They need to capture Indy’s heart and soul to do it.
But today, the real financial success of a franchise is based on television revenue. And unlike the nationwide broadcasting of football, the success all is regional. The Braves and the Cubs became national brands because of the super stations on the 1980s and 1990s. And the Yankees and Red Sox expanded their TV power with their own networks (YES and NESN.) And those networks became staples in all of those additional metropolitan areas I listed above. The Reds need to do this as well. Of course they show games on FSN Ohio and other states carry their games. They need to do more.
Think about that radius of cities that should be Reds first. That is a collection of cities that could constitute a television network. Old memories are rekindled. The chances of new memories are sold. And the Reds could make the transformation from a relatively small market to getting a much larger slice of the baseball profit pie.
This needs to be a network that the Reds own and set up, not partner with Fox or some other conglomerate. There is a chance to tap into the advertising revenue of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana the way that NESN does all over New England.
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