Uncle Ted's vision for MSE

[SSHoya]

Zach Leonsis stared up at an unfinished wall in an unfinished two-story studio next to Capital One Arena and imagined the possibilities. Just a few months from now, there would be cameras and boom microphones and personalities breaking down the latest Washington Capitals and Wizards games in a space that would be the envy of regional sports television outlets everywhere.

Leonsis is the president of media and new enterprises for Monumental Sports, the conglomerate that controls the local NBA and NHL teams and the WNBA’s Mystics. (His father, Ted, is the patriarch of the family and runs the company.) Zach Leonsis wore a hard hat and a reflective vest as he surveyed the construction scene inside Gallery Place one recent afternoon. By early next year, four new studios with more rooms for production equipment are expected to be ready — and, he hopes, will soon become an intimate part of the Washington sports fan’s daily experience.

The media business is transforming and with it the sports business, thanks to cord-cutting and the erosion of the cable bundle. ESPN is looking for investors to bolster its business; Diamond Sports Group, which owns the local rights for dozens of teams, is saddled with a crippling debt load; and AT&T and Warner Bros. Discovery are tripping over themselves to get out of the regional sports network business. Charging into this unsettled landscape are the Leonsis family and Monumental, spending hundreds of millions to buy regional sports network NBC Sports Washington, rebrand it as Monumental Sports and invest in a technological and production makeover.

www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/11/15/monumental-sports-wizards-caps/

[DFW HOYA]

For someone who made his generational wealth by inventing the future, Leonsis' current (and I emphasize "current") business model is decidedly backward looking.

A subscription service, but only for local IP addresses? It's like being a Yankees fan and being told you can't watch a game if you're south of Trenton. Replays available, but only for three days? Available on TV, but not OTT? Yes, some of this is the old NBA territorial agreements in place, but RSN's are not the future, nor is a service which basically shuts down for four months a year after hockey and basketball season, unless you want to pay $19.95 a month for summer WNBA games, which you don't.

Best intentions notwithstanding, I see this as part of an industry-wide reshuffling of the deck chairs until ESPN is split up or sold by Disney, and then the real shakeup begins.

[Problem of Dog]

Zach Leonsis and what little has been done with MSE is a perfect example of failing upwards