What’s typically a $19.99-per-month subscription will be temporarily waived to South Florida residents who opt-in at Marlins.com/BallySports by providing their name, email and zip codeCarmen Mandato/Getty Images
The Marlins are underwriting the cost for in-market fans to receive two free months of the Bally Sports+ streaming package that carries their games.
What’s typically a $19.99-per-month subscription will be temporarily waived to South Florida residents who opt-in at Marlins.com/BallySports by providing their name, email and zip code.
Viewers can choose this option through the end of July. Their two-month window starts the day they opt in, so those who do so initially would have to pay for the remainder of the season if they so choose, while those who opt in at the end of July would get the last two months of the season for free.
This promotion is taking place against the backdrop of the
ongoing dispute between Diamond Sports Group and Comcast that has led to games being unavailable in the greater Miami region. Diamond owns and operates Bally Sports Sun and Bally Sports Florida -- the RSNs carrying Marlins games -- while Comcast is the cable provider for about half the region.
“This has really risen as one of the top areas of feedback where our fans are wanting to see our games on TV, and they can’t,” said Caroline O’Connor, the Marlins’ president of business operations, citing fan surveys and anecdotal feedback while walking concourses at LoanDepot Park. “So we went and spoke to ownership about this, and they were extremely supportive of doing whatever we could to get our games available to our fans.”
The lack of TV accessibility has not had any clear, direct correlations on business metrics so far, O’Connor said. Marlins attendance is up slightly so far this year: about 90 more fans per game through the first 43 home dates for an average of 12,496. Forbes reported that last year’s local ratings were up 13.6% year over year, although that has taken a hit with Comcast having dropped Bally’s.
O’Connor declined to share the Marlins’ internal projection for how many fans they estimate will take advantage of this promotion but said that “we would be happy if we exceeded our budget on this one, I can say that.”
“We don't want anything to get in the way of our fans seeing our games,” she added. “Our fans do have an option in that we have Bally Sports+ available. We just wanted to make sure that fans are aware of it and that we took out any other obstacle of them getting our games. And that's where we came up with the financial contribution from our ownership.”
