Streaming Wars For Live Sports, Entertainment, and Gambling

Other Leagues and Sports
1288

Aristocrat Gaming NFL Slot Machines

I just saw an ad on Pluto TV on the NFL Channel for this, and yes they really exists. Apparently they were unveiled in the run-up last season in Las Vegas before the Super Bowl in February.

What a change from a league that was totally against gambling until 2015, when they ran those obnoxious “Daily Fantasy Sports” disguised gambling ads for September, firms in which both Jerry Jones and Bob Kraft had equity stakes, until there were enough regulatory and public complaints about them.

Of course since federal legalization in the US in 2018, FanDuel and DraftKings are full-blown casinos, which was their original mission anyway with that “Daily Fantasy Sports” ruse.

1289

FWIW as related and as I think will tie into expanded regular coverage of NCAA Pro Football…

As an example since the CW is the Pac-12 incumbent now, a production partnership between the Pac12 Network and the CW also would help each with costs with expanded coverage:

As Fox knows well and CBS knew decades ago, I’m sure the CW also knows there is heavy crossover between audiences for NASCAR and NCAA Football too.

1290

I think where the CW is setting itself up for success is it is OTA broadcast - and let’s face not everyone is going to fork over the cash for the new streaming app from ESPN/HBO and Fox. There are some people that just want some football but don’t want to pay for the premium content. And that is where the CW comes into play - there are plenty of conferences out there that would like to be on the CW with that nationwide footprint for broadcast.

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1291

In relation to the CW discussion was this discussion by Noah Lyles on this podcast before it otherwise became a clown show last week.

Noah Lyles well knows the score with regards to easy access to live sports.

He will NOT participate in an event or promotion in the US if the event is stashed away behind some registration and paywall, for example.

Other athletes and stars have taken high notice of this example and feel the same way about their presence at events for broadcast.

Quite simply it is as you describe in that most viewers simply want to push a button and watch instead of having to go on some hunt for where to find something, schedule in advance, and worst of all, any additional registration or paywall to watch especially when they are already paying for internet and/or TV service.

As the UFC found out starting in 2018, casual fans as are needed for the growth of niche sports in the US or in any country. Casual fans cannot be drawn as are otherwise niche fans, who will do all that work just to watch an event via some app and paywall in their down time or when multitasking.

Streaming and all the hoops and delays one still jumps through after launching the slow-ass app, and then insert the league or the media company reflexively blaming the internet providers, which does not wash.

Viewing apps other than perhaps Amazon Prime or Netflix simply won’t get the job done like plain old TV or even a free webcast whether it is on the league’s site or live on YouTube.

The NFL and Fox knew this day one as the other media firms made other bets to the tune of billions of dollars in financial losses, all the while NOT even improving their core offerings as millions cut the cord.

1292

I don’t know who this is but sounds like the new ownership group is going through CBS and Paramount with a chainsaw.

Also of note - Larry Ellison - the new owner is conservative so I would expect CBS news to pivot to the right - just a guess - Maybe not Fox News right but somewhere to the right of center.

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1293

I think you are onto it here too.

I may have a minority view here, but since the 1990s, I’ve always seen CBS as slightly to the centre only a wee bit to the left and not as far as ABC or NBC on the centre-left / neoliberal tangent, for the CBS has always skewed for the oldest audiences as well.

Sure there was that Dan Rather and his liberal rants at times, but at the end of the day, I found the network only very slightly to the centre-left in substance after all the usual pandering messaging further to the left.

It would not be a hard pivot for CBS at all to slightly to the centre-right, given their older audience on average for non-sports and more heavily still watching regular TV, much as otherwise it would be politically for ABC or NBC or CNN.

As for Fox News and other Fox media other than Fox Sports, well they will be at yet another crossroads to decide to continue to go full MAGA again or to buck the trend like in 2016 before Trump won and again in 2020, and I suspect Fox will simply continue down a hard right road in any case.

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1294

I do think you, unintentionally perhaps, give Fox credit that is not warranted or justified by lumping it in the same conversation as CBS, ABC, NBC or CNN. These four are all major networks that do their best to report news in an unbiased way.

Fox does not report news in an unbiased way or even try to do so. They have been unmasked with their lies to support Trump and slander against Dominion voting machines. All of this reported when the fake news network knew it was false. Fox News is a misnomer. Fox is nothing but a biased right wing machine that makes up “facts” to suit their political agenda. TMZ is an organization with far more integrity than Fox. Perhaps even the National Enquirer. Let us avoid mentioning Fox in the same conversation with the adults in the room.

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1295

Oh I certainly agree with you here with regards to unabashed bias to the point of misleading or false reporting when the case at Fox as has been quite often especially since 9/11, but I don’t agree with you, nothing new here, when you lump in Fox Sports and the nature of their coverage with the Fox news division and other Fox media not associated with sports.

Also let’s note that TMZ, which is quite liberal, is owned by Fox Corporation as well as many tabloid brands, a core foundation of the Murdoch media empire globally.

Rupert Murdoch has always been far more the businessman than ideologue, which of course he had well at hand in Roger Ailes, formerly of CNBC, when they started Fox News.

Some of the rest as you cite is already well known and has been for years, though there is also some of the same that critics will assert about the others on the centre left.

My point otherwise is on the entire leading traditional media spectrum in the US, also heavier players now in social media, for which the changes are looming at CBS as noted.

That’s why it’s perfectly in order to reference Fox on the right amongst the common choices we have down here on the big screen and beyond.

1296

As I was discussing with a friend and who is also a fan of UEFA Champions League like me that is on CBS and its properties including Paramount+, it’s odd and telling that the app performs still like it did when I first got it in February 2022, when the heavy lag with a streaming app was considered normal.

There’s a whole lot to shore up at Paramount+ and with other paid platforms that are not traditional TV, for it’s just not acceptable to wait three minutes after all the clicking and the ads to watch anything for something for which you pay. I kid you not - that’s my experience when wanting to watch extended highlights, for example, with YouTube as a failsafe for them as well.

Any more, it’s simply easier to watch highlights on Golazo TV via Pluto TV, when I can manage to do so.

There will be more than merely a few more layoffs in relation to the Paramount+ platform if not also a relaunch of a better product, at least if they want to continue to charge for it and to charge more. 2021 was already a very long time ago beyond only streaming.

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1297

This one seems timely for 2024 and ought to be good one I figure if Netflix simply tells a great and true story.

Like more of the time than not on documentaries about modern events in this millennium, hopefully Netflix does not again resort to ending the tale with puff or once again, to some sort of preachy modern messaging as if wagging their finger to talk down to us with some combination of “lessons” / propaganda / political agenda as the “uninformed children” in their eyes.
:roll_eyes:

That’s basically the only issue I have with Netflix at all, for it is so common.

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1298

This is sort of non-news news here and in my opinion this is one of those headlines at least three years late and like much non-news news, only delayed by the pandemic and the strikes in Hollywood:
https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/tv-comedies-face-hurdles-hollywood-cuts-back-2024-09-26/

TV comedies face hurdles as Hollywood cuts back

I’ll go with Captain Obvious here, after seeing promotions for these TV comedies in my entire life, especially during NFL games on Fox or CBS on Sundays.

They just have not been anywhere remotely as funny as ever potrayed. How about that for an explanation, Reuters and other Old-Guard Media?

Now with countless options, there’s why the production of them like so many other shows made for TV or cable are either down or shuttered. Far fewer wanted more of such crap before a decade ago.

After an explosion of shows in the “Peak TV” era, Hollywood studios are reducing the number of series they release. Comedy has taken a bigger hit than drama, industry data show, and producers say a range of challenges has hindered bringing new comedies to the screen.

“In comedy, the bar has never been higher to get things made,” Mike Farah, former CEO of Funny Or Die and now an independent producer, said at a recent Producers Guild of America conference.

The other problem with comedy, after Jon Stewart broke this ground decades ago along with Bill Maher and both of them doing quite well,
is that comedy that discusses also political issues has been adopted by most everybody else, and well, others have not so well beyond often those who simply are partisans one way or the other who enjoy such shows.

Most people I know don’t want EVERYBODY trying to do comedy intertwined with political commentary, let alone any media professing to be sports-oriented, but that’s been modern society since at least 2008.

Here are more thoughts in this fine article on that front of far less demand for what passes any more for comedy:

"There’s a wider preference for dramas amongst cross-market audiences on the international level, as comedy tends to be more culturally specific to each region," said Mark Hoebich, executive vice president and head of film and TV at Luminate.

As Hollywood endures cutbacks in search of profits, comedy is seen as riskier than other genres, writers and producers said.

“It’s really easy to pitch a plot to somebody. It’s really easy to say ‘and then there’s a murder,’” said Guy Branum, a writer on Emmy-winning comedy “Hacks.” “But pitching the things that make comedy - tone and voice and character - it’s hard. You have to trust the people to know what they’re doing.”

And as cable television has lost viewers, media companies have cut investments in channels such as Comedy Central, a vital testing ground for new comedy.

Plus, the types of comedy on TV have changed. The FX series “The Bear” runs for 30 minutes - the traditional run time for a comedy - and has won Emmys in comedy categories. Many see the show, about family dysfunction and the stresses of operating a restaurant, as more of a drama.

"I think comedy is going through a little bit of an identity crisis," said producer Warren Littlefield, who developed classic sitcoms such as “Cheers,” “Seinfeld” and “The Golden Girls” while he worked as an executive at NBC.

It’s a self-inflicted identity crisis since at least 2008 - too many were trying to top Jon Stewart or Bill Maher in their prime, with both still at it and Maher still at or near the top of his game in my view.

A whole lot of other shows that are not comedy that have infused the same topics are going away as well, and good riddance to a whole lot more of the awful cable TV fare like especially on ESPN.

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1299

Don’t know where this is heading but it doesn’t look good for the Cable TV industry.

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1300

I don’t know if this one goes in here but somewhere in the article is the word the “great resetting” - From the looks of it - the big outfits are going through the ranks with a chainsaw and bringing the costs down.

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1301

A friend of mine, retired now and former media executive, told me this morning that some more cuts have hit CBS in the past few days of also some more of the veteran talent. It’s not surprising of course given the Paramount acquisition in progress, and it’s already been a bloodbath out there.

Then again there are those high-priced veteran employees like Gayle King get to keep their jobs let alone she even got such a job years ago, but most people had figured that one out.

Here’s more about the layoffs from just this week:
https://www.fastcompany.com/91198006/disney-paramount-layoffs-update-2024-hundreds-job-losses-legacy-media

It is believed the Phase 2 layoffs will impact Paramount’s streaming organization more than other departments, Deadline reports. It also notes that last week Paramount’s advertising division also went through job cuts.

Previously, Paramount has said all phases of the current layoffs will see about 15% of its U.S. workforce go for a total of around 2,000 cuts. Paramount’s CEOs said its layoffs were 90% complete after this week’s cuts. They encompass a plan to help the company save half a billion dollars annually.

Captain Obvious:
They’ve pulled the plug on most of the streaming strategy after billions in losses since the launch of Paramount+ in March 2021, including with ads during the Super Bowl a few weeks before launch. Oh well, we told them back in early 2023 right here.

As the author concludes at the end of the article, it’s not too hard to figure out the executive strategy of the new ownership to save a half a billion dollars per year:

  1. Cut hundreds of millions of dollars of losses per QUARTER, especially by streaming.
  2. Cut millions in payroll and benefits now.
1302

I’m three episodes into what is a series of six, and well I’m hoping that it does not fall off a cliff, unlike by comparison the documentary about American Gladiators.

The second episode starts with this lost treasure. I can’t believe this passed for entertainment at some point in my life, and it is evident again here that cocaine was one hell of a drug back then.

This is a catchy song despite the cheesy performance with pantomime on the instruments but as you can hear in Vince McMahon’s voice, that really was him singing!
:sweat_smile:

Have a look and thank me later.

1303

Falls in line with what @Paolo_X has been saying about Cable TV - that well has gone dry and now Hollywood is also paying the price.

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1304

No tears for 99% of them, for the industry was overstayed with the prolonged cable stranglehold since 2010, when the public sentiment mostly against the industry was already out in that pivotal year of the first-ever declines in cable and satellite subscriptions.

Did they innovate? Oh no, more “bundles” as they simply let Netflix get the upper hand even after great shows like “Breaking Bad,” for which the script in 2007 was turned down by so many that it ended up on lowly AMC, formerly an old classic movies channel!

If you watch the pilot episode of “Breaking Bad,” as edgy as it was beyond the subject matter, you can see why it was turned down given the social mores of the time before what was commonplace in social media amongst the under about crowd already.

Baby Boomer media executives and personalities especially did not figure out terribly much even during and after that Great Recession, for their old thinking and model was already passe` in 2002 after the rather poor rollout of digital cable TV (i.e. higher bills, poor additional features, and worst of all, a ton of repeat content instead of larger library).

These people did not only not adapt including even during the pandemic with even a heavily captive audience, and they created far more crap and tried to charge more for it too. They were already on bonus time.

SCREW THEM, and the rightful payback shall continue now by most who are choosing to simply go the cheap or free route unless and until something truly quality holds up.

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1305

Almost two years later already and along the lines of the cable industry bungling the opportunity that comes perhaps once in a generation during the pandemic with a captive audience,
for they thought that Regional Sports Network crap was so viable,
as heavily profitable as it was and as greedy as they were even into 2023 when that bottom fell out,
most of this post holds up.

I got it wrong that Peacock would not have an exclusive NFL game, which has been actually three games to date, but that ship may have sailed unless and until Comcast rebrands that crap service now for sale at times for $20 pre-paid for a year.

The NFL has also figured out that only Amazon Prime delivers a streaming broadcast akin to that of regular TV, and so that’s where they are going now.

At some point as do the other services, Comcast might figure out to simply include it with internet service, since they are still working overtime to recapture all the millions who left them whom they pissed off by 2021.

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1307

The alarmism, outrage, and naivete in this article in this series via Reuters is thick.

The series is otherwise righteous to expose such matters as not merely harmless fun for everybody involved, but that’s NOT a new insight at all.

Warning: This read via the link contains some offensive and/or heavily sexually explicit content.

Chalk this one out to yet another consequence when too many people are stuck at home and not working unless like dominantly ladies on OnlyFans, well they are working and that’s their thing with all that comes with that.

Most of the worst YouTubers are gone as well as some of the more popular channels, for the captive audience is gone plus most of that content was crap anyway, along with sham companies like 23 & Me and so forth in all that extra time some people not having to drive to and from work had during the pandemic.

I’m all for adults doing as they wish as long as nobody is physically hurt and no minors are involved, which is basically the law well in place after all, but enough with this outrage after somebody has knowingly known they could be play with fire much like hanging out regularly in a casino, driving through a bad part of town to get a deal, walking into a new dive bar, et cetera where of course stuff happens!

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/onlyfans-sex-cases-society/

Here’s how the article starts, but this is an old story and not merely about OnlyFans, as the article portends disingenously. Merely erase OnlyFans, and the same has been going on for some time now and will continue somewhere else.

Instagram in fact is basically a lead-in marketing engine for OnlyFans, so there’s that reality, but of course again, it’s hardly the fault of one website when things go bad if at all.

Usually there is far more to the story here than some porn site, but of course once again, when too many people are not working and are at home (and if working at home, are not really doing it well, hence why most companies and jobs [except many tech jobs like before the pandemic] need to be not in the home), here we are again in human history.

The alarmism such as in this article is way over-the-top for what has been known not merely the way folks have gone about things in places like Hollywood, Las Vegas, and Manhattan like almost anywhere, especially in larger cities but hardly only in them, where there is heavy adult recreation.
:roll_eyes:

Melinda Lam’s husband had a secret.

Lam said she discovered it after a credit card payment for her son’s karate lessons was declined in December 2021. That led the 46-year-old pharmacist from Colorado to check the accounts she shared with her husband.

At least six credit cards were maxed out, she said, and nearly $40,000 had been drained from their savings. One card statement suggested where the money might have gone.

“It says OnlyFans, OnlyFans, OnlyFans,” recalled Lam, who was then undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer.

Her husband would ultimately spend $135,000 on porn creators on OnlyFans, a subscription-based website, according to Lam and records she shared with Reuters. She said she was preparing to file for bankruptcy – and finalizing a divorce.