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Amazon wins streaming rights for Thursday Night Football
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- seibelj 10y agoI just want to watch local games on my HD antenna. Being locked out of a Patriots MNF game, forcing me to either go to a bar or watch an illegal stream, is simply absurd.
- aanm1988 10y agoWhy is this absurd? It's expecting you to pay for their product.
- sushid 10y agoYou do realize that he's paying, right? They force you to go to the game physically to watch it (unless the game is sold out), which IMO is pretty unreasonable.
- aanm1988 10y agoReally? How much did the person watching at home pay? It's not absurd. I don't like it, but it's not absurd.
- sushid 10y agoNot sure if you're familiar with blackout rules. [0] It's complex but basically, even if you have paid for cable or for NFL GamePass (online), you can still be blacked out for local games. It's absurd because you paid for the games and you should be entitled to the same content whether you're in Michigan or California. Even if you haven't paid, it's absurd because it reduces exposure to the local football team, which can only hurt them in the long run. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_television_blackout_policies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Football_League_telev...
- brianbreslin 10y agowatching it over a regular broadcast is paying for it. you're watching ads.
- dexterdog 10y agoYou're also watching ads on any paid steam.
- russdpale 10y agoNo the point is to entice ticket sales. If the game is sold out its broadcast..
- bjorn2404 10y agoDon't forget that many of the stadiums are at least partially funded by taxes.
- cozzyd 10y agoI think the Patriots might be the one exception to that.
- jonathankoren 10y agoNope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillette_Stadium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillette_Stadium
- Godel_unicode 10y agoDid you miss the below quote from the linked article? "...After the Hartford proposal fell through, Robert Kraft paid for 100% of the construction costs, a rare instance of an NFL owner privately financing the construction of a stadium."
- Retric 10y agoConcurrently announced was a new road to access the stadium from U.S. Route 1, and an additional 3,000 parking spaces to accommodate the increased number of fans.. In other words the stadium is only part of the total construction costs. But, politically indirect costs where an easy sell.
- jessaustin 10y agoI'm going out on a limb to speculate that a stadium costs more to build than a parking lot...
- gregshap 10y agoThe patriots stadium construction was owner funded. "After the Hartford proposal fell through, Robert Kraft paid for 100% of the construction costs, a rare instance of an NFL owner privately financing the construction of a stadium." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillette_Stadium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillette_Stadium]
- nommm-nommm 10y agoSports blackout rules are pretty much the definition of absurd.
- chrisan 10y agoYou can watch if the game is sold out
- mayneack 10y agoWhich a patriots game will be.
- edhebert 10y agoLocal games are simulcast over the air.
- Brendinooo 10y agoSeconding this; if a game in on MNF check your local ABC feed.
- tkdc926 10y agoThe NFL eliminated the "black-out" rule back in 2014. All home games are available on local TV.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- syshum 10y ago>Amazon has wanted to put sports rights on its Amazon Prime video service, Amazon wants me to cancel my Prime Video Service.... I would have rather gotten Season 3-n of Alpha House than Football or any other sports.. If they start investing in sports over premium content they can count me out... I have been a prime member almost from the beginning of prime, I own 6 fireTV devices, and a few Kindle's, I am deep in the Amazon eco system, I will rip them all out over sports.. I dropped cable TV originally because I grew tried of most of my payment going to subsidize sports, and having my channels interrupted with "Live Sports"
- plandis 10y agoWhere did it say they were transferring funding from Alpha House to ThNF?
- syshum 10y agoThey cancelled Alpha House awhile back, I do not believe I implied they cancelled because of NFL, I simply stated I think the 50 million would have been better spent on that show than buying any NFL garbage That said every company has a Budget, and the 50 Million they are giving to the NFL for their over priced waste of time is 50 Million they could have spent on quality original entertainment, or buying some back catalog somewhere. personally I would get more enjoyment if they released a video of Jeff Bezos burning 50 Million in a 55 Gallon drum... //I can not stand the NFL....
- SomeStupidPoint 10y agoSo it was fine when my logistics membership was subsidizing your TV viewing, but now that Amazon is offering something I want to watch, it's awful they are using memberships to subsidize something not everyone wants? Okay then.
- syshum 10y ago>So it was fine when my logistics membership was subsidizing your TV viewing, No, it is not. I have also advocated for a Shipping only Prime. I have a problem with the "Everything including the Kitchen Sink" Prime,
- caseysoftware 10y agoThe big reason many people have to not canceling their cable is live sports. If this is the new trend, it's catastrophic to cable providers.
- taurath 10y agoHalf the reason people I know use DIRECTV is to get out of network football games. They've had Sunday ticket on streaming for the past few years but it's like $400 up front and the streaming fucks up. $200 and YouTube live quality and I'll be damn happy.
- vogt 10y agoThat was me for 4 years. Just got out of my contract at the end of football season and it was a nightmare. Our bill was $300/mo during football season and I think around $240 outside of that. It was just too much to justify. I was jerked around by their customer service on cancellation, which seems to be part and parcel of anything related to AT&T. I would love to see their entire business model completely upended.
- froindt 10y ago> Our bill was $300/mo during football season and I think around $240 outside of that. Holy hell I didn't realize service could get that expensive. It makes a bit more sense why my parents never got cable. I figured $80-100/month would get pretty much everything.
- daveFNbuck 10y agoMy bill was over $200/month until recently. That's without any of the sports packages.
- snuxoll 10y agoIt's around $80/mo here for basic digital cable here, for just the service. Go ahead and toss on equipment rental and other "fees" (read: hidden BS so we don't have to advertise our actual rates) and it quickly gets expensive for even rudimentary service. Quite honestly, I'm thinking about upgrading my PS Vue plan from the "Access" plan to the highest one that includes HBO and Showtime, at $65/mo it's still a hell of a lot cheaper than even the lowest-tier plan I can get from the local cable company.
- douche 10y agoThursday games are usually the worst, so I'm not sure what kind of a coup this is. Really, the NFL needs to bag the whole idea of Thursday games
- kbouck 10y agoAgreed. TNF doesn't allow teams enough time for preparation and physical recovery from the previous week's game. Especially when the previous game takes place on Sunday or Monday night. The Redskins had a stretch this past season where they had to play MNF on 11/21, and then TNF on 11/24 -- only 2 full days in between. That scheduling was absurd.
- fletchowns 10y agoIs it really that big of a deal if that happens once in awhile? I'm probably opening a huge can of worms with this comparison, but NHL players play 3-4 games a week all the time. Granted, both sports are tough as hell on the players.
- kunaalarya 10y agoFootball is much more tough than hockey and needs recovery time. Hockey is tough but Football you have running backs/WRs getting hit on every other play. You have the QB getting knocked down 3-5 times a game. The the offensive line is having a pushing and hand war with the defensive line on every single play while playing strategically and covering additional players. The WRs have to sprint on every play. And for special teams you have the opposite team running at you as you run at them.
- tiff_seattle 10y agoHopefully they will be broadcasting in 4K. It could be an influential driver of people with 4K TV's to try out Amazon Prime.
- paulcole 10y agoI'd bet the has 4K TV and doesn't have Amazon Prime segment to be pretty small.
- paulddraper 10y agoProbably. Vizio's TVs are pretty much all Smartcast (Chromecast) now. Chromecast doesn't work with Amazon Video, which is the main reason I don't watch it despite having Prime.
- mustacheemperor 10y agoSemantic correction, but it's really Amazon who refuses to let their streaming garden exit their hardware garden. I'd say it's more that Amazon Video doesn't work with the Chromecast. Since, you know, that's driving a lot of Fire Stick purchases (fellow frustrated Chromecast and Prime owner here).
- echelon 10y agoThis is the reason I don't watch Amazon Prime video. It's so dumb to have to have a separate device for everything.
- jonathankoren 10y agoI never understood Twitter's TNF streaming. I couldn't watch it on the phone, and when I tried the website, I saw a small video (no audio) of the game, with live tweets. I was genuinely confused and turned off by the experience. I wanted to watch the game, just like I would have on television, but instead I got this neither fish nor fowl experience, that was the worst of both. Twitter should have never gotten the contract at all, because they don't have a video client that runs on my television. Facebook doesn't either, and that's why Facebook shouldn't have gotten it either. Watching video in a browser is lame when I have 55 inch display literally feet away. I want my content there. That's where I watch OTA television, Netflix, and Hulu. If you can't provide it to my television, you've failed. (Yeah, you can hook your computer up to your screen via HDMI, but it's janky as hell, and a horrible experience. It's the 21st century equivalent of taping a magnifying glass to your television and calling it a "big screen" http://www.tvhistory.tv/TV-Magnifying-Lens.JPG http://www.tvhistory.tv/TV-Magnifying-Lens.JPG)
- jpindar 10y agoI was very pleased with Twitter's stream. I'd say it was one of the best quality NFL streams I ever seen. Not in so much terms of resolution per se but in terms of quality - lack of compression artifacts, stuttering and so on. And the audio was fine.
- dalerus 10y agoI really enjoyed Twitter's TNF streaming. I usually watched on my laptop or phone and enjoyed seeing the tweets integrated into the experience. I really have a hard time with Amazon's prime video player and offering, the UI needs more work. Hopefully this will work internationally like Twitter's version did.
- dcosson 10y agoI agree, it was odd to try out an internet company but then give it to one that doesn't have a way to stream to TVs/media players. I don't want to watch football on a small monitor, and I'm not so hardcore of a fan that if I'm out I'll be streaming it on my phone somewhere. I'm sure I will watch a few games on the fire tv this year though.
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- sumoboy 10y agoOnly need to signup 500k people to break even.
- dmix 10y agoI hope Amazon markets this properly. My GF and I both struggled to even find the https://www.primevideo.com/ https://www.primevideo.com/ landing page after we signed up. They have two different interfaces... the amazon.com video section and a seemingly unrelated Prime Video site which was difficult to find on their site. I had to use chrome://history the following day after signing up for the 30-day trial. Amazon is great at specific UX functionality but not so great at high-level information architecture. Prime Video has a superior video player to Netflix thanks to the XRay feature which tells you which actors/songs are currently playing/acting during the current scene. I've used it countless times. Speaking of Xray, for sports it would be great to see which players are currently on the field/court during a game, including which jersey number, and if possible the box score when you hover over the game. That would have been amazing during NCAA March Madness where I didn't know most of the young college players. The only thing missing from the Amazon player which Netflix has is "skip intro credits" button. I love this technology/product competition between the two none-the-less.
- hkmurakami 10y agoXray is powered by IMDB, which Amazon also owns right? Is there an entity they could buy to power such a service for sports?
- wapz 10y agoI've always believed each tv channel broadcasting games does the players report themselves (either in-house or contracted). Since the games are usually exclusive to a specific station, I can't imagine there's a big enough market for it to be a service.
- ukyrgf 10y agoX-ray shows the actors that are in that specific scene. Does IMDB have this information that they just don't show on their public site? That seems a lot more useful of a database than the few titles Prime offers it on.
- notyourwork 10y ago
- puranjay 10y agoSo Amazon seems to be competing pretty hard for my streaming dollars. I subscribe to Netflix and I buy a HBO Go subscription when GoT comes around (and cancel it right afterwards) Given the good things I've heard about a few of Amazon's shows (the Man in the High Castle for instance), I'm tempted to give it a try. But I'm not going to pay for two streaming services at the same time. I just don't stream enough to make it a feasible choice. I reckon this is a good problem to have. Lower costs for me, and higher content quality
- qqg3 10y agoAmazon is the better deal if you only go for one, their content library has gotten better and better. Also, consider the other perks you get with Amazon, shipping, music, books etc
- thesehands 10y agoNo question they have the infrastructure to do this well. I was impressed with the quality that Yahoo managed when they streamed some live games last season - perfect clarity with zero buffering and very little choppiness to the stream that some other providers don't always manage.
- amelius 10y agoWhen will VR sports streaming become a thing? I want to watch a match virtually from within the stadium.
- Touche 10y agoSteve Ballmer talked about this recently on a podcast, and said that they are working on it. It would allow you to buy a "virtual ticket" for any seat in the building. I think it's a pretty great idea for fans who live far away from their favorite teams.
- ghaff 10y agoSporting events (and experiences like concerts more broadly) seem like one of those areas where VR could actually find paying customers. There's a proven market for subscribing to watch this sort of activity and it avoids the physical interaction/feedback challenges that a lot of other VR applications have. The tech still needs to get better and there are certainly questions of viewer fatigue etc. But it certainly seems like a very plausible use of VR.
- kunaalarya 10y agoi don't get this. You get a better view of the game on tv (multi-angles, commentary, etc.). You go to arenas for the experience, of getting there beforehand, tailgating, going with your friends/kids. You get a worse view but you get a better experience. Why would you use VR for a worse view without the experience?
- Touche 10y agoAs a baseball fan who doesn't live in a city with a team, I would definitely use this. You're right that you don't get the full experience with VR, but I disagree that the view isn't part of the experience. So if the choice is no experience, only TV viewing, or some little bit of it, I'll take VR. Not every time I watch, of course, but every once in a while, definitely. EDIT: I just realized that you're probably focused on football. Football isn't a great live sport for viewing, so I get where you are coming from there. The pregame experience (tailgating) is the biggest reason to go to a football game. I've done plenty of tailgating where we never go into the game at all. For other sports I think this makes more sense.
- Neliquat 10y agoSo cable and all its burdens is just followimg the cordcutters. Please amazon, let the sportsball fools pay their own way. I cut cable partly to avoid paying the sports tax.
- sremani 10y agoYouTube is my overwhelming choice, you want to be on a platform that is in some form substituting TV. Twitter, FBLive, Amazon, AppleTV, XboxLive etc. are all nice but are sideshows. YouTube and Netflix are the only two real games in town, but YouTube is the overwhelming front-runner.