SNY, the regional home of the Mets, had been “exploring its options in the last year,” and the network had earlier “put itself up for sale,” according to sources cited by Lillian Rizzo of CNBC SPORT. While no deal was ever reached, sources said that Mets owner Steve Cohen was “part of the discussions at one point as a potential acquirer.” The network, which is “majority backed” by former Mets owners, the Wilpon family, has also “counted Comcast and Charter Communications as investors for some time.” But sources said that in recent months, Comcast “sold its stake to Charter for an undisclosed amount.” Comcast owns a handful of networks but has been “slowly inching away from the RSN world.” Comcast has also been “one of the toughest distributors” for RSNs to deal with recently, “pushing to move the networks into the tiered model.” This “was a pretty big sticking point” in Comcast’s carriage negotiations last year with the YES Network -- considered a “top-tier RSN with some of the highest fees and biggest audiences,” as it airs Yankees and Nets games. Comcast “wanted to shift YES to a tiered model,” but YES refused. Sources said that Comcast has “a long-term carriage deal” with SNY that “protects it from being tiered through at least 2030.” Industry insiders surmised that Comcast’s exodus from SNY’s ownership structure “freed it” from this deal, although sources noted that “nothing has changed on that front.” Comcast, though, will not “be returning to the table with YES anytime soon” (CNBC SPORT, 4/2).
Report: SNY explores options amid changing RSN landscape
