Sad news - SNY no longer has tv coverage after 2024-25 season (merged)

[Alydar]

Difference is with this move we will ultimately lose coverage.

We don't know that. When CPTV lost their coverage their was a lot of worry over who would take over. Then when UConn moved back to the BE and Flosports got involved there was another round of worry.

UConn draws a TV audience and someone will always want to broadcast the games because advertisers will pay.

Last year I worried that Fox would black out streaming in SNY's coverage areas like YES does with Yankee games on MLB or ESPN+ but they didn't.

 

[Longtime fan]

This in Sunday's upcoming Don Amore's Hartford Courant sports column:

UConn women and Big East TV deal​

The six-year, $480 million deal the Big East signed with Fox, NBC and TNT will spell the eventual end for UConn women’s basketball on SNY, the New York cable station that has televised games since 2012. Nothing will change this year.

“UConn womens games will no longer be on SNY beginning with the 2025-26 season,” according to a UConn statement. “All games will instead air through one of the Big East partner networks. More information will be available at a later date.”

It will make it more arduous for UCONN fans to find each Lady husky game. But someone will make more money.

 

[MSGRET]

It will make it more arduous for UCONN fans to find each Lady husky game. But someone will make more money.

Actually I think it will be easier for the fans that didn't get SNY. They won't have to go thru all of the steps to watch it on the fox app. UConn will most likely have on the Huskies web page on who is carrying what game and most of them should be via a national network. By the way it is Husky or Huskies, not Lady Husky.

 

[maple]

I’m about to bring in some old man yells at cloud energy.

I am not going to pay for both Peacock and (HBO) Max to watch games.

Peacock worked fine for me for the Olympics, no issues, but Max is so buggy on my less than a year old smart TV and constantly lags/crashes. A quick Goggle search tells you this is a very common issue. And Max is more expensive than Peacock ($2/mo more) for much lesser quality. It’s ridiculous.

I hope having a regular TV provider will allow access to watch these games. Or that there will be one way to watch. I’m not shelling out extra $. I’ll just listen to the Varsity app.

 

[Puppy Love]

This is good news for me. I wasn’t able to watch the SNY games at all because I wasn’t willing to shell out nearly $400/month for traditional cable and none of the streaming options were viable for me. I’m hoping that this will be better.

 

[Henry]

Peacock, which I had for the Olympics, and Max, which I got for a few months on a Cyber Monday deal, work fine on my TV. But I'm not going to be happy about having to pay for several streaming services to watch games.

 

[hoopsfan22]

We don't know that. When CPTV lost their coverage their was a lot of worry over who would take over. Then when UConn moved back to the BE and Flosports got involved there was another round of worry.

UConn draws a TV audience and someone will always want to broadcast the games because advertisers will pay.

Last year I worried that Fox would black out streaming in SNY's coverage areas like YES does with Yankee games on MLB or ESPN+ but they didn't.

There will no longer be UConn focused coverage. We will be covered as much or as little as say Providence or Xavier. Our games may end up on a main channel more often than them, but the UConn focus that CPTV and later SNY provided will be gone.

 

[CL82]

If you are going to miss Culmo, just have somebody say. "We need more moving without the ball", 30 times a game and you're good.

If only she could work in the word "comportment" she could be broadcasting in the NBA.

 

[my2cents]

If only she could work in the word "comportment" she could be broadcasting in the NBA.

or "going downhill" when the court is flat. She is ok, but she sometimes feels bad for the teams that are about to lose by 50. They can start the game 4-0 on UConn, and she will say they are "really playing well!!!"

 

[EricSD]

Not to totally detour from the original topic, but my worst pet peeve is when an announcer starts talking about who "wants it more". Megan used to throw that nugget out fairly frequently.

I do get that individual effort makes a difference - someone like Aubrey, who when healthy, is all over the court flying everywhere for everything, so I could see commenting that she "wants the ball more"... but in general, even in the Olympics, during one of the games (for the gold medal I think), the announcer was like "now we will see who wants it more".

Really? Gold medal on the line, and you really think there is one team who "wants it more" than the other team? Ugh...

Back to the main topic - I had to pay an extra $10/mos. to get the east coast sports pack, but last year, I was unable to get SNY or NESN as they were not part of the "LA regional sports package". I have no problem paying for whatever network will air the games. I can cancel it in April.

 

[Tufkas]

Peacrock - ugh. They'll do here what they've done with the English Premiere League, though with a built-in audience, the transition from network accessible (USA) to monetization via streaming will be in place from the off. Aligns to the new paradigm of internet-required programming, for which Xfinity (Peacrock's parent) is also the Internet Service Provider for a lot of us. Perhaps additional charges on top of Peacrock Premium / Premium Plus for a newly created, requisite sports package. If their streaming (as opposed to network) Olympic coverage is any indication, this will be rough.

As for the rest, I won't miss Culmo, and her unrelenting bias towards coach. Hoping the new team treats broadcasting these games like the men's, with focus on dissecting the defensive approaches & formations, how the offense attacks them. What's working, what's not. Spotting big moments leading to runs. Inbound and last second strategy. Can't remember if I've ever heard mention of going "two for one" at the end of a quarter, half or game. And of course, not only calling out substitutions, but critiquing lineup choices, and options.

 

[Alydar]

There will no longer be UConn focused coverage. We will be covered as much or as little as say Providence or Xavier. Our games may end up on a main channel more often than them, but the UConn focus that CPTV and later SNY provided will be gone.

I stopped watching SNY's pre and post games years ago after I discovered Bob Joyce and the UConn audio stream. Very informative and fairly balanced. And focused on the game. Daley's post game interviews are about the game.

 

[hoopsfan22]

I stopped watching SNY's pre and post games years ago after I discovered Bob Joyce and the UConn audio stream. Very informative and fairly balanced. And focused on the game. Daley's post game interviews are about the game.

We're losing a big member of the press that was dedicated to covering the program, and that is not good if you're a fan of the team because it means overall less content especially outside of the 20 or so 1h45m games from Nov. 11 to March 7. If you are just looking for generic sportsball game coverage and don't really care about this team or that team, then this is great for you because it means more games and more teams to watch.

 

[MSGRET]

We're losing a big member of the press that was dedicated to covering the program, and that is not good if you're a fan of the team because it means overall less content especially outside of the 20 or so 1h45m games from Nov. 11 to March 7. If you are just looking for generic sportsball game coverage and don't really care about this team or that team, then this is great for you because it means more games and more teams to watch.

For the people that don't get SNY they're not losing anything, because they didn't get it in the first place with the FOX app. They only showed the game and the halftime show. I'm willing to bet that the UConn Woman's games will actually have a larger number of viewers with the new contract vs SNY.

 

[HopJim]

I have found SNY to be unreliable and depending on the state I was living in, difficult to get. I have been willing to pay more to see UConn basketball play so from my point of view, this is a solid move.

 

[Centerstream]

I live in NC and I have not been an SNY subscriber since I dropped DirecTV and began streaming in 2019. Since SNY made their deal with Fox Sports to have the Huskie WBB games streamed on the Fox Sports App, I have had minimal issues watching the games. My common issue was that while viewing the game, I would get booted out of App. At no time was I unable to immediately log back into the app and miss more than 30 seconds of action. My memory isn't working right now but this past season I believe I, and many others, missed a game because of a SNY/Fox Sports App snafu.
So....bottom line is that over the last 5 seasons of watching the SNY games using the Fox Sports App, I only had 1 serious issue. I have used a Roku, a Firestick and an Xbox S to access the app, all without issue.
Caveat: I don't consider not being able to login to the game until game time an issue because I didn't ever miss a game due to that.

I feel bad for people that have had issues with the Fox Sports App but I just can't relate to out of market BYers that dislike SNY and/or Fox Sports broadcasts.

 

[UcMiami]

Just a little history:
CPTV was the first to identify and exploit a women's sport team broadcast opportunity - ahead of their time and for quite a while a stand alone in the world of sports programming.

ESPN came along and cherry picked a selection of 'big ticket' games' CBS, TNT, Fox, and conference owned stations jumped in as well.

SNY was the first for profit station to bid and win a women's sports team broadcast deal, knocking CPTV off.

SNY was pretty well screwed when the old BE imploded and the new American sold a broadcast package that included women's basketball - SNY had to negotiate a deal with ESPN to be allowed to produce the Uconn games they were already contracted to Uconn for.

Somewhere along the line around the time of the creation of the AAC, the new conference TV contracts for the big conferences started to include women's basketball along with the traditional football and MCBB.

SNY fought the good fight for a while but it just got too complex and expensive I think.

This all started because of Uconn and CPTV proving that there was money in those national flag blue women bounce that ball.

The issue is now whether Fox/NBC/NBC will actually spend the money to produce all the Uconn games that they own the rights to. I do not believe any of the other big conference deals have ever produced every WCBB game for every team in conference.

 

[☘️IrishEyes]

Agree. Not having access to SNY has made it real hard to watch games. I'm glad we are moving on from them. Should be much easier to watch the games.

I certainly hope the Fox Sports app carries the games again this year. I really don’t want to switch around from You Tube TV to either Hulu Live TV or Fubo.

 

[☘️IrishEyes]

Does everyone realize this new TV contract doesn't start til the 2025-26 season? We will still have SNY this year. Enjoy it while we still have it.

Yes, I realize this. However I had to switch to Hulu Live TV then over to Fubo. Not all the SNY games were carried by the Fox Sports app.

 

[Centerstream]

Yes, I realize this. However I had to switch to Hulu Live TV then over to Fubo. Not all the SNY games were carried by the Fox Sports app.

Since the 2019-2020 season, I missed one SNY game using the Fox Sports App with either YouTubeTV or Hulu Live as my tv providers. There's a Fox requirement that your TV provider subscription includes the local Fox affiliate and FS1. That's it. If you don't have both via your tv provider, you would miss every SNY broadcast using the Fox Sports App, not some of them.
If YouTubeTV was having an issue negotiating a new deal with Fox (or ESPN one season), I did have to change my TV provider, but I didn't miss any games when this happened. This didn't have anything to do with SNY.

 

[HopJim]

For those of us out of state, SNY was inconsistent with low value. Most of us that plan their weeks around the UConn games, paying a bit more for consistent coverage will be well worth it.

 

[UcMiami]

People do need to understand the difference between owning rights and actually producing product. Those big rights contracts are based on football and men's basketball - the WCBB is an afterthought and the big networks aren't really interested in spending money to produce hundreds of WCBB games. They will give away broadcast rights to most of those games to anyone who is willing to shell out money to produce them in return for streaming rights. SNY has done that for a decade, but not any more.

CPTV and then SNY both owned the rights to broadcast and by contract guaranteed to produce the broadcast product. They also went the extra mile to negotiate with other owners of broadcast rights for Uconn games to either broadcast the feed from those other owners locally or produce those games and share their feed. This was necessary initially for any games Uconn played on the road, and then once the AAC sold all rights to WCBB, to all Uconn games.

If/When SNY steps away, will the new rights owners actually spend money to produce a Butler vs. Xavier WCBB game? I doubt it as it would be a commercial loss for them. So maybe they get access to a student produced feed to stream, or they don't offer it at all. And will they spend money to show Uconn at Butler or do we get that same stream, from a fixed location somewhere above the court with two students doing play by play.

This is what the rest of WCBB fans have dealt with for ever. Maybe they get a poor quality broadcast of today's game, maybe they get radio coverage, and occasionally they get a professionally produced game. And I believe Uconn fans have just entered that world.

It appears Uconn has lost complete control of their WCBB product. Their final contract with CPTV included ALL games that Uconn owned the rights to, and an understanding that CPTV would try to produce every game Uconn played. When SNY bought those same rights, Uconn required the same commitments that CPTV had made - to produce everything they could get the rights to. With ESPN/Fox including WCBB into the broadcast package for the AAC/nBE, SNY negotiated hard for broadcast rights with ESPN/Fox giving up the streaming rights in return for the actual production of the games. ESPN/Fox cherry picked a few games to actually produce themselves and were very happy to let SNY pay all the costs and deliver live streaming to them for free for the others.

 

[Centerstream]

People do need to understand the difference between owning rights and actually producing product. Those big rights contracts are based on football and men's basketball - the WCBB is an afterthought and the big networks aren't really interested in spending money to produce hundreds of WCBB games. They will give away broadcast rights to most of those games to anyone who is willing to shell out money to produce them in return for streaming rights. SNY has done that for a decade, but not any more.

CPTV and then SNY both owned the rights to broadcast and by contract guaranteed to produce the broadcast product. They also went the extra mile to negotiate with other owners of broadcast rights for Uconn games to either broadcast the feed from those other owners locally or produce those games and share their feed. This was necessary initially for any games Uconn played on the road, and then once the AAC sold all rights to WCBB, to all Uconn games.

If/When SNY steps away, will the new rights owners actually spend money to produce a Butler vs. Xavier WCBB game? I doubt it as it would be a commercial loss for them. So maybe they get access to a student produced feed to stream, or they don't offer it at all. And will they spend money to show Uconn at Butler or do we get that same stream, from a fixed location somewhere above the court with two students doing play by play.

This is what the rest of WCBB fans have dealt with for ever. Maybe they get a poor quality broadcast of today's game, maybe they get radio coverage, and occasionally they get a professionally produced game. And I believe Uconn fans have just entered that world.

It appears Uconn has lost complete control of their WCBB product. Their final contract with CPTV included ALL games that Uconn owned the rights to, and an understanding that CPTV would try to produce every game Uconn played. When SNY bought those same rights, Uconn required the same commitments that CPTV had made - to produce everything they could get the rights to. With ESPN/Fox including WCBB into the broadcast package for the AAC/nBE, SNY negotiated hard for broadcast rights with ESPN/Fox giving up the streaming rights in return for the actual production of the games. ESPN/Fox cherry picked a few games to actually produce themselves and were very happy to let SNY pay all the costs and deliver live streaming to them for free for the others.

Are you stating that SNY produced UConn WBB games that were broadcast/streamed on ESPN and Fox?
My understanding is that SNY had a deal with Fox Sports to stream the games, that they produced/broadcasted, to out of market fans. The deal also included the caveat that the out of market fans had to use a TV provider subscription that included the local Fox affiliate and FS1. It has nothing to do with ESPN.

 

[UcMiami]

Are you stating that SNY produced UConn WBB games that were broadcast/streamed on ESPN and Fox?
My understanding is that SNY had a deal with Fox Sports to stream the games, that they produced/broadcasted, to out of market fans. The deal also included the caveat that the out of market fans had to use a TV provider subscription that included the local Fox affiliate and FS1. It has nothing to do with ESPN.

ESPN had the AAC rights and a deal with SNY. Then with the return to the BE, Fox made a similar deal with SNY. Neither Fox nor ESPN had rights to road OOC broadcasts unless they owned the rights to the road OOC opponents conference.

 

[JoePgh]

ESPN/Fox cherry picked a few games to actually produce themselves and were very happy to let SNY pay all the costs and deliver live streaming to them for free for the others.

So why wouldn't a deal along these lines still make business sense for the new owners of Big East broadcast rights in 2025-26? If SNY or anyone else is willing to produce the less attractive UConn games in exchange for the advertising revenue that they will generate within Connecticut, and let the rights owner retain the streaming rights and any revenue from that, why would that arrangement not be in the interest of both parties?

 

[MSGRET]

“UConn womens games will no longer be on SNY beginning with the 2025-26 season,” according to a UConn statement. “All games will instead air through one of the Big East partner networks. More information will be available at a later date.”

This is the last paragraph of the first post, my question is on the statement in bold. Does that mean that all UConn games are to be televised or does it mean if the game is televised it has to be on the Big East partner networks?

 

[UcMiami]

So why wouldn't a deal along these lines still make business sense for the new owners of Big East broadcast rights in 2025-26? If SNY or anyone else is willing to produce the less attractive UConn games in exchange for the advertising revenue that they will generate within Connecticut, and let the rights owner retain the streaming rights and any revenue from that, why would that arrangement not be in the interest of both parties?

It might make business sense for someone - even CPTV could jump back in - if the new contract partners would agree. Or Uconn's broadcasting/communications department (whatever they actually call it) might take over the production of the product as a student learning project. Who knows what will actually happen. Uconn certainly has incentive to work toward having all their games broadcast or at least streamed. Hopefully there will be a solution when the SNY contract ends.

“UConn womens games will no longer be on SNY beginning with the 2025-26 season,” according to a UConn statement. “All games will instead air through one of the Big East partner networks. More information will be available at a later date.”

This is the last paragraph of the first post, my question is on the statement in bold. Does that mean that all UConn games are to be televised or does it mean if the game is televised it has to be on the Big East partner networks?

The 'All' in the above statement is a fluid concept I believe - OOC road games are outside Uconn's control. And it is also an open question whether the BE partner networks actually produce all Uconn games in their committed '65' WCBB games. And I suspect the BE partner networks own all Uconn OOC home games not just the conference games as someone above suggested.

 

[CL82]

“UConn womens games will no longer be on SNY beginning with the 2025-26 season,” according to a UConn statement. “All games will instead air through one of the Big East partner networks. More information will be available at a later date.”

This is the last paragraph of the first post, my question is on the statement in bold. Does that mean that all UConn games are to be televised or does it mean if the game is televised it has to be on the Big East partner networks?

I interpreted that as every UConn game will be on TV and will not just be streamed.

 

[Steelerone]

Remember when you originally signed up for cable and they gave you a menu with a large selection of prime programs and you thought, wow, isn't this great. Then, slowly, like the death of a thousand cuts, they started to give you "choices" of groups of programs where, it you enjoyed certain channels, you had to pay a premium. Now you turn on the tv and get fifty channels trying to sell you things, reality or game shows where they don't have to pay actors or writers, and programming that includes almost a third of the allotted time geared to selling you medications or attorney's. The next step, not too far down the line, will be charging for each game you watch. For those who deny that, you probably thought that there would never be a woman nominated for President.

 

[huskyd]

This is another example of a deal that's good for our conference, but not particularly good for UConn. It would be nice if they at least hired Meghan, just for the sake of continuity. She's not perfect, but she's been part of UConn women's basketball basketball for decades.

Savvy advice.