Why the Pirates decided to partner with Penguins on SportsNet Pittsburgh

After nearly a year of uncertainty of where the Pirates' broadcasting home will be, it turns out that they are going to once again partner with the Penguins.

On Wednesday, the team announced that SportsNet Pittsburgh will remain the home of Pirates baseball for all regionally televised games and that they had entered into an agreement to jointly own the network with the Penguins beginning Jan. 1, 2024. Daily operations will be managed by New England Sports Network [NESN], which is owned by the Penguins' owners, Fenway Sports Group.

“We’re really excited about joining up with the Penguins and making sure that we maintain a very robust, two team 24/7 sports network for Pittsburgh fans, sports fans in general, and also be able to present our games, both the Penguins and ours, throughout the region," Pirates president Travis Williams was telling me Wednesday.

The Pirates had two options on the table: To stick with SportsNet Pittsburgh or to hand over broadcasting rights to Major League Baseball and receive a fraction of their original deal with Warner Bros. Discovery and their regional sports network (RSN), AT&T SportsNet. When explaining why staying with the Penguins and SportsNet Pittsburgh was the right choice, Williams brought up two key issues, the first of which was that both Williams and Bob Nutting wanted to make sure that fans could still continue to enjoy games on linear cable.

"We wanted to make sure that the distribution was maintained, and we do believe there is a pathway, with NESN driving it, driving the process," Williams said. "We do believe there’s a pathway that all of our fans are going to be able to enjoy games throughout the region.”

The second was what comes before and after games. MLB's proposal scales back pre- and postgame coverage, as well as outside programs similar to Inside Pirates Baseball. The Pirates wanted to keep that additional coverage.

“We have a real opportunity with NESN to tell the Pirates’ story and be able to present our game in a way that our fans expect to be able to watch it," Williams said. "... That was one distinguishing factor, among many, that ultimately drove us in this direction.”

As for who will be broadcasting those games, some details are being sorted out, but Williams said, “I think it’s fair to say that our game broadcast will look very much the same."

If the Pirates were looking to add extra voices to the mix, Steven Brault was at the Winter Meetings in Nashville last week, looking for a chance to get into broadcasting. Jordy Mercer also did some studio work with AT&T SportsNet for a series last season.

By partnering with the Penguins again, this does technically mean two baseball ownership groups are involved in this join broadcasting venture. FSG owns the Red Sox, but the league did not have any objections to the arrangement.

“The relationships with John Henry and Tom Wehner [of FSG] are through baseball, but at the end of the day, they own the Penguins," Williams said. "... I don’t think anybody looked at it as two baseball teams pairing up to do a network. Clearly they’re doing this as owners of the Penguins, and clearly we’re doing this as owners of the Pirates. It just so happens that they own a baseball team up in Boston."

While the move does satisfy the team's desires from a broadcast partner now, there are still plenty of questions about the long-term viability of the RSN model, even when the team has ownership. More people continue to cut the cable cord and streaming is becoming evermore popular. The Pirates were one of many teams that saw their RSN cut payment in 2023, which included Bally Sports and Diamond Sports Group entering bankruptcy protection in March.

The Pirates had seen a possible collapse of the industry for several years, which is why the team and the Penguins had been in discussions about a possible new arrangement before last March.

“When the RSN industry was reaching a crisis point, we obviously had a lot of conversations with them the last couple years about how to prepare for it, No. 1, but also how we react to it, No. 2, as it was evolving. This was always on the table, of if we should team up and create our own, and/or take over AT&T SportsNet. As those talks continued to evolve, we were a little different than the Penguins in that we had multiple options to evaluate. We wanted to take our time to do that, not rush into a decision. The Penguins, from a timing perspective, had to make that decision much sooner. That’s why we didn’t it right away with them. We wanted to evaluate. We also wanted to see how the transition went, and thus far, it’s gone very well watching the Penguins games on television. NESN’s done a great job presenting their broadcasts, and we look forward to being a part of that.”

The Pirates do have permission through the league to offer a direct streaming option, and NESN has worked on one for the Red Sox.

“We would be looking to do the same thing," Williams said. "I think both [the Penguins] of us would like that as soon as it’s reasonably possible.”

Williams didn't offer a timetable of when that could possibly be.

That's not to say streaming is necessarily the long-term solution either. Time will tell how viable the RSN model is after the industry's shakeup earlier this year, but at least in the short-term, it is what the Pirates feel is their best option.

"I think everybody in the industry is trying to figure out what the long-term solution is. I think we all see fewer and fewer people are subscribing to linear cable. A lot of people are moving to a model of streaming and direct-to-consumer streaming options. I think you’re seeing bundle packages that are offered in that concept on those platforms. I think there’s a whole host of things people are evaluating and considering as a long-term option of where it’s going.

"We certainly are excited about the opportunity straight ahead of us, and we thought this was the best opportunity for us to make sure that our fans continue to enjoy the game and that we have a high quality product that we are putting out there, in terms of the game broadcast. In terms of where the long-term thing is, I think all of us – Penguins, us, NESN included – are all trying to figure that out and we manage through that and get to the other side and making sure whatever that solution is, making sure all of our fans enjoy Pirates and Penguins broadcasts.”