show the games of particular teams to audiences. When a network loses the rights to a given team or a league, as Disney lost the rights to the Indian Premier League of cricket recently, millions of subscribers who are passionate sports fans will cancel their subscriptions in order to seek the games they want to see and are willing to pay to see. In turn, those contracts for teams and leagues allow teams the financial power to recruit or sign better players and improve (or even maintain) their infrastructure of stadiums and training facilities. Money is the oil that lubricates the entire machine, and where it fails to circulate, the parts that do not receive it suffer seriously as a result. And sometimes, that money starts from being able or not being able to see the games on television in one’s local restaurant or watering hole because they have their cable or satellite television provided from the wrong company, one that is unable or uninterested in acquiring or maintaining the rights to show a particular network, regardless of how many people would want to watch it.