Regional Sports Networks, Competition, and the Consumer

This paper examines competitive issues surrounding sports media rights and multichannel video programming distribution (MVPD) markets. Cable and satellite providers often have significant interests in the Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) that jointly coordinate and market the media rights for regional or local sports teams in various U.S. markets. But these markets have a number of features that should factor importantly into competition analysis. For example, there is often limited competition in sports media rights and MVPD markets. Ongoing changes in programming content and packaging, and the bundling of sports and non-sports programming also means that market definition is an important issue. Finally, unique consumer preferences for quality and consistency in sports programming should be considered. The paper argues that changes in the structure of RSN and MVPD markets and non-merger agreements should be closely scrutinized by antitrust and regulatory agencies. This includes mergers at the horizontal MVPD and RSN levels and those that create vertically-integrated content/distribution platforms. Such scrutiny should pay close attention the "systems competition" issues raised by the two dominant modes of MVPD--cable and satellite. Both antitrust and regulatory agencies should make full use of remedial conditions in dealing with problematic mergers and the Federal Communications Commission should pursue directives geared toward promoting and maintaining competition in the carriage of sports-related programming.