Marquee Sports Network’s launch in early 2020 was fraught with problems, not the least of which was MLB’s shutdown due to the pandemic. Even before its primary source of programming was removed, however, the fledgling RSN faced an uphill climb with carriage negotiations. Dish Network had dropped nearly all sports programming in July of 2019, YouTube TV’s negotiations with the Sinclair RSNs crumbled, and Hulu was late to pick up Marquee before dropping it at the end of the 2020 season.
All the while, the biggest target was Comcast.