OT: Cable, Streaming and the Future of sports TV

[zambonir]

Spinning off from an OT discussion in one of the minor league threads.

John Ourand (Ourand_SBJ)

Disney also announced they are moving the Simpsons library (they own Fox now) to Disney+ (they own Fox now), it was previously on FX Now which you could watch if you had FX on your cable or streaming provider.

Anyway, as there is less $ from cable carriage fees, these companies will charge more for their standalone streaming product. I would expect more and more games that we now get on TV or MLB.TV to move onto ESPN+.

Also there's been a thing where MILB is cracking down on sharing highlights on social media. MLBAM considers that to be their IP, to sell you via MILB.TV. That certainly happens in major league sports too but it's still lame.

[zambonir]

Are you ready for some football? Disney and Amazon might be.

NFL Sunday Ticket rights are potentially available after this year.

[andyb]

I am surprised it took this long for the shift away from satellite to occur. Now there are just so many ways to get TV that are better than the satellite options that I imagine the NFL deal has not been profitable for a few years as it is hard to drive new satellite subscriptions.

Everything will be streaming at some point. Even over the air channels are likely on their last legs as they too will deliver their content over the internet in some way (paid or other). We'll get fewer ads, but they will be individually targeted. The big question is whether it will take 2 years or 10 years for everything to migrate.

[zambonir]

Well, since AT&T bought DirecTV and started DirectTV Now and is now buying Time-Warner, they aren't really a satellite company anymore anyway (Dish still is, though they also have Sling). But sure, its value as a loss-leader for subscribers has got to be greatly diminished.

In any case, if they keep the rights now it will presumably be on a much different scale. I'm sure the last thing AT&T would want is to retain exclusive satellite rights but not streaming (unless they could have cable too).

I kind of think the whole package has lost its appeal, more and more games are national now, and as a result the second Sunday window also doesn't have that many. The NFL is not my thing but it has never been worth it to me just to see five or six Eagles games I might not otherwise get. Streaming would make a la carte easy, whether it was per game or per Sunday.

[andyb]

I was implying the NFL contract forced them to only sell via satellite. I think they would be happy if they just had the rights on any medium. I think they had to wait out this contract with the last few years being relatively unprofitable.

Definitely right on the national end. If you are going to get a large percentage of the games on national broadcasts then do you really pay for the 6 games you are not getting when you actually have time to watch it? That is kind of me on the MLB package. I get maybe 40% of the games nationally. Of those other 60% I probably only have time to watch maybe half of them. So the package gets expensive for 40-50 games of which I'll probably average watching 4 or 5 innings.

Red Zone (and MLB network for baseball) cut ins also make the national packages less useful.

[zambonir]

A lot going on here again. They are already off Sling, Dish and Fubo. Of course Comcast still lacks deals with people too in some markets.

YouTube TV Is Dropping Fox Regional Sports Nets After Sinclair Standoff

Also a big to-do in Canada as the Jays will no longer be available on MLB.TV anywhere in the country, people will have to buy the local package (essentially, they just made the whole country the blackout area, which in some ways more understandable then the hairsplitting they do in the US).

[andyb]

I think most of these local sports channels want $5-$10 per subscriber, so it eats into the $50 fee that YTTV charges. Most markets also have multiple channels now. I have NBC Sports Washington (on YTTV) and MASN (not on YTTV).

The AT&T package that has these Fox regionals is $80 a month and Hulu Live (the only other one to still have it is $55 plus $10 for the DVR).

I think there will be more disruption in this space in the future. The competition with streaming options will limit the fees somewhat and teams probably realize that losing viewers to play hardball over fees is probably a losing game over time. If Youtube TV raises the price to more than $60 a month I think I'd be at the point where I would drop TV all together and just cobble together national streaming packages. Blackout rules will make that tricky, but at some point you decide to live with 80% of the sports you want on TV and not 100%.

[andyb]

Looking back on this thread it does look like the NFL is now actively shopping the Direct Ticket rights to streaming providers.

Here's how NFL TV rights are expected to shake out for the rest of the decade,...

[zambonir]

I'm grandfathered with AT&T from DirecTV Now but they don't carry any RSNs in my region. The Blazers' network is Comcast, so no surprise there, but ATT-owned Root Sports (Timbers, Mariners) also not available. I watch enough non-sports that I'd be hard-pressed not to have something (if only to have subscriber log-ins to various cable channels).

Eventually there won't be any RSNs purchasing local baseball rights, I'd think. Either teams will be partnering (Yankees, now Cubs, even Phillies to some extent) or they will just be selling digital direct-to-consumer. And since the non-Sinclair pieces of Fox and Disney/ABC/ESPN are now owned by the same company there's not going to be bidding wars nationally either, unless NBC or CBS really change strategies (in terms of their national cable sports networks more than the broadcast channels). And Disney/Fox owns MLBAM/MLB.TV now too - which I think is odd. Possibly a mistake on MLB's part to take the cash instead of retaining their share?

[andyb]

The solution to the local rights (cable vs. streaming question) is to allow teams to get the revenue from local rights in their home viewing area. Take MLB as an example. It is something like $130 for the national package. Maybe a little more to include local streaming rights. We could make in-market streaming rights a percentage of that fee, with say 50% of that national fee going to the local team. Or if 25% of the viewing is in-market then the local team takes 25% of the fee before the rest goes into the national pool.

The new changes allowing local teams to sell their own streaming rights should push these solutions, though it probably will take a few years to implement. The Phillies, for example, would have to stop raising the fees for their regional network and hope to make up that money through selling streaming rights. Agree that these RSNs won't exist at some point, though there is probably some demand for the local pre and post game shows and sports talk, etc. They will just need to be sold in different ways.

Personally I am kind of done with local TV. I can get most network shows through Hulu (and CBS All Access and Peacock if I ever dropped youtube TV). I really want MASN for the Nationals, but I watch more of the Phillies anyway and can always go to a friend or bar to watch the Nats. BTW your Comcast/NBC Northwest would be on Youtube TV or Hulu. Root looks like MASN though and is absent everywhere.

[andyb]

Fangraphs has an interesting series on TV and baseball revenues this week too:

MLB’s Winning and Losing Efforts to Conquer TV, Part I: The Strike

MLB’s Winning and Losing Efforts to Conquer TV, Part II: Beating the Bubble

Revenues do seem to be OK even with the cable challenges they are now seeing due to cord cutting. Of course we may be at this moment where most people have not dropped their regional channel yet and the streaming money is mostly additive. In general baseball seems to have diversified so they are insulated from the worst, at least for now (and they do seem to still own 15% of MLBAM).

[zambonir]

yeah since I'm grandfathered with ATT's biggest package (not only in terms of price but I also get a bunch of channels they are otherwise no longer offering, that Hulu also doesn't have) I'm reluctant to switch. If I lived in Philly and needed to have CSN Philly I would, Blazers aren't enough for me. I could also be watching CSN Philly using a family member log-in, though that would only apply to non-game stuff.

(Also yes, it's NBCSN not CSN, ha.)

[schillingfan]

I’m pretty much done with local TV, except we did buy the antenna for around $20.00 I think. Hulu does pick up all network shows the next day. FUBO dropped Fox and ABC does not stream where I live. I can’t get live feeds on Hulu, but I can on local for the one time purchase price of the antenna. I used that for the Oscars on ABC.

[zambonir]

Regular (non-live) Hulu doesn't have CBS and will eventually lose NBC but not for several years apparently. Antennas are great! The problem is so few major sporting events are actually on free broadcast TV at this point. But it sounds like you have Fubo? I suspect that is what I would get if I switched unless I wanted the convenience of already having a Hulu log-in. But my ATT deal is still better for now. If I could hack Fubo to make Philly my RSN instead of Portland I'd be tempted.

One thing I like about NBA League pass is you can buy single games. In fact I think the price goes down if the game is already half-over too. That would be really cool for NFL though I don't know that I'd pay what they'd probably charge, given there's a lot more scarcity there (and they still value Sunday Ticket, even if it is changing). For MLB I'm quite happy to pay for whole thing.

[zambonir]

Might have to rethink all of this given I no longer care whether I have NHL Network, Big Ten Network or RSNs, even if it's not forever.

[andyb]

Obviously no reason to do the MLB package until we know more. I will probably keep YoutubeTV for all the news even though I imagine more than half of the $50 fee is because of the sports channels.

Biggest change for me is going through free previews of all the streaming services I don't subscribe to. And catching up on the backlog of shows. The Athletic has been worth it so far, though obviously they have little new other than the NFL draft and free agency to report on.

Makes me think that all the other leagues (MLB, NBA, NHL) should go through their drafts as scheduled also. These will be fascinating drafts. Probably a bit thin talent-wise as some players opt to stay in school. But they might also be drafts where the middle rounds have more talent than usual simply because we will be drafting players who did not finish their season and did not do private workouts for teams. Good HS baseball players that might have blossomed their senior year might get picked in the 4th round instead of the 2nd round.

We need sports to watch and read about. So even if the teams want to delay the draft, leagues should push to proceed as scheduled, or as close to that as they can.

[zambonir]

my MLB.TV auto-renewed I guess I should request a refund. obviously they will have to discount/refund/adjust eventually.

[andyb]

I stopped it before it auto-renewed, though my plan I think was to add it around father's day this year. Last year they offered it for less than half price then when something like 60% of the season was remaining. I just ended up watching lots of NCAA, NBA, and NHL the first couple of months of the baseball season and between ESPN+, MLB Network and others I was getting 2-3 Phillies games a week anyway.

Of course ESPN+ is mostly a waste now also except for the 30 for 30 docs. But that is a yearly $50 auto-renew for me that is also tied into the Hulu/Disney+ bundle.

[julio]

I let the mlb.tv auto-renew. And this evening, I went to my settings, turned off the "show scores" option, and arbitrarily watched a game from 2019 (in the archive). Not having CD's eidetic memory for past games, I had no idea what the outcome would be.

[zambonir]

I never did ESPN+ but got Disney for my nephew so now I've got the bundle for a while. I do use Hulu quite a bit so I don't think it makes sense to unbundle (though if I did I would probaby pay for the no-ad feature under normal circumstances).

So far the Internet doesn't seem to be strained - I am tempted to reattach the cord, as it were, so as not to be reliant on great Internet speed should anything change on that front.