DIRECTV unlikely to keep NFL Sunday Ticket

[Juan]

I knew it would have good numbers.

With 13 million streaming it ( and 11 million streaming the Super Bowl just 7 months ago) and no issues, should show everyone that Sunday Ticket will do just fine when it leaves DirecTV.

10 Million ST subscribers is a few million less then Prime subs watching TNF.

Huh

 

[SamCdbs]

10M, or a buy rate of 33% of the people that actually watch the “free” games is, of course, laughable.

We will see in a month or so how Amazon is really doing. It was given a few weeks of very good games, until TNF turns back in the bad matchup of the week it always has been. My guess is that it will get about 90% of what Fox was getting by the time mid-October comes in.

 

[Juan]

10M, or a buy rate of 33% of the people that actually watch the “free” games is, of course, laughable.

We will see in a month or so how Amazon is really doing. It was given a few weeks of very good games, until TNF turns back in the bad matchup of the week it always has been. My guess is that it will get about 90% of what Fox was getting by the time mid-October comes in.

But it will be on the internet and much better

 

[Ronnie-]

Gee, no comments on the strong Amazon TNF ratings? I must be on ignore from more people than I thought.

Watching tonight, that feed with the next gen stats is something I wish all games had available.

I’d love to have that In college ball, extremely well done.

 

[meStevo]

Potentially related....
View: https://twitter.com/novy_williams/status/1573160457065893888

 

[slice1900]

Sponsorship of the Super Bowl halftime show is way too big to waste on an NFLST announcement. That has to be something a lot bigger, and will probably get the rumors for AR glasses or whatever spinning into overdrive.

 

[SamCdbs]

I agree that they won’t announce the ST deal at the Super Bowl halftime.

 

[Juan]

DirecTV Reimbursing NFL Sunday Ticket Customers After Outages

"We will begin to reach out to our customers who were unable to stream some of the games on Sunday to let them know we will automatically reimburse them for (Week 2)."

www.barrettsportsmedia.com

 

[SamCdbs]

From the article :

“ Seven games aired during the early Sunday window, with many streaming users reporting issues. Traditional satellite viewers were not affected by any outages. “

Understand just how few people even have access to ST streaming. People who certifiably cannot get DBS, college dorm students, and people who have a proper DirecTV subscription but who want to watch it on a phone or tablet.

And their internet, presumably a system designed and still run by AT&T, cannot handle it. Meanwhile DBS gets the job done.

And they are going to dump all 2M potential customers and all the commercial accounts on Amazon or Apple’s servers?

Right.

DirecTV almost certainly will be a reseller, at least on the commercial side.

 

[Yespage]

The Amazon stream to me kept seeming to flip back and forth on frame rates. The visual look of the stream was great, but the frame rates seemed to stutter. It wasn't something that was grossfully obvious, but I notice details like that.

 

[Juan]

The Amazon stream to me kept seeming to flip back and forth on frame rates. The visual look of the stream was great, but the frame rates seemed to stutter. It wasn't something that was grossfully obvious, but I notice details like that.

Sounds like a personal internet issue

 

[Bruce]

Understand just how few people even have access to ST streaming. People who certifiably cannot get DBS, college dorm students, and people who have a proper DirecTV subscription but who want to watch it on a phone or tablet.

Since DirecTV has been giving away ST this year to cut down on churn, a lot more are properly streaming it since it includes it, say in a room that does not have a box, but a Roku for example.

And their internet, presumably a system designed and still run by AT&T, cannot handle it. Meanwhile DBS gets the job done.

You keep bringing up DBS gets the job done, but you never bring up that DirecTV choose not to bid on a new contract, so it does not matter if they get the job done, DirecTV did not want ST anymore.

And they are going to dump all 2M potential customers and all the commercial accounts on Amazon or Apple’s servers?

As far as the Internet goes, the Prime game last week had over 11 million streaming last week, the Super Bowl on Peacock had over 11 million streaming it, both did fine.

So it is not that the internet cannot handle it, it is DirecTV cannot handle streaming it, who knows why, more servers maybe, etc.

Right.

DirecTV almost certainly will be a reseller, at least on the commercial side.

That is my guess since businesses are not ready, but they need to upgrade sooner or later,
Satellite TV is dying a slow death, if DirecTV is losing 400,000 a quarter, in 5 years ( and this is if the churn does not go up), that is 8 million gone, totally unprofitable by then.

 

[Bruce]

The Amazon stream to me kept seeming to flip back and forth on frame rates. The visual look of the stream was great, but the frame rates seemed to stutter. It wasn't something that was grossfully obvious, but I notice details like that.

Sounds like a personal internet issue

Yep.

My TV did that also, made a adjustment on the motion settings, 0-5 ( i went to 2) cleared it up.

 

[meStevo]

Was less engaged as I was week 1 since it wasn't my team, but didn't notice any issues w/ the amazing all-22 version of the broadcast. Needs to be a new standard as far as alternate feeds go.

Streaming already paving new ground as far as how to experience the game, can't wait until the full slate is available. Should be a boon to all types of viewers over time. Get the tech amazon is using in all player equipment and there are some wild possibilities.

 

[Yespage]

Sounds like a personal internet issue

Anything is possible, but I have a Gig so, it'd seem unlikely. I stream way too much sports and don't notice that anywhere else (Peacock, Willow, EPSN+). And the other content I stream on Amazon doesn't have that. Didn't see this on the OTA local broadcast.

 

[Yespage]

Yep.

My TV did that also, made a adjustment on the motion settings, 0-5 ( i went to 2) cleared it up.

I'll need to check that out. I try not to have the tv modify sources.

 

[Juan]

Anything is possible, but I have a Gig so, it'd seem unlikely. I stream way too much sports and don't notice that anywhere else (Peacock, Willow, EPSN+). And the other content I stream on Amazon doesn't have that. Didn't see this on the OTA local broadcast.

Congestion somewhere in your network at home

 

[NashGuy]

The RSNs are at stage four of a disease that all sports content channels have. This is ESPN’s future.

There is no clear answer. Again, not that long ago “everybody” had the RSN, whether they wanted it or not, and paid, and paid a lot, for it. And if you wanted the out of market games, these were a supplement, because you already had cable or dish and thus already had the home RSN.

Now we have two groups. The first clearly has no answer. If you don’t like sports at all, you opt out via streaming only and watch your melodramas.

The second is the problem. The bandwagon or geographically displaced fan. It is far easier and cheaper to follow any team, except the one in your area. That cannot work The Braves/Cubs did great damage with a similar deal a generation ago. It simply cannot be easier for a kid in Kansas to be a Red Sox fan than a Royals fan.

What I see happening is a MUCH more expensive mlb.tv, with the local teams included. There are a lot of issues, including the much less further down this path large market teams, and the MASSIVE over-broad claims to be the local team by most every team, but these have to be worked out.

Yeah, I would agree that ESPN's best days are behind it. We're now at a point where broadcast and cable channels (with ESPN being the most expensive of them all) can't increase their carriage prices enough to offset the number of folks who keep dumping cable TV and switching to less expensive streaming apps (and/or free OTA). As the most recent quarterly earnings numbers from major network owners (e.g. Disney, Paramount, etc.) revealed, it would appear that broadcast and cable networks have collectively peaked in terms of the total amount of revenue they bring in and now a broad industry decline has begun. The only way to increase revenue from the content contained in those linear channels is to also make it available via their DTC streaming apps. And of course, a lot of that has already been done via Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, HBO Max and Discovery+. The only way forward is to let the apps continue to cannibalize more and more of the linear channel content, including the crown jewels: live sports and live news.

So I do believe that in 2024 or 2025, we'll see the entirety of ESPN's live sports portfolio made available via standalone direct-to-consumer apps. Maybe they do away with ESPN+ and have two app-based services, ESPN Pro and ESPN College. Something like $15/mo each or both for $22/mo. Probably save another few bucks if combined with Disney+. It won't ever be as profitable as ESPN used to be on cable, though, because far fewer households will choose to pay for it than was the case when ESPN was an unavoidable part of the cable TV bundle.

In the longer term, I'm not sure I see a way for ESPN to survive at all. Because I think we'll see a sprinkling of the most popular sports content -- including playoffs and championships (e.g. March Madness, World Series, etc.) plus all NFL games and a selection of regular season games from big sports -- included in the major general entertainment streaming services like Disney+, Prime Video, Apple TV+, etc. And then everything else will be in sports-specific services dedicated to particular sports/leagues/teams (i.e. the successor to the current RSNs). I don't see why popular NCAA sports won't eventually go this route too. Just as MLB has MLB.tv, why wouldn't there be an NCAA app (or apps for each major conference such as the SEC, Big 10, etc.)? To me, ESPN looks like something caught in the middle between those two categories of streamers, meaning it's probably unsustainable.

As for the RSNs, I don't see the leagues forcing packages, such as on MLB.tv, that include both in- and out-of-market games. I'm sure they will offer an "everything" package at the top end, for a big price, but just as they now let you subscribe to just a single out-of-market team, I feel sure that they'll also let you subscribe to just a single in-market team.

 

[Juan]

Yeah, I would agree that ESPN's best days are behind it. We're now at a point where broadcast and cable channels (with ESPN being the most expensive of them all) can't increase their carriage prices enough to offset the number of folks who keep dumping cable TV and switching to less expensive streaming apps (and/or free OTA). As the most recent quarterly earnings numbers from major network owners (e.g. Disney, Paramount, etc.) revealed, it would appear that broadcast and cable networks have collectively peaked in terms of the total amount of revenue they bring in and now a broad industry decline has begun. The only way to increase revenue from the content contained in those linear channels is to also make it available via their DTC streaming apps. And of course, a lot of that has already been done via Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, HBO Max and Discovery+. The only way forward is to let the apps continue to cannibalize more and more of the linear channel content, including the crown jewels: live sports and live news.

So I do believe that in 2024 or 2025, we'll see the entirety of ESPN's live sports portfolio made available via standalone direct-to-consumer apps. Maybe they do away with ESPN+ and have two app-based services, ESPN Pro and ESPN College. Something like $15/mo each or both for $22/mo. Probably save another few bucks if combined with Disney+. It won't ever be as profitable as ESPN used to be on cable, though, because far fewer households will choose to pay for it than was the case when ESPN was an unavoidable part of the cable TV bundle.

In the longer term, I'm not sure I see a way for ESPN to survive at all. Because I think we'll see a sprinkling of the most popular sports content -- including playoffs and championships (e.g. March Madness, World Series, etc.) plus all NFL games and a selection of regular season games from big sports -- included in the major general entertainment streaming services like Disney+, Prime Video, Apple TV+, etc. And then everything else will be in sports-specific services dedicated to particular sports/leagues/teams (i.e. the successor to the current RSNs). I don't see why popular NCAA sports won't eventually go this route too. Just as MLB has MLB.tv, why wouldn't there be an NCAA app (or apps for each major conference such as the SEC, Big 10, etc.)? To me, ESPN looks like something caught in the middle between those two categories of streamers, meaning it's probably unsustainable.

As for the RSNs, I don't see the leagues forcing packages, such as on MLB.tv, that include both in- and out-of-market games. I'm sure they will offer an "everything" package at the top end, for a big price, but just as they now let you subscribe to just a single out-of-market team, I feel sure that they'll also let you subscribe to just a single in-market team.

The only problem is that the apps are failing too such as discovery being forced to merge with HBO...consumers are fed up with paying extra for programming that was on cable..let the shakeout begin

 

[NashGuy]

The only problem is that the apps are failing too such as discovery being forced to merge with HBO...consumers are fed up with paying extra for programming that was on cable..let the shakeout begin

There's going to be yet more consolidation among the major studios with global general entertainment streaming services. In the end, there will probably only be five:

• Netflix
• Amazon Prime Video
• Disney+
• Universal+ (i.e. a future combination of HBO Max, Peacock and Discovery+)
• Apple TV+

In addition, there will be some smaller US-only services dedicated to sports or other entertainment. Paramount will probably end up like Sony Pictures, supplying content to the "Big 5" above, but not operating its own streaming service.