Posted on 09/14/2023 6:58:12 AM PDT by TNoldman
I want to Stream College Football from just a single source.
I've got Disney+ Bundle, Espn via Slingtv, ABC,CBS,NBC,Peacock, Slingtv Sports add on, etc. $70/mo.
My Xfinity Internet @100mbs is $25/mo.
Just to get Mi,In,Fl,Ga, Tn,ND,Oh,Al !!!!!!
Years ago, football games took about 3 hours to play. In recent years, it seems they take about 3 1/2 hours to play.
I’m sure the difference is additional commercials.
It seems that they have commercials after every scoring play, then they come back for the kickoff, then go to a commercial right after the kickoff, before they run a single play from scrimmage. It interrupts the flow of the game.
Correction. The playoffs were created because of Bama fatigue. Bama won 3 of the prior 4 (2009, 11, and 12) to get the ball rolling (pun intended) for 2013 to be the last year of the BCS before implementing the playoff. And funny enough, that one year Bama didn't win it (2010) the other team from the state did (Auburn) to give the state of Alabama 4 natties in a row. For a while I was beginning to wonder if the rest of the country took their football seriously.
Everything has its limits, and the end of the $$$$ bonanza for sports is fast approaching imho. The contracts some of these athletes and coaches are getting are just incomprehensible, and I don’t know how they can be legitimately rationalized. Eventually, I believe the “big time” colleges and professional sports leagues will form their own streaming entities, offer subscriptions, limit advertising (like the Masters does), and just cut out the middlemen. Are there any of the sports broadcasting entities actually making a profit at present? It doesn’t appear so.
The Saudis in soccer are doing this by paying outrageous amounts of money for players, which puts pressure on the European clubs to match.
It puts pressure on the MLS clubs, too. My team just lost a marquee player to the Saudis a month ago. He’s a nice guy. I hope his wife doesn’t mind the restrictions on her being out and about.
And just look what Miami has to give Messi, no doubt the Saudis drove that price up.
The money for cable companies is in delivering internet. As the number of subscribers goes down the per cable channel costs increases. That increases the overall cable bill for subscribers and the more people cut the cord. ESPN is the prime example of business go wrong. They have committed to multi-billion dollar sports contracts while cable subscribership tanks. They post loss after loss each year.
The move will be to streaming sports in the future. The seeds are already planted. For college football, conferences have their own streaming apps with content from universities, FOX or ESPN. The networks carry the big football and basketball games. Eventually, it will be in the interest of college football conferences to stream their games only and take the revenue from streaming subscriptions. The same will happen with pro sports. There are apps for the NFL, NHL, MLB and more. Why give networks a cut when leagues can do it theirselves?
I have cable - Spectrum. It’s expensive but I’m old school. I don’t like streaming - I like watching on my regular TV. I have a bundle - TV/internet/phone. AT&T was cheaper but they kept turning my power off saying I hadn’t paid when I had. When I’d call I only spoke to foreign customer service workers who never would credit my account so I cancelled and never looked back.
“limit advertising (like the Masters does)”
I can’t imagine too many sporting organizations will voluntarily limit their income. They will push as much advertising as the market will bear.
No doubt, though I agree Messi is a boon to MLS. He is raising the level of play of his teammates, and teaches them skills on the fly during the game even. If each team could have one high caliber player like Messi, our skills would develop faster and better. He is a joy to watch, at least for me.
YouTube TV has pretty much all sports channels and games. We use it during the college season then cancel our subscription until the next years season. However it is a bit pricey.
Everything you said is correct—but as I discussed there are physical reasons why cable TV will be hard to kill.
The entire entertainment/sports industry is heading towards a crisis—the numbers just don’t work for anybody—cable TV or streaming.
This is going to be lose-lose-lose-lose-lose for all the participants in the medium term.
The latest Spectrum/Disney deal was an attempt to delay the inevitable collapse of both cable TV and streaming.
Making money delivering the Internet is a solid business—selling entertainment and sports in any format is not.
I miss hearing Keith Jackson on Saturdays, it was vocal comfort food.
Disney is one with the enemy.
Btw—it is a myth that “cutting the cord” hurts Disney—if the consumer gets Internet service from any company that has cable television subsidiaries.
The reason is that the entertainment/Internet conglomerates are subsidizing cable TV with Internet services—so even if you buy no Disney from them you are still supporting Disney.
I always thought Ronaldo would have been the one to jump to the MLS, probably would have if not for the Saudis.
If Miami gets in the playoffs, they’ll win the MLS Cup.
The reason is that many apartment buildings and homeowners associations have hard-wired cable TV and (most importantly) charge a discounted fee as part of the rent or association fees.
That’s part a technology issue and part contractual. The cable fees or HOA or rents will increase as cable companies increase their rates at the end of contracts. Eventually, people will say “no”. It’s the same problem that I addressed earlier, but with yet another middleman.
As for hardwired cable in buildings, that’s going away with 5G wireless service. There’s at least two choices there. You can get 5G hotspot for your entire home or run your home (TV) from your smartphone’s hotspot. I’ve tested the latter and would do that if it wasn’t for having to run trading software 24/6 that needs a network connection. It wouldn’t run if I used my smartphone for internet in my home and I was not at home.
By the way, 5G is another pressure on cable companies. That’s why cable companies are selling wireless services. They see the writing on the wall. If they can’t be the next T-Mobile then their business may just wither away. Personally, I have no desire to have my phone contract with Comcrap. I have a $15/month contract with Mint, which is now owned by T-Mobile. I have zero problems with that service. Other people’s mileage may vary. I’m positive that Comcrap isn’t able to deliver unlimited calls, text and data on my smartphone for less that $15/month. It would take a significant discount, like $5/mon, for me to use Comcrap ever again. That ain’t happening.
Regardless of whether cable TV goes completely away (or not) the entertainment/sports business is totally doomed.
There is no business model where a la carte streaming makes money on any significant scale.
Eventually the Internet providers will treat streaming the way they treat cable TV today—they will cut their losses in those investments as quickly as they can get away with it.
The streaming hype is to lure in bagholders.
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