I don’t think a primary streaming deal was necessarily the death knell the Apple TV deal looks like. The problem is they signed a deal with a service that has no other sports and that is on a premium tier within it. Also, there are no exclusives for the over the air broadcaster (Fox) and a lot of their big events that a league would normally want on broadcast or cable are behind the inner paywall.
A deal with ESPN+, Peacock or Paramount Plus on a regular subscription tier with key events reserved for a linear broadcaster would have been fine.
Im not criticizing having a streaming element. Im criticizing going streaming exclusive.
Of course having a streaming element while still having linear exclusive events would be smart, every major sports league (and Nascar) all do that, Im saying the league would not have received the same money for that kind of deal though, and thus were very shortsighted to take the streaming cash grab instead of a more balanced distribution between streaming and linear.
My favorite sport (Indycar) consistently chooses exposure over a bigger payday, to the chagrin of most fans that want a bigger schedule (only 17 races compared to Nascar's 36 and F1's 24)
However, its necessary for the viability of every event outside of the Indy 500
