Sports Media

andyb 2022-10-07 16:22:21 UTC #502

Growing pains at the Athletic within the New York Times. One fascinating tidbit is that NBA beat reporters are being given a travel budget of $2100 for the entire season. That probably covers 2 or 3 road trips unless they get free flights on the team charter.

I would not be surprised if the Athletic starts dropping local coverage and concentrates on national coverage.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/10/07/new-york-times-athletic-subscribers/

zambonir 2022-10-07 17:08:32 UTC #503

I'm sure it was a big deal for them to even send Gelb to Houston, but they really had no choice (and they could fold it into the playoffs anyway).

NYT doesn't allow their people to take free flights. Not sure any old-school paper does really (if you go on one you reimburse, same with meals). The Athletic might have had a different policy before.

zambonir 2022-10-07 17:45:31 UTC #504

Kind of like all the games being on ESPN, obviously I won't double up when the Phillies are on but for tonight's slot I can watch both games at the same time on the Apple TV app (and unlike football a split screen isn't as annoying).

andyb 2022-10-07 17:50:23 UTC #505

I do think they would have stretched the starting times out a bit if there had been a West Coast home site. The overlapping games is probably not ideal. In the division series they just stagger the off days so there are not as many instances of overlapping games (plus they can start the Dodgers at 9 or 10 if they want to).

zambonir 2022-10-07 18:25:33 UTC #506

yeah not much they can do about it with this format, though I'm sure other years a Western team will either be #3 or #4 or both (between the two leagues).

andyb 2022-12-02 17:27:25 UTC #507

Looks like NBC is trying to merge their regional sports channels with Peacock as their standalone option. Assume it will be $20-$30 a month extra like the Bally standalone.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-01/nbc-to-stream-local-sports-channels-on-peacock-service-this-year

andyb 2022-12-17 14:06:04 UTC #508

I can't imagine they would keep the $6.99 price, but I am in if they offer the NFL at no extra cost. Assume Apple can just blow a few billion a year to get customers, though the NFL probably thinks that cheapens their product.

Aquapong 2022-12-17 14:43:35 UTC #509

As an Apple Tv subscriber, I don’t want it. It’s going to raise my rates and I have no interest.

zambonir 2022-12-17 15:23:15 UTC #510

Well, the article says Apple wants to keep its price point but the NFL doesn't like the optics of that.

I would have been thrilled about it had I not just moved back to Philadelphia. But I also feel like Apple TV + is pretty easy to get for free (i'm on a three-month trial right now, we've previously had a 12-month free subscription with a device purchase and I may also switch to T Mobile). I also planned to stay subscribed because of the MLS deal, so in the end an extra $1 or $2 won't bother me. Two years ago there was barely anything I wanted to watch on there (Ted Lasso is what finally got me) but right now there's at least five other shows I like.

I also tend to stagger my subscriptions unless there's a significant discount for annual but that would not be feasible if I did want Sunday Ticket (since MLS takes up almost the entire rest of the year).

andyb 2022-12-17 16:13:16 UTC #511

I am surprised they considered giving the NFL away for free but charged extra for MLS. MLS would have been an easy free thing to give away because of the low cost (though I am guessing we'll get several free games a week in addition to the ones on Fox).

I always assumed one of the big tech companies would get the NFL package. The wider availability compared to Direct TV means they probably won't have to raise the price and might even lower it some. I was hoping they would add other options like buying a week instead of the whole season. I bet a bunch of people would buy a week if the price were $30 or $40 for the week.

zambonir 2022-12-17 16:33:07 UTC #512

Well, the MLS package is also the only way to see your local team, so they've got a bigger hammer there (even if you can also get it for free as a season ticket holder). If I had to buy Sunday Ticket, living in Philadelphia, to see the Eagles, that would be a very different situation.

tbh since I'm not strictly speaking a Union fan but am also not that interested in sticking with the Timbers (especially with most of their games starting at 10:30pm) I'm not sure I'm up for that extra $12.99 a month ($14.99 without existing + subscription). I'd certainly pay that to see the Eagles, but not necessarily for Sunday Ticket per se. It is very rare that my interest in other, non-Eagles NFL games isn't met by the national broadcasts.

It seems like it's not that different from what Comcast has always done - Apple wants overall subscribers and to sell hardware more than they need to make money selling the product, and they'll also get quite a bit of advertisting/sponsorship revenue that MLS probably won't.

andyb 2022-12-19 18:39:46 UTC #513

Looks like we are popular now. Little league classic should be fun. Plus the first ESPN Sunday game of the year.

Philsmania 2022-12-19 19:29:16 UTC #514

The Little League Classic will be a Nationals home game so we don't lose a home date, the Nats will. But, there will be some zigzag travel for the Phillies that week. PHL to TOR to DC to WMPT to PHL. And, we'll play in our old affiliate's park in Williamsport.

zambonir 2022-12-22 14:53:25 UTC #515

Surprise!

(I guess they were a known player but never seemed like the frontrunner).

And, this is still kind of an old-school business model just like DirecTV, in that what YouTube really wants out of this is subscribers. The only question is if they will have any kind of stand-alone package (but even then you'll probably need YouTube Premium, or there's value for them for people to just be in the Google ecosystem I suppose).

Free Sunday Ticket with Pixel/Fi maybe?

(Edit: Other stories say it's probably about $2 billion a year. NFL wanted 2.5. Last deal was 1.5).

andyb 2023-01-05 18:16:44 UTC #516

Salisbury moving on:

andyb 2023-01-13 17:19:20 UTC #517

MLB maneuvering on the back end of local streaming rights. Seems like a step in the direction of MLB wanting to reclaim those local rights over time so in-market rights can be sold through the MLB package too.

jimbomill 2023-01-22 15:14:23 UTC #518

Wishing him well, i liked him.

andyb 2023-01-31 21:41:03 UTC #519

Peacock schedule here. Only 2 games at the moment though we are the first game against Colorado on April 23. Looks like we are going to end up with lots of national TV games this year for better or worse.

zambonir 2023-02-01 03:40:28 UTC #520

YouTube lost their deal with MLB Network, at least for now. Doesn't really affect me at all now that I'm back in Philly (and even when i wasn't MLBN games were always on MLB.TV too) and I assume they'll eventually work it out.

andyb 2023-02-01 16:58:53 UTC #521

I do like the draft coverage and sometimes their Red Zone-like studio shows. Agree the games mean less if you are in Philly or have the MLB package. Assume T-Mobile will keep giving me that for free (fingers crossed).