Streaming Wars For Live Sports, Entertainment, and Gambling

Other Leagues and Sports
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The Cable Industry In A Nutshell Since 2000

It’s also worth mentioning and never forgetting that the cable industry,
even in its rollout of high-speed internet starting about 2000 as was very profitable for them especially given all its subsidies,
essentially forestalled the ultimate outcome circa 2021 as otherwise during the Great Recession in 2010 they lost cable TV subscribers for the first time ever.

It was also from about 2007 or so that some competition emerged from the former telephone companies like Verizon and AT&T, as well as enhanced offerings from satellite TV, which all delivered mixed results.

I’ve mentioned this point before, but the cable industry simply chalked that business decline up to the recession and not their already lousy product that was overpriced for years, and mind you this was before those “regional sports networks” cost very much if they were present at all on cable bills.

The industry continued to try to sell those “bundles” and did not innovate.

Peak cable was roughly about 2013 around the time “Breaking Bad” finished.

After that, the industry basically was just forestalling innovation by NOT investing in the broadband infrastructure or slimmer offerings without all the needless channels, increasing informercials all the while every year.

The pandemic finally forced them to invest properly in broadband infrastructure in 2020 (along with additional government subsidies and incentives).

Most alarming, there during the pandemic for a solid two years, the cable industry had a captive audience en masse for the first time ever.

Even then they got greedy during a recession and blew the opportunity to increase market share and then lost business to competitors instead of overhauling their delivery model, which they only belatedly began to do in 2022, but it was too late.

Even in 2022, the delusional and prevailing thinking was that subscribers would keep their cable packages and simply add on streaming subscriptions each for a few dollars more per month, or worse that they could coerce people into doing so by shifting content like live sports more onto streaming, but the public had had enough of the cable industry for a very long time.

For example, I would not trust Comcast ever again lest the deal were a $10 per month trial for a year all things included, which of course is not happening.

Mind you I’m the same guy who would have still happily paid $70 per month for my basic channels and internet status quo before I left in 2021, when my bill had soared to $133 per month to almost double what it was in 2018, but nope, that offer from me is long since well off the table.

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Peacock did well during these Olympics, so credit to Comcast and NBC here.

There is also an NFL game on 6 September, so I think NBC is counting on subscribers to keep their subscriptions.

My big question is what happens by the end of September? That will be it for the NFL for Peacock for this season, and well, left over are a lot of Premiere League fans perhaps.

We won’t know until November, when NBC’s subscriber count for 3Q2024 will be heavily likely to be inflated by those who still have it before cancellation after the NFL game, and then not until at least February 2025, depending what subscribers do in 4Q2024.

As an aside, here’s a very interesting breakdown of the top five media markets for ratings for the games in the US.

It’s interesting that the highest ratings come from the smallest markets. Now West Palm Beach, Florida is hardly a surprise, for that has to be a bunch of retirees who are not outdoors in the Florida heat in the summer past about 10AM hardly at all.

New Orleans led all local U.S. markets in Paris Olympics viewership, followed by several other smaller markets including West Palm Beach, Fla.; Tulsa, Okla.; and Dayton, Ohio.

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A high-stakes court case as concerns the entertainment media is in progress here in August in Manhattan, for which the result I think would affect most of the plans in the streaming industry, as it migrates more live sports to streaming:

Since Tuesday, federal court Judge Margaret Garnett has presided over four days of testy hearings over Fubo’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Fubo contends Venu is anticompetitive and violates antitrust law because the three giants are licensing just their sports channels to Venu, which they won’t do for other pay-TV distributors. Fubo seeks the right to license only the sports channels from those giants. Venu, which will cost $42.99 per month, will boast 14 sports-related channels.

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1231

Comcast’s Peacock and the Premier League:
Redemption with A Silent Concession of Defeat?

It was almost four years ago in mid-September 2020 when Comcast made a terrible decision to try to coerce subscribers onto Peacock by putting ALL games for the Premier League in September onto it in the middle of a pandemic and recession at that.

NBC’s Premier League and Peacock Facebook pages were so lit up that the admin for Comcast waved the white flag and could not keep up deleting and shadowing posts, for example. Those posts have continued for years now.

Most Premier League fans here in the US have never forgotten that unforgiveable episode, and many former Comcast subscribers like me will never forget it either.

After I left Comcast, Comcast sent me a survey in fact where I let them hear it on this front. I doubt anybody actually read it of course. Comcast still tries to call me to this day.

I just checked for the opening week TV schedule, and go figure, as follows is the line-up by Comcast. Now we’ll see if Comcast attempts to change horses in the coming weeks, but these facts spell out to me already that Comcast has conceded a partial defeat on Peacock exclusives for live sports but for major special events such as one NFL game or of course the successful Olympics on the platform:

USA Network - 5 matches

NBC - 1 match, almost always the last one on Saturday

Telemundo - Sunday doubleheader (one is a simulcast with USA)

Peacock - 3 matches with not one of them a marquee match, which is another ploy they have tried to use to coerce fans onto Peacock by putting a lower-profile match on free or cable TV.

Now lest you think Comcast is doing this for the fans as they try to play off in their coverage, that’s balderdash. Comcast is doing this because this is what advertisers now with full budgets will pay for at a premium post-pandemic, for they know what their audience want NOT on exclusive streaming.

Once again, the people have spoken. SCREW YOU AGAIN COMCAST.
:facepunch:

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1232

Pursuant to the announcement of layoffs at Paramount Global last week, there’s a bit more feedback in this article.

Layoffs start essentially this week.

The sweeping cuts at Paramount will affect many functions across the company, as it seeks to reduce its annual costs by roughly $500 million. They will largely be completed by the end of September, the chief executives said in their note.

Skydance’s founder, the Hollywood producer David Ellison, is the son of Larry Ellison, founder of the software giant Oracle. The Ellison family is spending lavishly to finance a deal that includes $8 billion in capital.

While Paramount readies for its merger with Skydance, it is also exploring other options. The company has a 45-day “go shop” window, allowing it to see if other suitors will top Skydance’s bid. Among the interested parties is Edgar Bronfman Jr., the former chief executive of Warner Music Group, who has been pursuing a bid for Paramount in recent days.

When Paramount reported earnings last week, executives told investors that its streaming business was profitable — a relatively rare occurrence in the traditional media industry — driven partly by the ad-supported streaming service Pluto TV. Paramount+, the company’s flagship streaming service, lost 2.8 million subscribers last quarter, which the company attributed to an exit from a bundle agreement in South Korea.

And over six months after Wall Street informed all the media companies about their spectacular streaming plans that NOW in 2024 it’s time to put up or just shut up already, with the latter something I had begun to note in this thread in 2Q2023 given the subpar user experience as compared to just regular TV or even just viewing YouTube, here is is literally the bottom line of the article.

Note before here this fine and prophetic post, amongst many others, from February 2023 by @vampiresquid

Those moves have done little for investors. The share prices of almost every traditional media company are down over the last five years, as investors remain skeptical that profits from streaming will replace those from cable.

Sceptical now, the unnamed author(s) write?! Nope, we’re beyond scepticism folks, as reflected also in the sharp decline share prices of media firms, which have been losing hundreds of millions on streaming alone and with billions of dollars in write-downs.

I think deep down as at Comcast due to the Olympics, I think by the summer of 2023 the real name of the game in most of the dominant media was to just slug it out and forestall the inevitable into now in 2024 and into the peak media season with the NFL back in action in four weeks.

At the current rate and with the current trend well on course, there should be more bloodbaths as the year ends along with either major reforms, or quite simply not and off into bankruptcy much like that Regional Sports Network racket that fell apart in great part starting also in 1Q2023.

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There are a couple of other articles out there stating the same thing - Tubi seems to be doing well - owned by Fox and free - It also has a strong following from the black community.

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Try by 2030, Jimmy, for these shows have been stale since at least 2018 anyway:

At 11:30PM Eastern Time if not already asleep, what are you watching?

For me if not a late sporting event, I can tell you it’s YouTube or Netflix in that order or occasionally other streaming.

It’s never shows on the major networks, I tell you that much, and it has not been for me since at least 2010 even back in the last of the cable TV heydays.

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1235

Case Study: One Drawback of Free Antenna TV In Philadelphia

The TL;DR version is
“Wow, did they screw up regular TV too.”

If you are having these issues to receive free TV via an antenna, you are far from alone and it’s not merely your antenna or TV.

So today when getting a haircut, I come to find out from my barber that there is simply no getting ABC here in Philadelphia unless you really get into it technically and just happen to aim your antenna correctly, or you just simply get cable or something like YouTube TV, which is basically cable on streaming (i.e. slower performance!).

ABC is the ONLY major channel for which this happens for most TVs here in Philadelphia. With my prior TV, for some reason I did not have this issue after cutting the cord.

For some reason this only became a problem for me with my new HDTV as purchased in November 2023.

I had purchased also a newer antenna, not the cheapest one either, for my new TV mind you. I had even tried hooking up the older one to no avail.

There’s a whole recent Reddit about the subject as pertains to here in Philadelphia:
https://www.reddit.com/r/philadelphia/comments/19dx9s1/more_of_us_can_now_get_6_abc_with_a_digital/

Those who live in hilly or mountainous areas, as I once did, know this issue as well.

The only reason I even care is sometimes for Monday Night Football, but hey off to Pirate Sports Network again or simply to a friend’s place or my cousin’s place to watch the game. I don’t watch anything else on ABC.

Apparently for most people to get ABC now, you have to buy a special type of antenna plus a certain tuner:

What this means for us in Philly though is that using most digital home antennas you can get this new signal using one of the newly released ATSC 3.0 tuner boxes. This is just like when they started rolling out HD signals over the air where initially you needed a separate box before the TV manufacturers started placing the hardware directly into the TVs.

Currently there are only a couple boxes in production since this is such a new technology and is still in the early buildout phase. These all are in early development and production. All have had supply issues, as well as some changes to the DRM standards and occasional firmware issues, so know that these are not completely fleshed out devices.

But it sounds like perhaps in 2025 there will be relief via new signals with new antennas without the tuner.

All these engineers and they could not figure this out say in 2015?
:roll_eyes:

Along the lines of the analogy above, think back to the time when HDTVs were first rolled out, when cable gouged you to pay extra (+$10 pure profit I am confident) for that HDTV signal to watch in HDTV. After so many years, all signals were digital and for HDTV, and that cable company racket was over as well.

My barber saved me a ton of headaches and a ton of valuable weekend time for now, so he got that fat tip today, for on this weekend I was going to research buying a new antenna after hours and then hope for the best, but I would likely disappointed given all that is shared in that 2024 Reddit thread specific to Greater Philadelphia.

Another trick could be to simply find a neighbour who is already set up to watch ABC, see what kind of antenna he has, and just go buy one of those.

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Link to low VHF antennas: https://winegard.com/classic-series-y… https://bit.ly/3l1OHeh https://amzn.to/3Fbisk1

The last link is to a Televys who make antennas optimized for modern signals

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Great video and thank you for sharing. Some will tackle this one now, but I’ll go ahead and wait for the next NFL season.

I had no idea this was the WORST such situation from a major local TV affiliate in the country for any area without hills or mountains.

Either WPVI ABC 6 Philadelphia finally transmits a better modern signal by then with far more people able to easily access the channel with more kinds of antennas, or they don’t.

The fact that their owner Disney and the local station did not figure this out even soon after 2009 is appalling, but then again Disney has had a vested interest to try to hang on to ESPN cable subscriptions as long as possible over the years until cutting the full cable cord became the norm in 2021, so I am hardly surprised in those sorts of sleazy antics the way Disney has always operated in my lifetime.

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If you’re looking to set up an antenna, you can’t go wrong watching the Antenna Man’s videos.

People get lost in thinking there are HD antennas and 100 mile antennas, it’s all bull. You’ve got about a 75 mile radius at best for an antenna and you can use one your grandfather would have used.

Even though there isn’t a one size fits all type of antenna and you should try and get one specific to your situation Televys does optimize their antennas with things like pass through filters and elements that were changed following the channel repacking.

I envy your TV situation where you are. As it is I have access to only three channels and that is what I get. And because I am relatively close to the transmitters I knew I could use a “decorative” antenna rather than a more utile looking one with extended elements.

If I had a really long range situation I might use another antenna (Channel Master), but for most average situations, I don’t think you can do much better than a Televys

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1240

I’ve seen some of the antics the Disney execs get up to, the Mouse is more like a rat.

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1241

Aye I used to live in Florida, and it was not long when I was in the Tampa Bay area when I figured out that Floridians don’t like each other more than I’ve seen or experienced in any state with regionalism. In that area, it even goes across the bay or within a county! That state back then was really just giant hotel and resort, and now it’s even worse along such lines.

In much of Florida outside of greater Orlando, along the lines as you stated, Disney is also known as the Fat Rat.

It’s also a frequent occurrence to remind people who live in Orlando that they don’t live in the capital of Florida, as they apparently at some point have convinced themselves in strangely great part.

At least for TV reception down there, I think the issues are few though given flat land all over.

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I’m glad the court took this action, and it’s just in time too before the peak sports season.

This service reeks of antitrust akin to what the NFL has done with the NFL Sunday Ticket so as cherry-pick and then to artificially restrict distribution of its games within ONLY the US via its antitrust exemption and then artificially boost a few of the free Sunday games.

The basis of this scheme would turn out to be about the same with each network, colluding together, putting also more of the crap games for free on its free channels for some leagues in order to steer more of the better games onto the paid streaming service. It is unclear if NFL games would be included for additional streaming options, and I’m going to go ahead and guess the answer is NO.

With this venture three of them are ganging up to charge $43 per month before taxes, and you simply know that price is likely already planned to increase $50 next within one year once the launch of the service is complete.

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1244

Comcast Playing The Premier League Audience and Back to the 1990s Watching Soccer on TV in the US

It’s telling and interesting what Comcast is doing. It’s also remarkable that they decided this on a Monday sooner than usual for the upcoming weekend.

They are testing the audience I suppose. No doubt in my mind they are trying to push this onto Peacock as much as possible.

So in contrast to opening week, and as they are perhaps noting the NFL game coming up on 6 September in Brazil that is another Peacock exclusive and hopefully the last one, though it can be viewed on regular TV in Philadelphia and in Greater Milwaukee and Green Bay, Comcast / NBC has put
all games but two on Peacock this weekend.

Now the two games are on Telemundo, with one simulcast on USA, which are actually the two that I will watch live anyway.

To me this is like going back to the 1990s for soccer coverage in the US,
which is when I’d often watch much action in Spanish,
plus the Spanish-language coverage was always better until about a decade ago once the American media finally relented and brought in the professionals from chiefly the UK and Ireland instead of trying to make the likes of Gus Johnson work.

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So there is news of a competing bid for Paramount Global as made today and before the deadline of 21 August.

For the sake of the major concerns of the average viewer of live sports, more relevant than the news of continued discussion is the timing of this news.

Skydance and Paramount’s circa $8 billion combination announced in July included a 45-day go-shop period that can be extended twice in 15-day increments, which would kick in if the special committee of Par’s board of directors has another offer credible enough to explore further. It now appears on the cusp of a new entrant in former Seagram scion and entertainment executive at Vivendi Universal and Warner Music, who could declare as early as tonight, although it might slide into tomorrow.

Basically this matter drags into September and in relevant fashion, also once the NFL season has started, which is the crown jewel of any major media firm in the US.

They are not going to upset the applecart for their crown jewel, the NFL, and other valuable live sports rights.

My inclination is that as long as it will take into 2025 to complete this deal, noting also a change in heads of those to be involved in the process of approval in Washington DC not to be in their seats until late January 2025 anyway and all the people who will work for them still to be hired or swapping seats, well all the main sports via CBS and Paramount firms won’t be affected on the screen very much until 2026.

From now through 2025, perhaps the only major changes one might notice is some new faces due to the layoffs that already have begun, much as the case with many of the more known faces all over the sports media in the US.

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1246

Despite that legal move, industry chatter continues to rise as to whether Venu Sports will actually see the light of day and, if it does, how meaningful it will really be. Long before U.S. District Court Judge Margaret Garnett issued her ruling, Disney CEO Bob Iger made clear that Venu Sports was only one component of a much larger corporate strategy to embrace streaming and navigate broader media industry disruption.

In particular, Iger has frequently discussed plans to introduce a stand-alone, direct-to-consumer version of the flagship ESPN network in the fall of 2025, an effort that is a major initiative for all of Disney.

So it’s no surprise as reported here that the three firms appealing the ruling, which included a temporary injunction by them to launch Venu.

But as noted here and as known, Disney has its own plans anyway, including the revamp and relaunch of ESPN altogether in a year.

“That will be a very, very immersive—and obviously sports-centric—app, which will have features that this combination with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery will not have, such as integrated betting, integrated fantasy … [and] merchandise capabilities,” Iger said in February of the forthcoming DTC version of ESPN.

Here’s an inconvenient and great question, the former my specialty and the latter my ambition, that I am not sure has been asked publicly.

If Disney as a part of this media triumvirate will have its own service, how reliable can they be for the sake of premium content, including especially live sports that are not the NFL?

In any case, time is NOT on Venu’s side right now as Fubo’s stock has been on a tear as is at a 6-month high.

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And the NFL wins again and again in defending itself in court, but now the door has been opened for the plaintiffs to file for an appeal.

With football season right around the corner, the high-profile, $14 billion NFL Sunday Ticket lawsuit that played out over the summer continues to take twists and turns in court.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Philip Gutierrez made a final judgment in favor of the NFL on all accounts, and the plaintiffs are now expected to file a motion to reconsider ahead of taking the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, a step below the Supreme Court.

Gutierrez, on Aug. 1, had overturned a jury verdict ordering the NFL to pay $4.7 billion, which would have been tripled under antitrust law. On Monday, the plaintiffs filed an objection to the NFL’s proposed order that asked Gutierrez to terminate claims for injunctive relief.

In simpler terms, the league didn’t want to have to make changes to how it distributes NFL Sunday Ticket, in addition to not paying out any damages. But the plaintiffs were arguing that the NFL should have to make some operational changes, even if it doesn’t pay damages. Gutierrez, who is retiring in October, has once again sided with the NFL.

In related news, though the NFL, or Google its partner for the NFL Sunday Ticket, are not compelled to make any changes or improvements in the overpriced service, well would you look at this and what appears to have clearly been a feature that could have been included all along since Google took over in 2023. Being cheap much, Google?

I wonder on how much else the NFL and Google are holding out for this “premium” product, which the NFL will continue to argue in the face of antitrust allegations made by the plaintiffs.

NFL Sunday Ticket is getting a major upgrade heading into the second season of Google’s seven-year, $14 billion streaming deal for the league’s out-of-market media rights package.

YouTube and YouTube TV will now feature more customizable multiview NFL game options on Sunday afternoons. Custom multiviews didn’t exist at all during Google’s debut season with Sunday Ticket. Last year [2023], only select combinations were available for Sunday Ticket users throughout the early and late Sunday game windows. DirecTV, which last had Sunday Ticket during the 2022 NFL season, offered a single multiview option each week.

The base price of Sunday Ticket increased by $30 this month, up to $379 for YouTube TV subscribers, and $479 for the à la carte option via YouTube.

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