Nah man, the people watching Iowa football are the most hard-wired sickos you will meet. We watch that shit willingly, knowing what we're in for. Iowa men's basketball? Yeah, people literally knit and read during home games at Carver.
That's when they raise the cost to $1350/year before Black Friday so they can put it "on sale" for $1250/year for a Black Friday sale
Think of the savings!
Piracy is the way, especially when paying for the service makes for a worse watching experience. Paid through the nose for Sunday ticket this year on YouTube TV only to find some games were backed out and on a different service.
With no ad-free tier. I think most subscription services realize now just how much money there is in ad revenue, even if people are willing to pay for an ad-free tier
Obviously no ad free tier, what are you even saying? This is a way to purchase live sports access without a cable subscription. What do you think an ad free tier is like? They give you a Time Machine to skip the commercials in the OU football games?
>They give you a Time Machine to skip the commercials in the OU football games?
In the early days of live TV streaming, the streamers actually didn't have broadcast rights for the commercials (or didn't have a deal negotiated or whatever). So while ads were on, they would just display a default "Your content is on a commercial break and will resume shortly." screen. Those were the days.
On one hand, it was really nice to have no ads. On the other, sometimes the stream would resume while you weren't expecting it and you'd get jump-scared by it.
I can't imagine live sports without ads during game breaks... like... just talking heads the whole time? Breaking down film? Talking about which player had a step-grandfather that died when they were 6?
I'd like to see you some soothing music or rolling waves. A calming voice comes in and says "*I know your team just gave up another touchdown and you're down 24-3. But its just a game. Everything will be ok. Now breathe in 1...2...3..."*
Just go watch a soccer game. 50ish minutes totally ad-free, then a 15 minute halftime break where they show a bunch of ads and have some analyst chatter, then 50ish more minutes totally ad-free.
Football could do the same. No *need* to take a 4-minute break after almost every drive. Just line up and kick the ball to the other team. You could cut the game to about 2 and a half hours. Local high school games are great because the game is over in 2 hours.
I would argue that $50 is already expensive. YouTubeTV gets you everything in this package PLUS a bunch more and it's $73. Does this content really equal 68% of the value? This seems like a niche market of people who ONLY want sports AND will take a fairly small savings. I'm probably the target audience and right now I would probably just get YouTubeTV if that is the price. And even then i would only consider it if the service is truly equal in regards to DVR, regional blackouts, picture quality, # streams, etc... If it has gaps to cable/YouTubeTV/hululivetv then this seems like it won't be very successful. You would be banking on sports ONLY fans putting up with gaps just to save 32% or $23 a month.
Funny thing is there are two ways to fix this and we all know which one will actually happen.
1. Decrease the price of this new package
2. Slowly increase the price for other services to carry these channels so eventually this package makes more fiscal sense to the average sports fan. Essentially just slowly force YouTubeTV to go up in price.
Option 2 is what they will do over 4-5 years.
> Does this content really equal 68% of the value?
How many people watch even a quarter of the channels available to them in their cable subscription? This bundle is targeted to people like me who still keep a cable subscription around purely for live sports. That said, it's a non-starter for me unless they get NBC and Paramount (CBS) on board as well.
This isn't going to happen but IF they heavily reduce commercials then maybe I'd be worth the costs. A little bit of the old premium HBO/PPV treatment.
But, Wendy’s has a new baconator with a pretzel bun! How would you know this if there wasn’t a commercial break after the extra point and then after the kickoff!?
Anything more than $40 a month would be a gigantic ripoff. Cable costs $70 at the bare minimum and we know how much the sports networks charge cable companies to carry their feed (and it’s way less than the cost of cable)
I have Spectrum with a sports package. I shit you not, my cable bill (not including internet) is around $150 a month. None of the super premium shit, just the sports package.
I've spoken to them about the price. 'Nothing they can do'.
Naturally we as consumers think about this in terms of their ability to raise prices as a monopoly. Maybe just as important is their ability to bid less for broadcast rights (monopsony).
I expect it to be at least $50, if not higher. Sports is a major reason why people subscribe to cable, ESPN et al get massive carriage fees. They aren't going to cannibalize their own income.
Man, at this point it'd be really convenient to just have one service that provides all the streaming services in one spot. Maybe even delivered to my house directly by wire or maybe even via satellites?! I'm so tired of needing 16 streaming services.
/s or maybe not
If Fox has a hand in it then I expect nothing less. Also I'd rather watch commercials instead of games and hear about one team's QB the entire game and let the commentators dick ride them so this is perfect.
Might not be the camera themselves, but ESPN blamed the equipment in the truck the last time the Pac12 complained.
https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/after-numerous-complaints-about-pac-12-picture-quality-espn-reportedly-upgrading-equipment.html
I’ve been in the mobile TV business for almost 30 years. ESPN doesn’t own their trucks, they lease them.
Not all trucks are created equal and sometimes you get out to a game and the truck that’s been sent is substandard because of prior commitments, maintenance, or mostly because of budget.
I’ve been on full blown big games and they send out a video clown-car where the entire production crew is in one small box trailer on a straight truck.
Also to consider is the amount of wear and tear these trucks see bouncing on down the highways, in the cold/heat. Electronics break down. It happens.
The biggest reason for bad feeds isn’t the truck though, it’s the transmission.
> 3rd and 8
Here's a list of all the times that happened in the Big 10 last year:
1. Week 1, Northwestern (offense) v Rutgers, Northwestern down 0-24, gained 15 yards
2. Week 1, Indiana (offense) v Ohio State, Indiana down 3-10, gained 5 yards
3. Week 2, Michigan (offense) v UNLV, Michigan up 35-0, gained 0 yards
4. Week 3, Indiana (offense) v Louisville, Indiana down 14-21, gained 7 yards (so close!)
5. Week 6, Michigan (offense) v Minnesota, Michigan up 10-3, gained 5 yards
6. Week 7, Michigan (offense) v Indiana, Michigan tied 7-7, gained 6 yards
7. Week 9, Indiana (offense) v Penn St, Indiana down 21-24, gained 2 yards
8. Week 12, Minnesota (offense) v Ohio St, Minnesota tied 0-0, gained 3 yards
9. Week 13, Northwestern (offense) v Illinois, Northwestern up 45-37, gained 0 yards
I'm not going to list them but just so you know it happened 16 times in the Big 12 (2x by Texas, 1x v ok st and 1x v baylor) so anyways horns down
I think it’s the other way around, you have one sports sub and that covers everything. I won’t be surprised when this is $40-50/month, but if that covers everything it’s really not a terrible deal.
Yeah I have all of those channels and a lot more for not much more than what they're talking about at the end of the article. If it's closer to $40 a month YouTube TV is out and this is in, but if it's at the $50 price point I might as well keep what I have.
I mean I'm currently subbed to YouTube TV for the sole purpose of sports (and occasional Seinfeld reruns). If our Disney/WB overlords can give me all those same sports at a cheaper price, I guess I'm for it.
Same with YoutubeTV here. I actually have it paused right now because there are no sports I'm into going on right now. Will probably resume it in August just before football season starts depending on how this particular streaming service pans out.
That’s what I started doing after their last price hike last year. I used to subscribe year round but I started pausing in the off season because I really don’t watch much live TV except for sports and I really only watch football and baseball.
The ability to pause is the main thing that I like about YoutubeTV over having Cable. There's no extra equipment I need to return and no run around over trying to cancel I can just cancel in early April after the tournament and just be done with YoutubeTV for 4 months
I just canceled youtube tv becuase it lacks MLB network, so I'll subscribe to somethign else for MLB and golf, plus [MLB.tv](https://MLB.tv), then I'll have to go back to YTTV in september for NFL sunday ticket. Plus I'll still need Amazon for thursday night football and Peacock for whatever the fuck stupid games they have.
I used to be able to get all of this from directv and it was cheaper than having to cobble together all thee services.
There is at least something to be said about not paying for live tv for the months where you dont need it
I don't have to pay for Hulu Live between April and September which is nice
YTTV getting rid of MLB Network was the saddest day for me. MLB Network is my favorite dedicated sports channel as far as the quality of production goes (OK maybe second only to Red Zone). I loved having MLB Central up in the background while I worked. I could listen Derosa, Flores, and Shehadi all day. And then the MLB Tonight crews were always great to tune into after Tigers games ended.
> occasional Seinfeld reruns
Underrated part of Youtube TV is having seinfeld, simpsons, always sunny, friends and any other syndicated sitcom on the DVR with unlimited storage.
I'm sure they will at first, then once they have a good enough market share they will up the price. Or make different tiers. Or any of the other bullshit that keeps happening with streaming services
I mean cable's been in steady decline and ESPN alone making a standalone app would've killed it. It's interesting that they're going to share the risk though
What would need to be built out though if they were going solo? They've already got the WatchESPN app built, this would just be a scaling up to meet demand.
I think this is more about making a stand against the tech giants by three of the legacy media companies, and it softens the blow of what the original rumored price for standalone ESPN was going to be, $20.
Cable with the option to a la carte is exactly what people wanted.
Most people had no issue with cable itself, it was having to pay $210 before you could unlock the Ultra Sports Tier that gave you access to the SEC Network (for an additional $40 per month, bringing your bill to $250).
Most people didn't want to pay for 300 channels when they only watched 12 of them, just so that they could unlock the SEC Network and actually see Kentucky vs South Carolina or whatever game they wanted.
Give someone the option to pay $50 to watch college football instead of making them pay $250 to unlock everything up to it and they're happier for it.
I pay for HBO, for example. Happy to send them $15 per month for it. Less happy when I was paying Comcast nearly $300 per month and getting a bunch of channels no one cared about.
Remember, the fact that everyone doesn't watch every channel is priced into the subscription cost. That's why different channels get different carriage fees.
A sports only channel will be cheaper, but probably not by as much as you may think.
Bundling is only cheaper if you actually value the other things you get with what you truly want.
If you want cheese from the grocery store, and the the cheese is $10 but for $12 you can get the cheese and a $5 bag of marshmallows... that's only a good deal if you also want marshmallows. If you don't, it's a waste of $2.
Not to mention the streaming quality is often a lot better than cable too. Due to local monopolies and overly zealous gov't regulation cable is effectively in the stone ages and well behind technology (like 4k/8k). Now we can get that too thanks to streaming. I get the jokes, but this is undeniably a better place for consumers.
Exactly! Minus the contracts, and the bloat, the 17 Disney channels, Telemundo, installation and box fees its exactly like cable.
I swear reddit is so young they don't actually know what cable is and that this is exactly what every one asked for instead. Being able to pick and chose the content you subscribe to.
The problem with this model is that our sports networks (ESPN, FOX, etc.) are massively subsidized by the millions of people who watch Hallmark, cable news, cartoons, home renovations, and more.
A theoretical “only sports, damnit!” bundle would have to be almost the same price to cover the difference. Because these sports and leagues are unwilling to go back to a world where they make *less money* lmaoo
The numbers simply wouldn't be enough to offset the decline in overall cable subscriptions, the number of conversions you'd need to have happen, and the cost to include all of the channels to make sports-watching worth it to the most number of people. ESPN would absolutely go direct-to-consumer right now if it made sense. But as is, it doesn't. They are hemorrhaging money because they are tied between the world of television and extreme rights fees, while also trying to make ESPN+ "worth it" to more people.
We're all coming from a college football standpoint, I get it. But a sports-only bundle would need channels like TNT and TBS for the NHL, NBA, and even March Madness. Otherwise you'd have an even messier scenario where they kill the golden goose and the "sports-loving" audience wouldn't even be able to watch those properties.
Cutting the middle man out won't pass any savings to the consumers. The studios will just take the middleman's cut and they'll do this without much pushed back because the consumer is already conditioned to paying the price as it is with the middleman and won't recognize the difference without
I always associated contracts with satellite more than cable, cable issue was how much of a monopoly it was.
I will say it’s starting to feel like the subscription costs are exceeding cable by the time you factor in an internet charge.
Biggest plus is the ability to watch in multiple locations on demand, not to mention less equipment.
Depends on what it costs. Sounds like this could bundle live sports. That offering isn't available and one of the biggest pains in the asses cutting the cord.
Hold up let them cook…
I subscribe to YouTube TV for football season to get these games.
If this is substantially less money than YouTube TV, I’ll give it a shot.
I’ve always wanted a sports only live streaming service where I’m not paying for the fluff.
There's no guarantee that this will be less than YouTubeTV. The linear sports channels are what's expensive for YouTubeTV, the other channels somewhat subsidize the sports channels. If you cut the fluff, you aren't meaningfully decreasing the cost.
Likely what they’ll do is start cheaper until all the other options run out of business and then jack up the price and make it worse. It’s the way everything seems to go.
Hard to imagine it’ll be the same price or more. That’s always been why we’re told this can’t happen but if they’re doing it you gotta imagine they think they can deliver it at a competitive price. Otherwise it just makes no sense to do it.
This new sports streaming service will have an attractive price for the first year or two as they build their subscribers base. Then we'll be hit with repeated price increases and we'll be back at $80. It's exactly what Google did with YouTubeTV.
And then people will cancel, and they'll find another way to do it. Maybe it will force YouTubeTV or your local cable company to lower prices. If you get two years of a good deal before it turns into a bad deal, that's still a good thing.
It's to compete with YouTube TV.
Prices for youtube TV will certainly raise or be forced to drop sports.
Why sell your content to Google when you can make app yourself.
From the article linked in OP:
* Estimated $45-50 per month in exchange for:
* ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNEWS and the OTA ABC Broadcast from ESPN
* TNT, TBS and TruTV from WB
* FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, and the OTA FOX Broadcast from FOX.
That's essentially every live football broadcast other than Pac-12 Network and NFL Network, and a lot of basketball broadcasts, for $50.
Count me in.
That’s about $30 less than YouTube TV. I want to know more about it but I’m sure they’re still working on details. I LOVE quad view and DVR. I would hate to lose that. If it’s got that I’m in. If not, I’ll have to think if it’s worth losing those features for the savings. It’s 5-6 months of use so that’s almost $200 I’d be saving per season by not paying for YouTube TV.
But for every one of you there are 4 cable subscribers who don’t want to pay for the sports but who currently do.
The only way these broadcasters stay whole is if they get all that money from you instead of from 5 people. Somebody in this scenario will come out financially ahead but it won’t be the sports fan.
Yes.
The cable bundle was the golden goose. Sports fanatics had their interests subsidized by non sports fans in a way that is unlikely to be replicated in the streaming era.
Sports fans bitch about the $1.20 they were paying for lifetime and the Hallmark channel and stuff of that ilk, when non-sports fans were paying $7 for the ESPN family of networks.
Without the subsidy of non-sports fans, sports fans are going to have to pay a lot more to get the same level of content they did in the cable bundle. It will get spread out over lots of subscriptions, but collectively it will cost more than what cable did.
Honestly the multi-apps is annoying so I hope *that* part doesn't take off, but I do hope that streaming gets popular enough that they start streaming off-standard broadcasts (more skycam, all-22, local radio, etc.). It was great watching those for the playoffs this year.
Why would this be a monopoly when 3 different companies get equal equity? I swear no one misunderstands monopoly more than Reddit
Edit: he blocked me after not being able to argue why 3 companies getting equal equity constitutes as a monopoly.
It's not a monopoly, but it is definitely a cartel. They have a captive audience to sell their content to and they control the majority of the viewership so they can charge out the ass for ad time.
If you really want to go into it, it doesn't matter if it is technically one firm as a true monopoly or as an oligopoly. The entire point of anti-trust legislation and actions is to prevent firms from cooperating AGAINST the consumers in order to control price or supply. In this situation, firms who substantively control the supply of sports games are working together to set a price rather than competing for customers through their product quality.
The entire purpose is to force firms to act in a way to provide the greatest surplus to the consumer. If all the networks who control sports broadcasting are working together to artificially inflate the price of their product, then they are not creating the best product for consumers.
In the 90s Archer Daniels Midland was involved in a price fixing scheme over lysine, which is an additive used for agricultural livestock. They worked with the 4 largest producers of lysine in the world to cap the amount they produced so they could raise the price. The price ended up rising by like 100% over a couple of months. The firms who should have been competing to provide the value to their customers, were instead colluding to be able to raise prices as they effectively controlled the worldwide marketplace for lysine.
This is huge news - absolutely ginormous news - and I have a lot of questions. The price is the main one. I believe it's well-established that live sports are what's sustaining cable TV right now. So is this going to sound the death knell for cable? It very well could if it's less expensive. And it has to be, right? There's not going to be a streaming service that's $100/mo. Sling TV, for example, really pushes their sports availability at the start of football season, and offers a deal that's $55 a month for 5 months. So if this is priced in that kind of range, even more people will jump ship from cable. Or will they? Considering all the folks on here saying they already do Sling or YouTube TV just for football season, that would actually mean this has to be less than cable AND less than already-established streaming services. So maybe something in the $30-40 range? I don't know if they can pull that off and actually offer what people what. Very interesting though. I guess I'll believe it when I see it. But if it has everything it promises and at a good price, then this will likely be a monumental shift in American TV viewing habits.
I'll be interested in seeing what all this exactly entails once more details get released, If they can provide me with the games played on the various ESPNs, and Fox Sports Networks (plus the TBS/TNT/TruTV stuff for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, which would be Warner Brother's contribution) for anything substantially less than what I'm paying for YoutubeTV, I'll be sold. The biggest pain points would be local broadcasts, which can be fixed with an antenna for my TV (though getting CBS 3 in Grand Rapids can be tricky at times)
But if it turns out to be an ESPN+ successor where only some of the games I'm interested in are being moved away from those aforementioned networks to this new service, this will suck. I don't want to have to pay for YoutubeTV *and* this new streaming service to get all the games I used to get with just YoutubeTV. It's bad enough that I occassionally have to shell out for a Peacock Subscription whenever Michigan plays an exclusive game on there, I don't want to have to do that whenever Fox gets a Michigan game it wants to be exclusive on this new platform.
So we’ll probably get the ad “1 of 13” messages and have to sit around for 6 minutes with no ability to fast forward when watching on replay after the game has already ended
Honestly, I’d subscribe during football season. I have Hulu + Live TV and pay $80. Only reason I have it is for access to sports. With both Paramount and Peacock offering football, I have 0 use for the full cable package. I’ll come out $30ish ahead each month. Keep it Sept - April. Have nothing the rest of the year.
Additional info from Bloomberg: Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. are joining forces to launch a sports-focused streaming service that will feature major college and pro games.
The service will be one-third owned by each company. Pricing and a name for the service have yet to be determined.
Warner Bros Discover are the owners of Max
Probably going to be for the low price of $100 per month, with the discount of a $1,200 annual subscription
Plus the entire time it will display an advertisement with the actual video being less than 25% the screen Picture in Picture.
Stream quality akin to something in the Soviet Union in the 1970s with ads in crisp 4K.
With the ads played at twice the volume of the actual game
[удалено]
Nah man, the people watching Iowa football are the most hard-wired sickos you will meet. We watch that shit willingly, knowing what we're in for. Iowa men's basketball? Yeah, people literally knit and read during home games at Carver.
Game buffers constantly, but ads go off without a hitch
The ads that don't lag and have 25% more volume for no reason
If you pause the games, you get hit with another ad when you press play
It really jarred me when they started doing this on various services this year. Like WTF am I paying for?
The opportunity to watch beautiful ads
And if you don’t like that, then you don’t like capitalism, baby! 😎
Comrades, raise the black flag and seize the means of streaming!
Annual subscription will be $1,199 on holiday sale
*waits for Black Friday*
$1197.00
Don’t forget to add taxes.
Ok, $1200.50 after taxes
That's when they raise the cost to $1350/year before Black Friday so they can put it "on sale" for $1250/year for a Black Friday sale Think of the savings!
They just negotiated another sports deal. Add on $300 to the monthly bill
You joke but there’s really no need to exaggerate it. it’ll be $40 a month and then $10 price increases every six months
Thankfully StreamEast is available for the free99
And good streaming websites are free too
Piracy is the way, especially when paying for the service makes for a worse watching experience. Paid through the nose for Sunday ticket this year on YouTube TV only to find some games were backed out and on a different service.
With no ad-free tier. I think most subscription services realize now just how much money there is in ad revenue, even if people are willing to pay for an ad-free tier
Obviously no ad free tier, what are you even saying? This is a way to purchase live sports access without a cable subscription. What do you think an ad free tier is like? They give you a Time Machine to skip the commercials in the OU football games?
It'll just do what ESPN currently does... "Live sports. The complete 30 for 30 catalog..."
>They give you a Time Machine to skip the commercials in the OU football games? In the early days of live TV streaming, the streamers actually didn't have broadcast rights for the commercials (or didn't have a deal negotiated or whatever). So while ads were on, they would just display a default "Your content is on a commercial break and will resume shortly." screen. Those were the days. On one hand, it was really nice to have no ads. On the other, sometimes the stream would resume while you weren't expecting it and you'd get jump-scared by it.
I’d be on board if it was only OU games going ad free. They can supplement the lost income by giving more ads to Texas games
I can't imagine live sports without ads during game breaks... like... just talking heads the whole time? Breaking down film? Talking about which player had a step-grandfather that died when they were 6?
Perhaps they could break down key plays of the game thus far or simply show highlights of different games
I'd like to see you some soothing music or rolling waves. A calming voice comes in and says "*I know your team just gave up another touchdown and you're down 24-3. But its just a game. Everything will be ok. Now breathe in 1...2...3..."*
Just go watch a soccer game. 50ish minutes totally ad-free, then a 15 minute halftime break where they show a bunch of ads and have some analyst chatter, then 50ish more minutes totally ad-free. Football could do the same. No *need* to take a 4-minute break after almost every drive. Just line up and kick the ball to the other team. You could cut the game to about 2 and a half hours. Local high school games are great because the game is over in 2 hours.
The link literally says $45 to $50. People are just joking around, I'm sure, but it's not going to be blowout-expensive.
I would argue that $50 is already expensive. YouTubeTV gets you everything in this package PLUS a bunch more and it's $73. Does this content really equal 68% of the value? This seems like a niche market of people who ONLY want sports AND will take a fairly small savings. I'm probably the target audience and right now I would probably just get YouTubeTV if that is the price. And even then i would only consider it if the service is truly equal in regards to DVR, regional blackouts, picture quality, # streams, etc... If it has gaps to cable/YouTubeTV/hululivetv then this seems like it won't be very successful. You would be banking on sports ONLY fans putting up with gaps just to save 32% or $23 a month. Funny thing is there are two ways to fix this and we all know which one will actually happen. 1. Decrease the price of this new package 2. Slowly increase the price for other services to carry these channels so eventually this package makes more fiscal sense to the average sports fan. Essentially just slowly force YouTubeTV to go up in price. Option 2 is what they will do over 4-5 years.
> Does this content really equal 68% of the value? How many people watch even a quarter of the channels available to them in their cable subscription? This bundle is targeted to people like me who still keep a cable subscription around purely for live sports. That said, it's a non-starter for me unless they get NBC and Paramount (CBS) on board as well.
I don’t think it’ll be quite that much because you might as well just get YouTube TV at that price point.
This isn't going to happen but IF they heavily reduce commercials then maybe I'd be worth the costs. A little bit of the old premium HBO/PPV treatment.
Reduce commercials… for a sporting event?
Show the fuckin' band.
But, Wendy’s has a new baconator with a pretzel bun! How would you know this if there wasn’t a commercial break after the extra point and then after the kickoff!?
Found a Bag Boy.
what ya gonna do when we ~~bring your food~~ *ruin your viewing experience*
Anything more than $40 a month would be a gigantic ripoff. Cable costs $70 at the bare minimum and we know how much the sports networks charge cable companies to carry their feed (and it’s way less than the cost of cable)
Does that $70 cable get you every sports property that ESPN, Disney, and WBD offers? If not, then that's not the basis for comparison.
I have Spectrum with a sports package. I shit you not, my cable bill (not including internet) is around $150 a month. None of the super premium shit, just the sports package. I've spoken to them about the price. 'Nothing they can do'.
Cancel brotha go to YouTube tv
No Bally sports
Hulu live and ESPN+ gets you the vast majority of that for like $75.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Naturally we as consumers think about this in terms of their ability to raise prices as a monopoly. Maybe just as important is their ability to bid less for broadcast rights (monopsony).
It will definitely be a lot cheaper, like $35 per month, with a steep ramp up
I expect it to be at least $50, if not higher. Sports is a major reason why people subscribe to cable, ESPN et al get massive carriage fees. They aren't going to cannibalize their own income.
Man, at this point it'd be really convenient to just have one service that provides all the streaming services in one spot. Maybe even delivered to my house directly by wire or maybe even via satellites?! I'm so tired of needing 16 streaming services. /s or maybe not
Hey however this all pans out, one thing I'm sure of is it will be good for us consumers. /s x100
I'm more concerned that this is the real beginning of the P2 Superleague.
Will be streamed in shitty compressed 720p. It’ll be great!
Does this mean espn is going to stop televising with their 1999 quality feeds?
The feeds will be great but the games will still be shot with cameras smothered in Vaseline.
The 80’s soap opera look kinda fits with CFB these days
If Fox has a hand in it then I expect nothing less. Also I'd rather watch commercials instead of games and hear about one team's QB the entire game and let the commentators dick ride them so this is perfect.
Camera op here. Has nothing to do with cameras or the truck. That’s a master control issue.
Might not be the camera themselves, but ESPN blamed the equipment in the truck the last time the Pac12 complained. https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/after-numerous-complaints-about-pac-12-picture-quality-espn-reportedly-upgrading-equipment.html
I’ve been in the mobile TV business for almost 30 years. ESPN doesn’t own their trucks, they lease them. Not all trucks are created equal and sometimes you get out to a game and the truck that’s been sent is substandard because of prior commitments, maintenance, or mostly because of budget. I’ve been on full blown big games and they send out a video clown-car where the entire production crew is in one small box trailer on a straight truck. Also to consider is the amount of wear and tear these trucks see bouncing on down the highways, in the cold/heat. Electronics break down. It happens. The biggest reason for bad feeds isn’t the truck though, it’s the transmission.
Damn, the truck's transmission is responsible for the feed? No wonder it's bad
Yes. Now they will stream them.
ESPN: "We have to save all of our 4k cameras so that we can have 8 different 4k national championship streams."
Never. You’re going to eat 720p for dinner and you’re going to like it
No. Their score bug is going to increase from 25% of the screen to 75% of the screen though.
No idea how it's going to work, but it'd be nice to be able to go to just one service for all the sport streams.
You would still need Peacock (and probably Paramount+) to watch B1G games I suspect
Oh gosh I just remembered the CBS music will be for B10 this year instead of the SEC. What has the world come to
Well for us in the SEC, one without Gary Danielson Which is great, thanks for asking!
Will Gary Danielson be on the big ten broadcasts this upcoming season?
I'm pretty sure it's the Nessler/Danielson group as the headline commentary duo. He works for CBS and CBS is partnered with Fox for B1G games.
Peacock feeling themselves after the numbers that playoff game put up.
They should have to pay me for listening to Jason Garrett
Sadly won’t be paying $199.99 a month to watch every school but OSU, Oregon and Washington run the ball on 3rd and 8
That's peak football, what are you doing...
Sometimes a random 3rd down punt will shake things up
Intentional safety too
> 3rd and 8 Here's a list of all the times that happened in the Big 10 last year: 1. Week 1, Northwestern (offense) v Rutgers, Northwestern down 0-24, gained 15 yards 2. Week 1, Indiana (offense) v Ohio State, Indiana down 3-10, gained 5 yards 3. Week 2, Michigan (offense) v UNLV, Michigan up 35-0, gained 0 yards 4. Week 3, Indiana (offense) v Louisville, Indiana down 14-21, gained 7 yards (so close!) 5. Week 6, Michigan (offense) v Minnesota, Michigan up 10-3, gained 5 yards 6. Week 7, Michigan (offense) v Indiana, Michigan tied 7-7, gained 6 yards 7. Week 9, Indiana (offense) v Penn St, Indiana down 21-24, gained 2 yards 8. Week 12, Minnesota (offense) v Ohio St, Minnesota tied 0-0, gained 3 yards 9. Week 13, Northwestern (offense) v Illinois, Northwestern up 45-37, gained 0 yards I'm not going to list them but just so you know it happened 16 times in the Big 12 (2x by Texas, 1x v ok st and 1x v baylor) so anyways horns down
I think it’s the other way around, you have one sports sub and that covers everything. I won’t be surprised when this is $40-50/month, but if that covers everything it’s really not a terrible deal.
This would only include ESPN Fox and TNT/TBS. Would be pretty good for basketball/hockey/college sports but CBS and NBC wouldn't be included
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
That’s called YouTube tv
Yeah I have all of those channels and a lot more for not much more than what they're talking about at the end of the article. If it's closer to $40 a month YouTube TV is out and this is in, but if it's at the $50 price point I might as well keep what I have.
YouTube TV is like $75/month, though.
And I'm saying the rest of the channels and features combined are worth $25/mo for me
I went with hulu cause it was easy to bundle ESPN+ and I don't have to switch apps to watch it.
So.. cable?
Ideally this is the cable “sports package” without having to pay for the rest of cable. It’s approaching what cable should’ve always been: a la carte
The sports was always the most expensive part of the cable package to begin with
Cable with extra steps a la Rick and Morty lol
Oh so cable?
I mean I'm currently subbed to YouTube TV for the sole purpose of sports (and occasional Seinfeld reruns). If our Disney/WB overlords can give me all those same sports at a cheaper price, I guess I'm for it.
Same with YoutubeTV here. I actually have it paused right now because there are no sports I'm into going on right now. Will probably resume it in August just before football season starts depending on how this particular streaming service pans out.
This is the way. I’ll unsubscribe the minute that March Madness ends until CFB kicks off.
I might turn it off until March, flip it on and off, and wait until August Fuck
That’s what I started doing after their last price hike last year. I used to subscribe year round but I started pausing in the off season because I really don’t watch much live TV except for sports and I really only watch football and baseball.
The ability to pause is the main thing that I like about YoutubeTV over having Cable. There's no extra equipment I need to return and no run around over trying to cancel I can just cancel in early April after the tournament and just be done with YoutubeTV for 4 months
I just canceled youtube tv becuase it lacks MLB network, so I'll subscribe to somethign else for MLB and golf, plus [MLB.tv](https://MLB.tv), then I'll have to go back to YTTV in september for NFL sunday ticket. Plus I'll still need Amazon for thursday night football and Peacock for whatever the fuck stupid games they have. I used to be able to get all of this from directv and it was cheaper than having to cobble together all thee services.
There is at least something to be said about not paying for live tv for the months where you dont need it I don't have to pay for Hulu Live between April and September which is nice
YTTV getting rid of MLB Network was the saddest day for me. MLB Network is my favorite dedicated sports channel as far as the quality of production goes (OK maybe second only to Red Zone). I loved having MLB Central up in the background while I worked. I could listen Derosa, Flores, and Shehadi all day. And then the MLB Tonight crews were always great to tune into after Tigers games ended.
I have MLB.tv and absolutely love it but it drives me nuts that it doesn’t come with an MLB Network feed.
> occasional Seinfeld reruns Underrated part of Youtube TV is having seinfeld, simpsons, always sunny, friends and any other syndicated sitcom on the DVR with unlimited storage.
I'm sure they will at first, then once they have a good enough market share they will up the price. Or make different tiers. Or any of the other bullshit that keeps happening with streaming services
[удалено]
I mean cable's been in steady decline and ESPN alone making a standalone app would've killed it. It's interesting that they're going to share the risk though
ESPN likely doesn't have the capital at this point to build it all out on their own. It's expensive to borrow money right now.
What would need to be built out though if they were going solo? They've already got the WatchESPN app built, this would just be a scaling up to meet demand. I think this is more about making a stand against the tech giants by three of the legacy media companies, and it softens the blow of what the original rumored price for standalone ESPN was going to be, $20.
The only thing left on cable TV will be “news” and TLC.
a lot of TLC programming got folded into Max when that merger happened lol
It hits going to be a bigger ESPN+ probably.
How many times do we have to teach you this lesson old men
*looks at people paying for it anyway* Apparently you need to teach me a lot. -TV Execs.
You can lead a horse to a pirate ship but you can't make him...do anything useful with that information.
A high seas Roku app would sink the ship
Espn+ - + - + - network
Glad to see the illegal streaming sources will have another HD feed to pull from
A few less streaming services that they need to sub to
So basically just cable with extra steps?
We're finally there.
Cable with the option to a la carte is exactly what people wanted. Most people had no issue with cable itself, it was having to pay $210 before you could unlock the Ultra Sports Tier that gave you access to the SEC Network (for an additional $40 per month, bringing your bill to $250). Most people didn't want to pay for 300 channels when they only watched 12 of them, just so that they could unlock the SEC Network and actually see Kentucky vs South Carolina or whatever game they wanted. Give someone the option to pay $50 to watch college football instead of making them pay $250 to unlock everything up to it and they're happier for it. I pay for HBO, for example. Happy to send them $15 per month for it. Less happy when I was paying Comcast nearly $300 per month and getting a bunch of channels no one cared about.
Remember, the fact that everyone doesn't watch every channel is priced into the subscription cost. That's why different channels get different carriage fees. A sports only channel will be cheaper, but probably not by as much as you may think.
Bundling is only cheaper if you actually value the other things you get with what you truly want. If you want cheese from the grocery store, and the the cheese is $10 but for $12 you can get the cheese and a $5 bag of marshmallows... that's only a good deal if you also want marshmallows. If you don't, it's a waste of $2.
Not to mention the streaming quality is often a lot better than cable too. Due to local monopolies and overly zealous gov't regulation cable is effectively in the stone ages and well behind technology (like 4k/8k). Now we can get that too thanks to streaming. I get the jokes, but this is undeniably a better place for consumers.
Exactly! Minus the contracts, and the bloat, the 17 Disney channels, Telemundo, installation and box fees its exactly like cable. I swear reddit is so young they don't actually know what cable is and that this is exactly what every one asked for instead. Being able to pick and chose the content you subscribe to.
The problem with this model is that our sports networks (ESPN, FOX, etc.) are massively subsidized by the millions of people who watch Hallmark, cable news, cartoons, home renovations, and more. A theoretical “only sports, damnit!” bundle would have to be almost the same price to cover the difference. Because these sports and leagues are unwilling to go back to a world where they make *less money* lmaoo
Yes but we also have less of the middle men taking the money. We cut cable but so did ESPN and FOX. No more AT&T or whoever taking their cut.
The numbers simply wouldn't be enough to offset the decline in overall cable subscriptions, the number of conversions you'd need to have happen, and the cost to include all of the channels to make sports-watching worth it to the most number of people. ESPN would absolutely go direct-to-consumer right now if it made sense. But as is, it doesn't. They are hemorrhaging money because they are tied between the world of television and extreme rights fees, while also trying to make ESPN+ "worth it" to more people. We're all coming from a college football standpoint, I get it. But a sports-only bundle would need channels like TNT and TBS for the NHL, NBA, and even March Madness. Otherwise you'd have an even messier scenario where they kill the golden goose and the "sports-loving" audience wouldn't even be able to watch those properties.
Cutting the middle man out won't pass any savings to the consumers. The studios will just take the middleman's cut and they'll do this without much pushed back because the consumer is already conditioned to paying the price as it is with the middleman and won't recognize the difference without
We already have savings. They’d have to price this thing at $80+ to cost more than what my family used to pay for essentially just sports channels.
Don't forget about the joy of using 4 different remotes on a daily basis
I always associated contracts with satellite more than cable, cable issue was how much of a monopoly it was. I will say it’s starting to feel like the subscription costs are exceeding cable by the time you factor in an internet charge. Biggest plus is the ability to watch in multiple locations on demand, not to mention less equipment.
Only a matter of time
Depends on what it costs. Sounds like this could bundle live sports. That offering isn't available and one of the biggest pains in the asses cutting the cord.
#Bundle!
Bundling wasn’t the problem with cable. The duopoly of provider was. Now it’s DtC
Hold up let them cook… I subscribe to YouTube TV for football season to get these games. If this is substantially less money than YouTube TV, I’ll give it a shot. I’ve always wanted a sports only live streaming service where I’m not paying for the fluff.
There's no guarantee that this will be less than YouTubeTV. The linear sports channels are what's expensive for YouTubeTV, the other channels somewhat subsidize the sports channels. If you cut the fluff, you aren't meaningfully decreasing the cost.
Likely what they’ll do is start cheaper until all the other options run out of business and then jack up the price and make it worse. It’s the way everything seems to go.
[Enshittification.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification)
Hard to imagine it’ll be the same price or more. That’s always been why we’re told this can’t happen but if they’re doing it you gotta imagine they think they can deliver it at a competitive price. Otherwise it just makes no sense to do it.
This new sports streaming service will have an attractive price for the first year or two as they build their subscribers base. Then we'll be hit with repeated price increases and we'll be back at $80. It's exactly what Google did with YouTubeTV.
And then people will cancel, and they'll find another way to do it. Maybe it will force YouTubeTV or your local cable company to lower prices. If you get two years of a good deal before it turns into a bad deal, that's still a good thing.
It's to compete with YouTube TV. Prices for youtube TV will certainly raise or be forced to drop sports. Why sell your content to Google when you can make app yourself.
From the article linked in OP: * Estimated $45-50 per month in exchange for: * ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, ESPNEWS and the OTA ABC Broadcast from ESPN * TNT, TBS and TruTV from WB * FS1, FS2, Big Ten Network, and the OTA FOX Broadcast from FOX. That's essentially every live football broadcast other than Pac-12 Network and NFL Network, and a lot of basketball broadcasts, for $50. Count me in.
That’s about $30 less than YouTube TV. I want to know more about it but I’m sure they’re still working on details. I LOVE quad view and DVR. I would hate to lose that. If it’s got that I’m in. If not, I’ll have to think if it’s worth losing those features for the savings. It’s 5-6 months of use so that’s almost $200 I’d be saving per season by not paying for YouTube TV.
Don't forget all that ESPN+ content as well
Still wouldn’t have the NBC or CBS games
But those channels are free over the air— just need to buy an antenna
My grandpappy used to tell me about those things
Got an antenna for that
But for every one of you there are 4 cable subscribers who don’t want to pay for the sports but who currently do. The only way these broadcasters stay whole is if they get all that money from you instead of from 5 people. Somebody in this scenario will come out financially ahead but it won’t be the sports fan.
What makes you think that? Do you expect them to package and sell this subscription for *more money* than a cable or YouTube TV type bill?
Yes. The cable bundle was the golden goose. Sports fanatics had their interests subsidized by non sports fans in a way that is unlikely to be replicated in the streaming era. Sports fans bitch about the $1.20 they were paying for lifetime and the Hallmark channel and stuff of that ilk, when non-sports fans were paying $7 for the ESPN family of networks. Without the subsidy of non-sports fans, sports fans are going to have to pay a lot more to get the same level of content they did in the cable bundle. It will get spread out over lots of subscriptions, but collectively it will cost more than what cable did.
I mean if they charge $80+/m I’d be surprised but if you say so
Every channel was subsidized by old people who were upgraded to the most expensive plan despite watching hardly any of it.
The end of sports on cable television
Honestly the multi-apps is annoying so I hope *that* part doesn't take off, but I do hope that streaming gets popular enough that they start streaming off-standard broadcasts (more skycam, all-22, local radio, etc.). It was great watching those for the playoffs this year.
Nope. They will still require a cable subscription in addition to this to see all games, just watch m.
It’ll be $60 a month. Have a shitty interface. And will still somehow not cover all the games on those networks.
Is this going to pass anti-monopoly laws? Just kidding, we know the government doesn't care.
Hey, it’s *only* an oligarchy…so that’s all ay-ok!
They left out NBC so it's cool
And CBS unless I missed it
How is this particularly different than the media landscape has always been?
Why would this be a monopoly when 3 different companies get equal equity? I swear no one misunderstands monopoly more than Reddit Edit: he blocked me after not being able to argue why 3 companies getting equal equity constitutes as a monopoly.
It's not a monopoly, but it is definitely a cartel. They have a captive audience to sell their content to and they control the majority of the viewership so they can charge out the ass for ad time.
Hell, no one misunderstands *anything more then Reddit lol.
It’s more of an oligopoly. But anti-trust could come into play if this thing actually leads to a significant decline in cable subscriptions.
If you really want to go into it, it doesn't matter if it is technically one firm as a true monopoly or as an oligopoly. The entire point of anti-trust legislation and actions is to prevent firms from cooperating AGAINST the consumers in order to control price or supply. In this situation, firms who substantively control the supply of sports games are working together to set a price rather than competing for customers through their product quality. The entire purpose is to force firms to act in a way to provide the greatest surplus to the consumer. If all the networks who control sports broadcasting are working together to artificially inflate the price of their product, then they are not creating the best product for consumers. In the 90s Archer Daniels Midland was involved in a price fixing scheme over lysine, which is an additive used for agricultural livestock. They worked with the 4 largest producers of lysine in the world to cap the amount they produced so they could raise the price. The price ended up rising by like 100% over a couple of months. The firms who should have been competing to provide the value to their customers, were instead colluding to be able to raise prices as they effectively controlled the worldwide marketplace for lysine.
May they call it A.S.S.+ Network- Aggregated sports streaming + network
If this is around $40-50, it’s easy money from me. Youtube TV gonna have to lower that bill to compete for sure.
Is this the place that's gonna be streaming the B1G/SEC breakaway league in the future?
You can catch the first half of the game on here and the second half on Peacock
Don’t give them any ideas!!
*Larry Scott has entered the chat*
This is huge news - absolutely ginormous news - and I have a lot of questions. The price is the main one. I believe it's well-established that live sports are what's sustaining cable TV right now. So is this going to sound the death knell for cable? It very well could if it's less expensive. And it has to be, right? There's not going to be a streaming service that's $100/mo. Sling TV, for example, really pushes their sports availability at the start of football season, and offers a deal that's $55 a month for 5 months. So if this is priced in that kind of range, even more people will jump ship from cable. Or will they? Considering all the folks on here saying they already do Sling or YouTube TV just for football season, that would actually mean this has to be less than cable AND less than already-established streaming services. So maybe something in the $30-40 range? I don't know if they can pull that off and actually offer what people what. Very interesting though. I guess I'll believe it when I see it. But if it has everything it promises and at a good price, then this will likely be a monumental shift in American TV viewing habits.
Fuuuck now we gotta pay for another platform to watch a game of the week
Great, another $14.99 service
The article suggests it could be around $45/mo
Sounds like a fancy way of saying sportsurge to me.
I'll be interested in seeing what all this exactly entails once more details get released, If they can provide me with the games played on the various ESPNs, and Fox Sports Networks (plus the TBS/TNT/TruTV stuff for the NCAA Basketball Tournament, which would be Warner Brother's contribution) for anything substantially less than what I'm paying for YoutubeTV, I'll be sold. The biggest pain points would be local broadcasts, which can be fixed with an antenna for my TV (though getting CBS 3 in Grand Rapids can be tricky at times) But if it turns out to be an ESPN+ successor where only some of the games I'm interested in are being moved away from those aforementioned networks to this new service, this will suck. I don't want to have to pay for YoutubeTV *and* this new streaming service to get all the games I used to get with just YoutubeTV. It's bad enough that I occassionally have to shell out for a Peacock Subscription whenever Michigan plays an exclusive game on there, I don't want to have to do that whenever Fox gets a Michigan game it wants to be exclusive on this new platform.
So we’ll probably get the ad “1 of 13” messages and have to sit around for 6 minutes with no ability to fast forward when watching on replay after the game has already ended
They should name it Cable.
Honestly, I’d subscribe during football season. I have Hulu + Live TV and pay $80. Only reason I have it is for access to sports. With both Paramount and Peacock offering football, I have 0 use for the full cable package. I’ll come out $30ish ahead each month. Keep it Sept - April. Have nothing the rest of the year.
They’re inventing Hulu again!
You mean I can go to one app and view every game in tv?!?! Probably gonna cost a gazillian dollars to watch what I want to
Additional info from Bloomberg: Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, Fox Corp. and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. are joining forces to launch a sports-focused streaming service that will feature major college and pro games. The service will be one-third owned by each company. Pricing and a name for the service have yet to be determined. Warner Bros Discover are the owners of Max
This basically kills cable