Sports and Cable and Streaming

[mjd1001]

An interesting article to me:  https://www.pcworld.com/article/2620934/sports-streaming-is-too-expensive-and-the-streamers-know-it.html

Some highlights:

Like a lot of streamers, the regional sports networks have underestimated peoples’ ability to tune out.

In Utah, a subscription to watch local Jazz games still costs $20 per month, but you can also watch for free with an antenna. “The more people watch, the more people come to games, the more we sell in concessions, the more money we bring in with sponsorships,” Smith said.

Comcast has stopped offering regional sports in its base packages to keep prices down. Meanwhile, a growing proportion of cord-cutters are realizing they don’t need pay TV bundles at all.

It’s taken a couple years, but regional sports networks are starting to realize they charge too much to stream local games.

NESN 360, which offers live streams of the Boston Red Sox and Bruins, just dropped its annual price from $330 to $240, while also throwing in four Red Sox tickets. Main Street Sports Group, which operates regional FanDuel Sports Network channels, has hinted at lower prices as well, and in some markets, local games stream for free or are available over-the-air with an antenna.

 

 

[Bangarang]

I wish the Sabres weren't on MSG or there was an alternative way to stream the games in market outside of the terrible Gotham app. I don't like laying for cable just to get MSG

[mjd1001]

Its short sited. I posted this a few times in prevous threads, but to summarize what I said:  I have 2 nieces, 1 nephew, our daughter and her fiancee who all watched the Sabres when they were growing up. They are all on their own now not one of them has a cable package.  They hardly follow the team anymore, and when I talked to my nephew about it, its less about the team being bad and a lot more about them not being avaialble to watch.

I told him you can get the spectrum package with MSG now where it is a little less exensive (you get to pick 10 channels of your choice, MSG is an option) and he laughed at that idea...there is just no way he's getting a cable package.

A lot of these owners only know a world where the vast majority of thier 'customers' have cable. That has been, and continues to change. They ARE losing long term fans.

[JoeSchmoe]

I was a loyal purchaser of the NHL Centre Ice package here in Canada to the tune of $30/month until they played some tricks and blacked out a ton of games on me (or force me to switch to Bell satellite). 

I found another workaround and have never paid to watch a Sabres game on TV again since.

[LGR4GM]

The NHL is stupid. They could have been smart and put all their games under a streaming service years ago but instead they think everyone wants cable... but not only cable you also have to have ESPN+, NHLN, USA, TNT, and whatever ***** local sports network streaming service exists. It's basically unaffordable to be an NHL fan and that's before we talk about $120 a game tickets and a 41 game home regular season. 

[Jorcus]

1 hour ago, mjd1001 said:

An interesting article to me:  https://www.pcworld.com/article/2620934/sports-streaming-is-too-expensive-and-the-streamers-know-it.html

Some highlights:

Like a lot of streamers, the regional sports networks have underestimated peoples’ ability to tune out.

In Utah, a subscription to watch local Jazz games still costs $20 per month, but you can also watch for free with an antenna. “The more people watch, the more people come to games, the more we sell in concessions, the more money we bring in with sponsorships,” Smith said.

Comcast has stopped offering regional sports in its base packages to keep prices down. Meanwhile, a growing proportion of cord-cutters are realizing they don’t need pay TV bundles at all.

It’s taken a couple years, but regional sports networks are starting to realize they charge too much to stream local games.

NESN 360, which offers live streams of the Boston Red Sox and Bruins, just dropped its annual price from $330 to $240, while also throwing in four Red Sox tickets. Main Street Sports Group, which operates regional FanDuel Sports Network channels, has hinted at lower prices as well, and in some markets, local games stream for free or are available over-the-air with an antenna.

 

 

I guess with the use of AI they are going to calculate down to the penny what the optimum market price is for regional streaming package. Of course this is always going to vary with how well the team is doing. Last year the cable system in my parents care community upped the price of the package that carried the Orioles games. As a group they tried to fight the increase with the provider. I don't know if they got any knocked off but most of that community is really well off so that a hike in the cable price was not going to affect how they live at all. My father was fretting about the increase and I had to convince him that he should not worry about it and just go ahead so he could watch the games. Being in his 90's he not really spending much on anything else. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Jorcus

[Broken Ankles]

As far as the NHL is concerned, the ESPN+ experience has been great for me.  I was paying $150/year for Centre Ice on Direct TV.  Direct TV also had TBS, ESPN and NHL networks.  When the NFL exited DTV I cancelled my subscription, as the Bills and the NFL was my primary reason for using the service.  And while I miss a few Sabres games here and there, I pickup about 65/year using ESPN plus which was only like $3.99 to bundle with Disney which I had for the kids.  And I get great college hoops as a bonus.  So I’m paying nothing for cable (which was  $75/month) plus $150 for NHL package annually vs today I pay $4/month and catch 80% of the games.  
 
 I fully acknowledge that this works b/c my “team” is not inside my region.  If I were a Ducks fan, ESPN+would be worthless. As it is for Sabre fans in Western NY.  

[LTS]

The changes are coming.

https://streamtv.directv.com/mysports/

I can't find a link at the moment but Fubo is putting out what was going to be the Venu streaming package as well.

It's not CHEAP.. but.. it's not all the other channels.

[ska-T Palmtown]

16 minutes ago, Broken Ankles said:

As far as the NHL is concerned, the ESPN+ experience has been great for me.  I was paying $150/year for Centre Ice on Direct TV.  Direct TV also had TBS, ESPN and NHL networks.  When the NFL exited DTV I cancelled my subscription, as the Bills and the NFL was my primary reason for using the service.  And while I miss a few Sabres games here and there, I pickup about 65/year using ESPN plus which was only like $3.99 to bundle with Disney which I had for the kids.  And I get great college hoops as a bonus.  So I’m paying nothing for cable (which was  $75/month) plus $150 for NHL package annually vs today I pay $4/month and catch 80% of the games.  
 
 I fully acknowledge that this works b/c my “team” is not inside my region.  If I were a Ducks fan, ESPN+would be worthless. As it is for Sabre fans in Western NY.  

This is my exact experience as well. Somehow the out-of-town fans get better treatment than the home fans.

For the longest time under their previous owner, the Blackhawks owner would only allow home games to be broadcast if the game was sold out. I think they are now all shown (except national games) on some random Chicago sports network channel. Seems broken to me. But, ESPN+ for Sabres and picking up random free trials for other services when I care to try to watch TNT works just fine for me.

Sidenote - if you have a gmail address, you can add and move around a period to your address to fool the subscription services.

JoeSchmoe at gmail and Joe.Schmoe at gmail both go to the same inbox. I have almost run out of these iteration with Fubo, tho - lol

Edit: Cut the cord in 2015 and have not regretted for one single second. Cable can eff off.

Edited 1 hour ago by ska-T Palmtown

[Jorcus]

7 minutes ago, LTS said:

The changes are coming.

https://streamtv.directv.com/mysports/

I can't find a link at the moment but Fubo is putting out what was going to be the Venu streaming package as well.

It's not CHEAP.. but.. it's not all the other channels.

Just out today. Venue is not going to happen.

[LTS]

7 minutes ago, Jorcus said:

Just out today. Venue is not going to happen.

VENU was dead with the Disney acquisition of Fubo.

However, they announced that Fubo will create some level of sports lover package that will have the major sports networks, locals, TNT, RSNs, etc.  This was announced in the last week or so.  It was already hinted at when the merger occurred.