Yankees followers in New Jersey and elements of Connecticut who subscribe to Comcast Xfinity’s cable service will be capable of watch the Bronx Bombers this weekend because the YES Community and the telecom large agreed to increase the deadline to achieve a brand new carriage price deal — thus averting a blackout in the meanwhile.
YES and Comcast reached settlement to increase the deadline to 11:59 p.m. ET on March 31, delaying the removing of YES Community from Comcast’s lineup, which had initially been set for midnight Friday.
The Yankees opened up the season at dwelling on Thursday with a win over the Milwaukee Brewers at Yankee Stadium.
The Bombers are off on Friday although they are going to resume their three-game set towards the Brew Crew within the Bronx on Saturday and Sunday.
Each weekend video games towards the Brewers will air on the YES Community.
Information of the settlement was first reported on Friday by Shore Information Community.
In accordance with the information web site, that is the tenth time that the 2 sides have agreed to a brief deadline extension.
As of January 2023, Comcast served roughly 878,797 cable subscribers in New Jersey, in accordance with state authorities information.
Comcast doesn’t present precise figures for the numbers of subscribers in New York or Connecticut — although its presence within the Empire State is negligible, in accordance with sources with information of the state of affairs.
The dispute over carriage charges boils right down to {dollars} and cents as Comcast desires to maneuver the YES Community from its fundamental cable tier to its higher-price digital package deal.
In accordance with an individual within the know, Xfinity fundamental cable subscribers pay wherever between $7 and $11 per subscriber to hold the YES Community — whereas the corporate says that viewership of the regional sports activities community doesn’t justify these charges.
A supply near the state of affairs mentioned that Comcast desires to kick YES off of its fundamental cable tier and provides subscribers who already paid for his or her providers a month-to-month credit score that may offset the charges that they have been charged.
These all for watching YES might pony up extra cash for its higher-priced digital tier which incorporates MLB TV, NHL Community, CBS Sports activities Community, NBA Community, TNT, TBS and FS1 — amongst different channels.
The Submit has sought remark from YES. A Comcast spokesperson declined to remark.
YES, which additionally airs Brooklyn Nets basketball video games, is owned by a consortium of pursuits that features the Yankees, Amazon, Blackstone and RedBird Capital Companions.
Comcast, the Philadelphia-based media behemoth, is a $160 billion conglomerate whose properties embody NBCUniversal, the British telecom community Sky Group and Xfinity, its US-based shopper model providing cable tv, web and wi-fi service.
As of the fourth quarter of 2024, Comcast boasted 12.5 million cable subscribers nationwide.
However like different media giants, Comcast has needed to wrestle with an ever-changing panorama through which viewers are reducing the wire and migrating away from cable and towards direct-to-consumer choices.
Regional sports activities community reminiscent of YES, Bally Sports activities and Madison Sq. Backyard Networks have needed to deal with shrinking income streams as cable networks balk at persevering with to pay carriage charges within the period of cord-cutting.
Comcast has already booted MSG off of its methods fully after the 2 sides failed to achieve settlement on renewing their carriage price deal.
The corporate desires to relegate YES to its digital tier — simply because it did to different networks, reminiscent of NBC Sports activities Bay Space and NBC Sports activities Boston.
