8 ms·

> The reality for cord cutters and cable companies alike is that, if it weren't for ESPN I'd have no reason to have cable. It's the only reason I have a pay TV

by peckrob 11y ago

> The reality for cord cutters and cable companies alike is that, if it weren't for ESPN I'd have no reason to have cable. It's the only reason I have a pay TV package. During college football season I got a Sling subscription solely to watch college football (ESPN and the SEC Network mostly). I never even really used the Sling app much - it's terrible, crashes a lot, and isn't on AppleTV. I just used my Sling account to connect to WatchESPN. That, plus an antenna for the marquee matchups on the major networks covered everything I wanted to see this last year at 1/6 the cost of a cable subscription. All of my football-watching friends were doing the same thing this year. The fact is, if I could, I would pay ESPN directly what I paid Sling for access to WatchESPN. Because, just like cable, Sling was giving me a bunch of stuff I don't really care about just to get ESPN. There's nothing else on TV that I can't wait for other than sports. > With Netflix or other streaming services 50,000 TVs is 50,000 individual streaming sessions. With a broadcast 50,000 people watching the same thing is 1 broadcast. It's just a question of scalability that gets complicated if millions of people all want to watch the same thing at the exact same time. I really don't think the problem here is technological so much as it is economic. The scalability problems could be solved if there was the will. But according to one article [0] an unbunbled or streaming subscriber would need to pay $36 a month for ESPN access for them to generate the same revenue they generate through current cable carriage contracts. Considering ESPN is starting to feel the crunch [1] from cord cutting and is beginning to trim costs, I imagine it will eventually become a reality. [0] http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2015/03/25/are-you-willing-to-pay-36-per-month-for-espn/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2015/03/25/are-... [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/cable-television-espn-households-layoffs-2015-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/cable-television-espn-househo...

eewffwe 11y ago
>isn't on AppleTV You can use your Sling membership credentials to sign into ESPN's app. The app does not crash from my experience - works a charm.
- peckrob 11y ago
  Yup, that's exactly what I was doing. :)
profeta 11y ago
Doesn't it air on any open channel? when i got my friends to watch the world cup at home i attached a $5 antenna to the DVR (i build a computer with a $120 TV-in card, and had never used until then!) the image was not the best, but for live sports, who cares?! oh and it got worse every time a plane passed above. anyway, the antenna was a very easy solution for the impromptu need for live sports.
- peckrob 11y ago
  Not sure where you're located, but in the US ESPN is a cable/satellite only channel. The only way to get it is with a subscription. For college sports, they're also the biggest player. The "big" matchups of the week (usually the highest ranked or most interesting teams) in each market are usually played on the major networks that you can pick up with an antenna from the local affiliate. But the rest of the games being televised are carried exclusively* on cable, usually on ESPN channels. Keep in mind there are 128 Division 1-A (major) programs, and many more 1-AA and lower programs, so there are a LOT of games going on each week. Some games are played during the week, but the very large majority of them are played on Saturday. So there's way more going on then could ever conceivably be carried over the air. During college football season, there are something like 7 or 8 games playing simultaneously on the various ESPN channels, not including the "Plus" channels that are only available digitally by WatchESPN. There are a couple others out there (NBC Sports Network and FoxSports come to mind) but neither are bigger in sports than ESPN. * Depending on where you live, you can also sometimes get radio broadcasts if you live close enough to the school in question that there's a local affiliate that carries the game. Rights for those are handled differently.
  - profeta 11y ago
    i see. well, for air channels, they would probably show the Saturday game with the most local teams only. never really followed american football. but for soccer that works fine for most people. And when there are two games with local teams, they show the bigger one and interrupt it to show goals on the other one.
cptskippy 11y ago
> an unbunbled or streaming subscriber would need to pay $36 a month for ESPN access for them to generate the same revenue they generate through current cable carriage contracts. ESPN and professional sports are way over valued and forcing everyone to subsidize sports fans. This is literally the reason why people are becoming cord-cutters, they're tired of paying for things they don't want. Right now 1 in 6 cable subscribers watch ESPN but 6 in 6 cable subscribers pay for it. Cable companies really need to move to an a-la-carte pricing model if they want survive but they're afraid of the large networks pulling their bundles. It's almost like we need a cable monopoly or union to break the network monopolies.
- mapt 11y ago
  "1 in 6 watches it, 6 in 6 pay for it". Except that the marginal cost of providing ESPN service to people who do not watch ESPN is nearly zero. A-la-carte pricing makes sense if the corporation is spending a-la-carte costs, but they're not: the cable hookup and maintenance costs almost the same either way. There are some issues with a cap on the number of channels that can be simultaneously transmitted in a cable pipe, but it's perfectly feasible to launch a few hundred simulcast channels on current tech. You're not paying for the stuff you don't watch, you're paying for what you do watch; Providing the selection of things that you can refuse to watch, is basically free.
  - jack9 11y ago
    I'm not sure what you mean by "Except" or "You're not paying for the stuff you don't watch, you're paying for what you do watch;" A la carte that avoids ESPN, doesn't exist from the major providers (it's part of everyone's basic packages but ATT that I have seen). That was the point (6 of 6 pay for it).
  - MereInterest 11y ago
    The cost of the hookup is just one part of the cost. Licensing fees are also present. A quick Google search finds that for ESPN, these are on the order of $5/customer/month. For someone who doesn't watch ESPN, that is a hefty subsidy compared to that of other networks. Source:http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/dish-espn-trial-offers-a-422301 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/dish-espn-trial-off...
grayje 11y ago
> an unbundled or streaming subscriber would need to pay $36 a month for ESPN access for them to generate the same revenue they generate through current cable carriage contracts That subscriber will be worth a lot more once they can be targeted with individually personalized marketing content based on previous TV-watching habits, augmented with third-party data from other digital channels, web browsing history, purchasing history, etc. It's coming; YouTube proves it can be done. It's only a matter of time before we see different business models for the monetization of streaming content on more 'traditional' TV channels as well. The alternative is a subscription model that would price out many sports fans, or obsolescence followed by slow death for want of revenue.

by peckrob 11y ago

eewffwe 11y ago

>isn't on AppleTV You can use your Sling membership credentials to sign into ESPN's app. The app does not crash from my experience - works a charm.

peckrob 11y ago
Yup, that's exactly what I was doing. :)

profeta 11y ago

Doesn't it air on any open channel? when i got my friends to watch the world cup at home i attached a $5 antenna to the DVR (i build a computer with a $120 TV-in card, and had never used until then!) the image was not the best, but for live sports, who cares?! oh and it got worse every time a plane passed above. anyway, the antenna was a very easy solution for the impromptu need for live sports.

peckrob 11y ago
Not sure where you're located, but in the US ESPN is a cable/satellite only channel. The only way to get it is with a subscription. For college sports, they're also the biggest player. The "big" matchups of the week (usually the highest ranked or most interesting teams) in each market are usually played on the major networks that you can pick up with an antenna from the local affiliate. But the rest of the games being televised are carried exclusively* on cable, usually on ESPN channels. Keep in mind there are 128 Division 1-A (major) programs, and many more 1-AA and lower programs, so there are a LOT of games going on each week. Some games are played during the week, but the very large majority of them are played on Saturday. So there's way more going on then could ever conceivably be carried over the air. During college football season, there are something like 7 or 8 games playing simultaneously on the various ESPN channels, not including the "Plus" channels that are only available digitally by WatchESPN. There are a couple others out there (NBC Sports Network and FoxSports come to mind) but neither are bigger in sports than ESPN. * Depending on where you live, you can also sometimes get radio broadcasts if you live close enough to the school in question that there's a local affiliate that carries the game. Rights for those are handled differently.
- profeta 11y ago
  i see. well, for air channels, they would probably show the Saturday game with the most local teams only. never really followed american football. but for soccer that works fine for most people. And when there are two games with local teams, they show the bigger one and interrupt it to show goals on the other one.

cptskippy 11y ago

> an unbunbled or streaming subscriber would need to pay $36 a month for ESPN access for them to generate the same revenue they generate through current cable carriage contracts. ESPN and professional sports are way over valued and forcing everyone to subsidize sports fans. This is literally the reason why people are becoming cord-cutters, they're tired of paying for things they don't want. Right now 1 in 6 cable subscribers watch ESPN but 6 in 6 cable subscribers pay for it. Cable companies really need to move to an a-la-carte pricing model if they want survive but they're afraid of the large networks pulling their bundles. It's almost like we need a cable monopoly or union to break the network monopolies.

mapt 11y ago
"1 in 6 watches it, 6 in 6 pay for it". Except that the marginal cost of providing ESPN service to people who do not watch ESPN is nearly zero. A-la-carte pricing makes sense if the corporation is spending a-la-carte costs, but they're not: the cable hookup and maintenance costs almost the same either way. There are some issues with a cap on the number of channels that can be simultaneously transmitted in a cable pipe, but it's perfectly feasible to launch a few hundred simulcast channels on current tech. You're not paying for the stuff you don't watch, you're paying for what you do watch; Providing the selection of things that you can refuse to watch, is basically free.
- jack9 11y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean by "Except" or "You're not paying for the stuff you don't watch, you're paying for what you do watch;" A la carte that avoids ESPN, doesn't exist from the major providers (it's part of everyone's basic packages but ATT that I have seen). That was the point (6 of 6 pay for it).
- MereInterest 11y ago
  The cost of the hookup is just one part of the cost. Licensing fees are also present. A quick Google search finds that for ESPN, these are on the order of $5/customer/month. For someone who doesn't watch ESPN, that is a hefty subsidy compared to that of other networks. Source:http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/dish-espn-trial-offers-a-422301 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/dish-espn-trial-off...

grayje 11y ago

> an unbundled or streaming subscriber would need to pay $36 a month for ESPN access for them to generate the same revenue they generate through current cable carriage contracts That subscriber will be worth a lot more once they can be targeted with individually personalized marketing content based on previous TV-watching habits, augmented with third-party data from other digital channels, web browsing history, purchasing history, etc. It's coming; YouTube proves it can be done. It's only a matter of time before we see different business models for the monetization of streaming content on more 'traditional' TV channels as well. The alternative is a subscription model that would price out many sports fans, or obsolescence followed by slow death for want of revenue.