4 ms·

No I think you're right. The one big thing that has yet to really move online is sports. Once I can watch all the games I want online, cable is going away

k-mcgrady 11y ago
That's already very possible too, they just need to make it unrestricted. For those outside the US services like NFL/MLB/NBA Game Pass are really fantastic. I can watch live, on demand, and condensed versions of any game.
stephengillie 11y ago
I watched the most recent Superbowl via streaming. Technically, streaming sports is about as easy as streaming any other video. One big hurdle is all the licensing because there is a lot of money involved. Edit: The other hurdle is horizontally scaling live streaming video to over 100 million devices. Networks like the NFL Network are doomed as soon as most NFL fans realize they could be streaming literally any game they want to watch from a Netflix-style service, or watch any number of games in a community from a curated Cytube-style list, instead of having just the 1 game at a time.
- maxerickson 11y ago
  Once the NFL put together the NFL Network it quickly started using it to broadcast games. It isn't doomed by streaming, it provides some (much?) of the stadium side infrastructure that is still necessary for streaming.
- gknoy 11y ago
  Is there a way to legally stream sports like the big football game in february, without already having a cable subscription? That's the one thing (well, aside from big bang theory) my family and I miss from cable.
  - stephengillie 11y ago
    I was surprised to find it so easy to stream from NFL.com last winter. Maybe adblock software helped. And the television ads were included in the stream and so were basically unavoidable. I used the old-fashioned adblock of muting the stream during the television commercials.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    If you are close enough to a big city, you should be able to use free-to-air TV broadcasts. You can get an ATSC receiver for your PC if you don't have a TV, and DVR software that lets you skip commercials and run your own replays as you like.
- qzcx 11y ago
  Not completely true. Everyone wanting to want to watch it at the same time causes issues. Other videos you can distribute the video to caches ahead of time, so the burden on the outgoing connection is less.
  - stephengillie 11y ago
    Are you describing a problem between live streaming and pre-recorded video? How does Twitch handle their load? How many more people are watching the average football game vs watched "Twitch Plays Pokemon" at its peak? Edit: TPP had 60,000-70,000 simultaneous viewers on average, with a peak of 120,000.[1] In 2014, each NFL game had about 17.6 million viewers.[2] So an order of magnitude increase. How well does live streaming video scale horizontally? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon#Viewership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon#View... [2]http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/01/09/nfl-2014-tv-recap-202-million-viewers-game-viewership-nearly-triples-broadcast-primetime/348433/ http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/01/09/nfl-2014-tv-reca...
    - slg 11y ago
      MLB streamed to 60 million viewers on opening day this year. [1] Granted that is 14 different events being streamed, but they eclipse Twitch in terms of live streaming by a huge amount. [1] - http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/07/mlb-com-hits-home-run-with-record-opening-day-streaming-numbers/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/07/mlb-com-hits-home-run-with-...
    - kuschku 11y ago
      You can take the Eurovision Song Contest as example. Millions of people watching via livestream, overall (including TV), the largest annual TV event (197 million overall) Livestreaming scales very nicely horizontally, if done properly. And this is an event that is completely done without any ads or commercial investor backing it.
  - brwnll 11y ago
    stephengillie, "twitch plays pokemon" maxed out at 121,000 concurrent (according to Twitch) viewers, last years Super Bowl maxed out at 120,800,000 viewers. So yes, I would say it is a considerably different scale.
wrsh07 11y ago
This is an area where MLB is way ahead of the rest. There was even a nice article linked here a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9416565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9416565
- happycube 11y ago
  Yup... to the point where (as mentioned before) MLB is running HBO Now. (HBO's attempt at doing it inhouse with a bunch of ex-Microsoft peeps failed...)
- slg 11y ago
  The problem is that like a lot of other streaming content, sports has to follow archaic rules designed to protect the broadcasters. Specifically for MLB, you are not able to stream any game from your local market's team(s). This nullifies the biggest market who would be interested in streaming games.
  - jonknee 11y ago
    The funny thing is they actually stream the local broadcasts (you choose which one you want) and then cut out the commercials. If they showed the commercials I don't see how it's different than watching locally on TV, except there's even more money involved because you paid a lot more than the carriage fee for MLB.tv. It's even a nice compliment to watching it on TV because you can watch on a mobile device. ESPN lets you stream stuff if you have a cable subscription, but you can't stream local games with MLB.tv regardless of your cable subscription.
    - kodablah 11y ago
      "If they showed the commercials I don't see how it's different than watching locally on TV..." I have always wondered about this. I have to assume television broadcasters (e.g. the regional Fox Sports networks) who pay billions over decades to have broadcast rights want to protect their hegemony on TV. But in general you would think that they could sell their advertisers on the fact they are also being viewed by online subscribers. Maybe the advertisers don't want their otherwise local commercials broadcast, but then that doesn't explain why I can watch commercials when I watch a regional channel from another state. "ESPN lets you stream stuff if you have a cable subscription, but you can't stream local games with MLB.tv regardless of your cable subscription." But ESPN doesn't really let you stream local stuff of the US's big 4 leagues. It is unfair to compare the professional sports streaming options of ESPN3, Fox Sports Go, NBCSN, etc with those of the 4 leagues considering that none of the broadcasters can broadcast ANY games, much less be blackout-stricken.

k-mcgrady 11y ago

That's already very possible too, they just need to make it unrestricted. For those outside the US services like NFL/MLB/NBA Game Pass are really fantastic. I can watch live, on demand, and condensed versions of any game.

stephengillie 11y ago

I watched the most recent Superbowl via streaming. Technically, streaming sports is about as easy as streaming any other video. One big hurdle is all the licensing because there is a lot of money involved. Edit: The other hurdle is horizontally scaling live streaming video to over 100 million devices. Networks like the NFL Network are doomed as soon as most NFL fans realize they could be streaming literally any game they want to watch from a Netflix-style service, or watch any number of games in a community from a curated Cytube-style list, instead of having just the 1 game at a time.

maxerickson 11y ago
Once the NFL put together the NFL Network it quickly started using it to broadcast games. It isn't doomed by streaming, it provides some (much?) of the stadium side infrastructure that is still necessary for streaming.
gknoy 11y ago
Is there a way to legally stream sports like the big football game in february, without already having a cable subscription? That's the one thing (well, aside from big bang theory) my family and I miss from cable.
- stephengillie 11y ago
  I was surprised to find it so easy to stream from NFL.com last winter. Maybe adblock software helped. And the television ads were included in the stream and so were basically unavoidable. I used the old-fashioned adblock of muting the stream during the television commercials.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  If you are close enough to a big city, you should be able to use free-to-air TV broadcasts. You can get an ATSC receiver for your PC if you don't have a TV, and DVR software that lets you skip commercials and run your own replays as you like.
qzcx 11y ago
Not completely true. Everyone wanting to want to watch it at the same time causes issues. Other videos you can distribute the video to caches ahead of time, so the burden on the outgoing connection is less.
- stephengillie 11y ago
  Are you describing a problem between live streaming and pre-recorded video? How does Twitch handle their load? How many more people are watching the average football game vs watched "Twitch Plays Pokemon" at its peak? Edit: TPP had 60,000-70,000 simultaneous viewers on average, with a peak of 120,000.[1] In 2014, each NFL game had about 17.6 million viewers.[2] So an order of magnitude increase. How well does live streaming video scale horizontally? [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon#Viewership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_Plays_Pok%C3%A9mon#View... [2]http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/01/09/nfl-2014-tv-recap-202-million-viewers-game-viewership-nearly-triples-broadcast-primetime/348433/ http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/2015/01/09/nfl-2014-tv-reca...
  - slg 11y ago
    MLB streamed to 60 million viewers on opening day this year. [1] Granted that is 14 different events being streamed, but they eclipse Twitch in terms of live streaming by a huge amount. [1] - http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/07/mlb-com-hits-home-run-with-record-opening-day-streaming-numbers/ http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/07/mlb-com-hits-home-run-with-...
  - kuschku 11y ago
    You can take the Eurovision Song Contest as example. Millions of people watching via livestream, overall (including TV), the largest annual TV event (197 million overall) Livestreaming scales very nicely horizontally, if done properly. And this is an event that is completely done without any ads or commercial investor backing it.
- brwnll 11y ago
  stephengillie, "twitch plays pokemon" maxed out at 121,000 concurrent (according to Twitch) viewers, last years Super Bowl maxed out at 120,800,000 viewers. So yes, I would say it is a considerably different scale.

wrsh07 11y ago

This is an area where MLB is way ahead of the rest. There was even a nice article linked here a while ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9416565 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9416565

happycube 11y ago
Yup... to the point where (as mentioned before) MLB is running HBO Now. (HBO's attempt at doing it inhouse with a bunch of ex-Microsoft peeps failed...)
slg 11y ago
The problem is that like a lot of other streaming content, sports has to follow archaic rules designed to protect the broadcasters. Specifically for MLB, you are not able to stream any game from your local market's team(s). This nullifies the biggest market who would be interested in streaming games.
- jonknee 11y ago
  The funny thing is they actually stream the local broadcasts (you choose which one you want) and then cut out the commercials. If they showed the commercials I don't see how it's different than watching locally on TV, except there's even more money involved because you paid a lot more than the carriage fee for MLB.tv. It's even a nice compliment to watching it on TV because you can watch on a mobile device. ESPN lets you stream stuff if you have a cable subscription, but you can't stream local games with MLB.tv regardless of your cable subscription.
  - kodablah 11y ago
    "If they showed the commercials I don't see how it's different than watching locally on TV..." I have always wondered about this. I have to assume television broadcasters (e.g. the regional Fox Sports networks) who pay billions over decades to have broadcast rights want to protect their hegemony on TV. But in general you would think that they could sell their advertisers on the fact they are also being viewed by online subscribers. Maybe the advertisers don't want their otherwise local commercials broadcast, but then that doesn't explain why I can watch commercials when I watch a regional channel from another state. "ESPN lets you stream stuff if you have a cable subscription, but you can't stream local games with MLB.tv regardless of your cable subscription." But ESPN doesn't really let you stream local stuff of the US's big 4 leagues. It is unfair to compare the professional sports streaming options of ESPN3, Fox Sports Go, NBCSN, etc with those of the 4 leagues considering that none of the broadcasters can broadcast ANY games, much less be blackout-stricken.