Sports Media

[andyb]

Baseball and other sports have more to lose though. That Peacock game last Sunday was not on local channels. Nor is the Apple TV game on Friday. And the NBA has much more on streaming too with all the Amazon games.

Trump may have a grudge against the NFL but he is also buddies with many of the owners. The demographic of billionaires who are not necessarily civic minded is his demographic.

[zambonir]

Well, the good news is you might not get to see the Phillies tonight (Apple TV). Sixers only on Amazon too.

Streaming services will make it an annoying night for Philly sports fans

[schillingfan]

This drives me crazy. I have to go to each team’s website to find out where to watch them. When they are on YouTube, they know I want to watch and show me on the home page.

[zambonir]

The home screen on my Google TV does the same thing (huge ad for the Sixers game, smaller box for Phillies on Apple) but that only works if you have subscriptions (I do have Apple, I don't typically have Prime). But yeah with YTTV you no longer need to know the channel numbers or even what network the Phillies are on (NBC Philly, one of their alternates, FS1, Fox)... as long as they are on.

Also spoiled by YouTube multiview though NBC Sports Philly isn't friendly to that anyway.

[andyb]

Interesting article on seeing streaming games in bars. I am just assuming that bars are not really interested in this EverPass media creation. A bar I go to for instance has Direct TV and the NFL ticket package but they don't have Prime or Peacock. Whenever there is a big game I have seen the bartender login with their Amazon account. Probably not legal,, but it is just going to happen and it is hard to police. I wonder if bars don't bother to do this in the regular season for anything other than the NFL.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7262074/2026/05/08/nba-viewership-streaming-accessibility-broadcast-partners/

[zambonir]

I was wondering about this. Didn't Apple/MLS have a separate free thing for bars originally? Now part of that I guess.

Most bars here can probably have Peacock if they have Comcast (and those games are also on TV anyway) but the Prime game tonight.... I wonder what Comcast's own sports bar (now Stateside Live) is doing. I don't currently have Prime myself though I have a $1.99 for 7 days offer if I buy something today (how they get ya, of course). Will probably just watch baseball.

[EastFallowfield]

Kinda cool to see Cristopher Sanchez pop up in ad for TNT Sports instead of Harper or Schwarber, but using a weird cover of "Every Breath You Take" was off putting, as I've always heard as a song about a stalker, not a love song as some people do.

Can't find the ad online, but here's the cover song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWOheNg4RYE

[zambonir]

Fox is buying Roku.

[andyb]

Definitely an interesting transaction though it probably does not impact sports viewing that much. They will probably merge Roku channel and Tubi and then tier it with Fox One, but who know how successful that would be. I am not really bothering with Fox One for the World Cup since it is just easier to watch in Youtube TV.

The main thing for Fox in this deal is probably just advertising on all those Roku boxes already in place.

[julio]

The main thing for Fox in this deal is probably just advertising on all those Roku boxes already in place.

So...which is more "sleeping with the enemy'? Continuing to use the Roku box, or migrating to an Amazon Fire stick?

[andyb]

I admit I use an Amazon stick and have just grown to ignore the ads. They are always so cheap and streaming sticks need to be replaced every 5 years or so because the apps get bloated and need more memory. I don't know why Smart TVs even exist since the software gets outdated so quickly and I end up using the same TV for 10-20 years.

[julio]

We've used a Roku box for years, with no advertising intrusions. If that changes...

Well, I have to wonder how much of it can be filtered at the router/lan level. I have a mesh network installed, and I know its software catches/kills a lot of the junk. Various sites behave differently when on our home wifi network than when I connect elsewhere - whether a different wifi environment or via the cell network.... largely ad-free at home, not ad-free elsewhere.

[andyb]

The Roku home screen is full of advertisements. You might just ignore them to get to your app, but they are there. That is what Fox wants. You will see like a third of those ads for Fox shows and apps once the merger goes through.

[zambonir]

I have the same anti-Fox instinct, but I don't boycott their sports coverage or The Bear. I also try to avoid Amazon. But I'm basically a prisoner of Google (phone, TV hardware, YouTube TV) and not sure they're any better, especially in the AI era. We used to use Roku instead of Google TV as a better interface but the latter has been fine, better even, on this particular hardware.

I did find myself looking at ways to use third-party launchers that would cut down on ads/bloat and give you more control. Didn't get very far.

Anyway, as far as sports, this does kind of lock in Fox/Roku, NBC/Peacock and ABC/ESPN/Hulu, with CBS still lagging behind sports-wise. It's also CBS/Paramount/Warner you'd want to boycott politically these days.

[andyb]

Paramount plus Warner Brothers Discovery gives CBS lots of sports. All the NCAA tournament. NFL. TNT gets them hockey and more college football plus niche European sports. TBS gets them into MLB. They really have most things other than the NBA.

I don't think this purchase gets Fox more sports though. It just gives them more scale to steer more viewers to their streaming platforms. As long as I have YTTV I don't care because I can watch most things there (including Peacock sports on NBCSN, ESPN Unlimited, and Fox One). If I ever drop that then the question of how to get Fox Sports will be more real.

All these services are scaling up and consolidating.

[zambonir]

Yeah they just don't have single app for it though right? I guess it could end up being HBO which I assume is also why Paramount+ is shutting down. This definitely doesn't give Fox more sports but it does give them a streaming-first platform (that just happens to be the one that used to have the cheapest lamest baseball package) to ease them off of Hulu.

btw I was able to log in to ESPN last night with YT TV to watch hockey, not sure if that means the auth integration is complete or if it was just that the ABC feed wasn't the same level of access. I had to bail on the regular ABC feed because of all the tornado warnings.

[andyb]

Paramount has said it will be a single app with unified tech (kind of like Disney has done even if Hulu still exists).

The HBO app is probably a little better tech-wise than the Paramount app but they are probably working on one from the ground up now anyway. And it will merge in Pluto (like the Fox One app will merge in Tubi and Roku and some other smaller services Roku owns along with the new CNN service). It will probably be more than a year until we see the unified Paramount app but imagine they'll just start cross promoting shows and sports immediately on the old apps once the merger goes through.

[zambonir]

Seemed like a bit of a throwaway line:

One of the team’s largest sources of revenue, a $2.5 billion television rights deal with NBC Sports Philadelphia that goes through 2041, is in peril because the network is lurching toward an uncertain financial future. The Phillies could explore forming their own network.

(oh, I hadn't read further yet)

There are legitimate doubts, according to several industry sources briefed on the situation, about how much longer it will last as NBCUniversal divests from its RSN business.

It might not matter; MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred is attempting to unwind every local TV deal to centralize revenues. The Phillies, according to multiple club sources, have done preliminary groundwork on what creating their own network would require.

Middleton and Fuld declined to elaborate on the TV situation.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7395288/2026/06/26/sam-fuld-phillies-role/

[andyb]

This really feels like all of baseball RSNs will transition to a new system with a league-wide hub in 2028. Plus the announcement from NBC Universal to split from Comcast might mean the 4 RSNs they own will cease to exist in the next couple of years.

It is probably a good thing that the old RSN model is dying. They just need to figure out the future and ideally in a way that includes local sports. Much of the programming in Philly used to be Philly related as much as team related. Some of that was talk shows, but it was part of the city's character. I fear we lose some of that in the new world of each sport being out for itself and little local coverage any more.

[Philsmania]

Here's a question I have about all the teams that have their broadcast rights through ESPN+. Are their games only available through streaming or do they put a few games here and there on over-the-air TV?