No it hasn’t no one is forcing you getevery streaming service unlike cable which force you to get channels you didn’t want . Too many freeloaders who were sucked to thing they could get everything for nothing.very very careful here
streaming in essence can become the new cable.
riht now you have independent providers. then you will have consolidators say we will brodcast say peacock, hulu, paramount, etc on one platform and charge you a flat fee to get them all. thats what cable model is now.
the issue will be around local revenue.
I think they're trying to read the tea leaves, as it were. No one is forcing anyone at present to get multiple platforms, but there's no telling what the future holds in this department, especially if teams can choose their own streaming service.No it hasn’t no one is forcing you getevery streaming service unlike cable which force you to get channels you didn’t want . Too many freeloaders who were sucked to thing they could get everything for nothing.
It will eventually (and not too far off) become worse than cable. Consumers will wind up spending more in total for all streaming services they feel they "need" (yes, put it in quotes for a reason) so everyone is getting what they want in a house. Me? I "need" MSG (Rangers), SNY (Mets), TNT, ESPN, NHL and NFL network. Other than sports, 90% of what I watch is on Discovery or History Channel. Most of that, I could do away with, if needed. I have 2 daughters, 10 and 6. They watch Disney+ and my older one has gotten very into cooking competition show and singing competition shows. My wife, has a few different things she wants. Cheapest option for us is still cable, even with channels we dont watch, and the Disney+ bundle. I also have an antenna for OTA for NFL games, and yes will switch to the antenna input whenever I watch an OTA channel. Much better picture.No it hasn’t no one is forcing you getevery streaming service unlike cable which force you to get channels you didn’t want . Too many freeloaders who were sucked to thing they could get everything for nothing.
I had earlier in the year about the Habs offering their own streaming service.
I pay Roger's for all of the TSN channels and all of the SN channels, yet still get blacked out of a number of Habs games (I find other ways to watch). I refuse to pay 30-40 per month for centre ice, and instead pay for Netflix, Crave, Prime, and Apple TV.
I am telling you right now. If the Habs offered a streaming service, with exclusive content, in the neighbourhood of $20 per month. I would get it.
Give me access to all Habs games, Laval games, practices, interviews, their own panel that is focused on Habs news, the odd TR game, etc. Hell, they could even reach out to the markets like BU for Hutson, or over to Europe for Rein, and make deals to stream those games as well. It would be unreal for a fan of a team.
What kind of content to the offer?Oilers started their streaming service already and there's alot of speculation that when the sportsnet agreement ends that the regional games will be moved there.
What kind of content to the offer?
Give me access to all Habs games, Laval games, practices, interviews, their own panel that is focused on Habs news, the odd TR game, etc. Hell, they could even reach out to the markets like BU for Hutson, or over to Europe for Rein, and make deals to stream those games as well. It would be unreal for a fan of a team.
I wonder what all this streaming is going to do to just overall bandwidth. It's kind of like if all the electric cars need to be charged at the same time it would put pressure on the electrical grid, now that everyone seems to be moving to streaming, what is that going to do to various networks and will it force they companies to have unlimited data? Heck, they probably might dig their heels in some more on paying more of unlimited data because you would be forced to.
Or maybe I'm just thinking conspiracy theories and everything will be fine, but when you force customers to pay for multiple streamers for just one product, that's not what was meant by a la cart.
I think they're trying to read the tea leaves, as it were. No one is forcing anyone at present to get multiple platforms, but there's no telling what the future holds in this department, especially if teams can choose their own streaming service.
Diamond Sports Group getting a much-needed boost of Amazon cash will undoubtedly help them in their quest to fulfill their existing contracts with MLB, NHL, and NBA teams, but who's to say teams will re-up with them? What keeps teams coming back to Bally? Really, nothing. Honestly, I see Amazon taking on a minority stake in Bally as more of an audition to the various sports leagues. If they begin streaming games on Prime, and it works well, that could be the future.
As fans what we should be rooting for is local rights reverting back to teams, MLB being ready for it and bundling local into existing out-of-market packages and just saying "you can watch any game, anywhere, for these 17+ teams, the other 13 out-of-market only" and slowly adding in the others as their TV deals come up.
Ideally, the NHL and NBA say "hey, can we join you with that?" (like the NHL did before when MLB Advanced Media made NHLtv), and they offer DTC packages for TEAM, or SPORT, or CITY, or ALL.
MSG has started a streaming only service. It is $30/month, free if you already subscribe through a tv provider. You get whatever is being shown live on any of the MSG networks in your area, including the games.. For me, that includes Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Knicks. There are deadzones in parts of upstate NY and NJ where you are too far away to be able to watch the Rangers on MSG, but too close to get them on ESPN+ or Center Ice. Not sure if the MSG Go app helps with that as I am not in a deadzone. A Habs app that shows all games and all Laval games? Doubt you get that for $20/month.I had earlier in the year about the Habs offering their own streaming service.
I pay Roger's for all of the TSN channels and all of the SN channels, yet still get blacked out of a number of Habs games (I find other ways to watch). I refuse to pay 30-40 per month for centre ice, and instead pay for Netflix, Crave, Prime, and Apple TV.
I am telling you right now. If the Habs offered a streaming service, with exclusive content, in the neighbourhood of $20 per month. I would get it.
Give me access to all Habs games, Laval games, practices, interviews, their own panel that is focused on Habs news, the odd TR game, etc. Hell, they could even reach out to the markets like BU for Hutson, or over to Europe for Rein, and make deals to stream those games as well. It would be unreal for a fan of a team.
The leagues (and other channels) are not going to offer anything that causes them to lose money. I think many have this dream that they should be able to get the 9-10 channels they watch for the same $1-5 per channel the providers pay per subscriber (no idea on those numbers, just remember those rates a while back. Don't know what Spectrum pays for TNT, History Channel, etc). It is just not going to happen. The networks would not be in business much longer if they went to that type of set-up.I wonder what all this streaming is going to do to just overall bandwidth. It's kind of like if all the electric cars need to be charged at the same time it would put pressure on the electrical grid, now that everyone seems to be moving to streaming, what is that going to do to various networks and will it force they companies to have unlimited data? Heck, they probably might dig their heels in some more on paying more of unlimited data because you would be forced to.
Or maybe I'm just thinking conspiracy theories and everything will be fine, but when you force customers to pay for multiple streamers for just one product, that's not what was meant by a la cart.
Here in Canada you can stream all of the Sportsnet channels for $15 per month (if you want the out of market NHL package and WWE PPV's added it's $20) and all TSN channels plus something called TSN+ (kind of like ESPN+) for $20. Both these options give way more than whatever MSG has an offer.MSG has started a streaming only service. It is $30/month, free if you already subscribe through a tv provider. You get whatever is being shown live on any of the MSG networks in your area, including the games.. For me, that includes Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Knicks. There are deadzones in parts of upstate NY and NJ where you are too far away to be able to watch the Rangers on MSG, but too close to get them on ESPN+ or Center Ice. Not sure if the MSG Go app helps with that as I am not in a deadzone. A Habs app that shows all games and all Laval games? Doubt you get that for $20/month.
Then you must live out of market, or something, otherwise if in market and subscribe to all 5 TSN channels and all 6 Sportsnet channels, you would get every game.I had earlier in the year about the Habs offering their own streaming service.
I pay Roger's for all of the TSN channels and all of the SN channels, yet still get blacked out of a number of Habs games (I find other ways to watch). I refuse to pay 30-40 per month for centre ice, and instead pay for Netflix, Crave, Prime, and Apple TV.
I am telling you right now. If the Habs offered a streaming service, with exclusive content, in the neighbourhood of $20 per month. I would get it.
Give me access to all Habs games, Laval games, practices, interviews, their own panel that is focused on Habs news, the odd TR game, etc. Hell, they could even reach out to the markets like BU for Hutson, or over to Europe for Rein, and make deals to stream those games as well. It would be unreal for a fan of a team.
That's bad business from the leagues and individual teams POV, and pipe-dream'ish in any short-term. In other words, good luck getting the Leafs & Habs to give up what they're paid for regional rights, or the revenue the Lakers, Dodgers, Yankees, etc. & etc. get from local broadcasts, plus all the teams that own their own RSN's.
Multiple revenue generators down to one league-wide can only be sold to individual teams as for the greater good if both no one is watching your product locally and more importantly if no one is willing to pay to broadcast your product locally (i.e. MLS could do that because at one point there was teams averaging less than 1k viewership locally and outside of a handful of teams no one was paying MLS teams anything of substance for local rights.)
-Local/Regional rights revenue
-Out-of-Market package(s)
So NBA/NHL teams are supposed to give up the former, consolidate into the latter -which already exists- and make OOM include local and either have to charge prices only hardcore fans will pay or lose millions/billions in revenue on the team-by-team and league basis. Seems ... unlikely.
In theory and particularly in ease-of-access, it seems good for fans, until in practice it becomes bare-bones production, limited shoulder programming, whoever comes cheapest pbp all while being charged more so that recouping of lost revenue can occur.
Even MLS on Apple, after just the first season they're already dropping quality announcers left and right, dropping multiple language coverage for various teams, and so on. One year and already cutting costs.
Oh, I fully admit it's a pipe dream. There's no way the big market clubs are going to give it up.
But I also think we're combining multiple things, oversimplifying, and overlooking some things in all that.
#1 and most importantly: The money that bought local TV rights from the teams for large amounts is simply drying up. Cable networks made their money off of the carriage fees of all the cable customers, 12 months a year, whether they watch the channel or not. That was the real lucrative part of the team-owned RSNs.
But cord-cutting and the simple society shift of young people expecting everything on demand (on their phone) is why Bally's is in a situation where rights fees promised are greater than revenue, and forced into bankruptcy; and that money isn't somehow coming back.
What MLB has done with with the Padres and DBacks is INCREASE availability to try and off-set that.
Just because you're in the designated "local territory" of a team doesn't mean you actually get the RSN of that team. In San Diego, 1.13 million homes got Bally's. Now 3.26 million homes could watch the Padres on cable OR STREAMING. Because MLB sold the distribution of Padres games to ALL the cable providers for one price, instead of the monthly fee for a channel no one has a reason to watch from October to April.
The thing I think everyone is combining is "Local TV" and "Streaming." Which ARE the same thing for some teams and not for others. It all depended on individual executives and lawyers in negotiations. The entire reason streaming is divided into local and out of market is because MLB simply saw a chance to sell something that wasn't being sold (out-of-market games) and seized it to launch Extra Innings and then when streaming was possible, MLBtv.
But they don't necessarily HAVE to be combined, they could be separated. The leagues are incentivized to do that because it creates new potential customers in all the places without carriage deals for RSNs who CAN'T buy the product even if they want to (and also happens to eliminate blackouts, which can add even more customers).
The short answer is: Creating a scenario where each person who wants to be a viewer/customer can watch by subscribing to ONE THING is everyone's goal. The team/leagues just want everyone to subscribe to something to watch (RSN, streaming, whichever. Just buy it and watch so we can get max money); and the streaming companies want everyone to subscribe to their service and will use sports for that.
The RSNs want everyone in market subscribing to them, but they don't own the streaming rights to all the teams they own cable rights for. Some markets, you can stream Bally's for free with a cable subscription; some markets streaming is an add-on purchase, and some markets you can buy streaming of Bally's if you don't get cable, but not all.
And that part is why I feel the Amazon strategy won't work, and the MLS/Apple comparison doesn't work: Because that's TWO subscriptions, not one.
Amazon has a bunch of things that are available on Prime Video and an additional subscription cost. And it sounds like that's what they want to do with sports.
And that's exactly the issue MLS faces: It's not that no one wants to buy MLS Season Pass, they just made it "a bridge too far" for anyone who didn't already have AppleTV. If you didn't have Apple TV, it's now $280 instead of $100: $180 for Apple TV, $100 for the MLS Season pass.
You're totally right that the individual teams are going to do whatever gets them the most money, and the larger fan bases will be able to get the most money either way; But ALL LEAGUES are facing this issue of maximizing potential customers and trying to go DTC because fewer and fewer people are willing to pay for things they DON'T watch and only want to pay for things they DO watch.
And that's the opportunity they can seize... the OTHER GAMES within one league pass are more likely to be in the category of "I don't want to pay for things I don't watch." And the competition for subscribers between the leagues in a DTC scenario would be vast, since not everyone can afford all the their teams, they'd prioritize.
Up-selling from the Team price ($100 on average for Out of Market)) to the League price is a tough sell, because the extra $30 is for NOT MY TEAM. But you COULD up-sell from the team price to MORE than the league price if the extra games were MY TEAM in a different league.
Making city plans available would be a way to get money from people who don't watch: Those who would say "Oh, it's $300 for NHL, NBA and MLB? Well, I don't watch one of those teams much, but I'd rather pay for them than the other teams of the league which I'll NEVER watch."