5 ms·

It's funny you say that, I grew up with that very system for decades before streaming became a thing. We had multiple choices of entertainment to watch on TV fo

It's funny you say that, I grew up with that very system for decades before streaming became a thing. We had multiple choices of entertainment to watch on TV for completely free. Yes, that's right! Completely free! The only cost was the TV and the time to watch commercials.

CPLX 9y ago
> the time to watch commercials Indeed.
xxpor 9y ago
The difference was that in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, baseball players (for example) made between $5,000 and $100,000 a year. Even with inflation, that's nowhere close to the $500,000 to $30 million they make today.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Great, I’m fine with that. While we’re at it can taxpayers stop paying for stadiums?
  - majormajor 9y ago
    You're gonna need more rational / less worried taxpayers for that one. ;)
- majormajor 9y ago
  The cause and effect is backwards here. Player salaries haven't driven up the cost of broadcasting. Being able to make money from broadcasts has driven up player salaries. And the biggest change was the move to cable subscriber fees for dedicated sports networks in addition to pure ad-revenue supported OTA broadcasts (with the NFL being a bit of an exception, as the infrequency of the games and the overlapping times makes its OTA broadcasts much more valuable than other leagues'). The bigger a subscriber fee you can charge as a cable channel -> the more you can bid on the rights for the local team -> the more the team receives -> the more the team can bid on players.
  - xxpor 9y ago
    I think we agree here. Your analysis is correct in how it got to be this way, but my point is that it's basically impossible to reverse the situation. If you get rid of your team's TV contract, you'll never sign another free agent ever again. Even if every MLB team colluded to get rid of the TV contracts, the NPB and KBO would become the new MLB.
    - kodablah 9y ago
      It's not impossible. The CBAs in the capped leagues aren't going to grow the cap as much. In cases like the MLB, you'll just see a larger separation between owners willing to lose a lot of money and those not willing. Some of the MLB TV contracts (like Fox Sports Southwest for the Rangers) are for 20 years and the MLB doesn't even give them global streaming rights. It'll be the TV companies not upping their bids as high next go round. In the meantime, they will milk it for all they can, and you see more innovative and subtle ad placement (compared to traditional commercials and signage) already as a result of this. Also, just this past week, ESPN sucked up all of these regional Fox channels and are on the hook for these contracts. There is a real bubble in sports salaries right now, and it won't be supported by viewer eyeballs forever.
majormajor 9y ago
No, you didn't grow up with that sort of system. I was there too, and I remember the details you're leaving out. How do you think you watched the average college football game in 1980? The answer is: you didn't. It wasn't broadcast. A handful of games a week were broadcast anywhere. Cable slowly increased the number of games available over a few decades, but it was no longer free. There simply weren't enough broadcast channels, or enough interested eyeballs, in order to justifying broadcasting the average Oregon State @ Utah random weekly matchup anywhere before big cable bundles with lots of expensive ESPN and regional sports networks. Same for local pro sports: the 90s gradually saw more and more of my home teams' games being available on TV, but not purely on free over the air TV, the economics of that rarely made sense. Regional sports networks were the driver here, and they collected subscriber fees. The amount of advertisements shown saw some big increases too, to help recoup the costs with both revenue streams. You didn't use to always have the dude with the red hat stepping onto the field to stop play for TV timeouts nearly as much. You sure as fuck did not watch "any live sporting event I fancy, for free." That poster is living in a dream world if he thinks that will continue to happen without people paying for the goddamn content.
- talmand 9y ago
  Did I watch every single possible sports event for free on TV when I was a child? Of course not, but I do recall seeing quite a lot of it. I recall pro sport games in football, basketball, baseball, and hockey. I recall college games in football, basketball, and baseball. I even recall local high school games in football and baseball. All on broadcast TV before cable; for that matter after cable because we still got our local broadcast channels via cable with the exact same content. Did I get to watch high school football from three states over? Nope, I admit to that one. Did some people experience broadcast blackouts? Yes, but that was done to get the locals to actually buy tickets to go to the game. Was it the utopia of sports we have today? Nope, and I claimed no such thing. As for today, if there's money in it then they'll do it. There wasn't as much money in sports at the time. There's money there now. If they wish to continue that revenue by exploring a free streaming model with commercials, then they will find a way. Many creators said "we'll never do that" in many things over the years, and then they eventually do when they decide to not turn the money away. The only constant is that things change. In the end, if people don't want to contribute to the costs of entertainment via payment or ads, then that entertainment dies. But the model is there, has been there for years, and it's up to the content creators decide how they wish to move forward.

CPLX 9y ago

> the time to watch commercials Indeed.

xxpor 9y ago

The difference was that in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, baseball players (for example) made between $5,000 and $100,000 a year. Even with inflation, that's nowhere close to the $500,000 to $30 million they make today.

QAPereo 9y ago
Great, I’m fine with that. While we’re at it can taxpayers stop paying for stadiums?
- majormajor 9y ago
  You're gonna need more rational / less worried taxpayers for that one. ;)
majormajor 9y ago
The cause and effect is backwards here. Player salaries haven't driven up the cost of broadcasting. Being able to make money from broadcasts has driven up player salaries. And the biggest change was the move to cable subscriber fees for dedicated sports networks in addition to pure ad-revenue supported OTA broadcasts (with the NFL being a bit of an exception, as the infrequency of the games and the overlapping times makes its OTA broadcasts much more valuable than other leagues'). The bigger a subscriber fee you can charge as a cable channel -> the more you can bid on the rights for the local team -> the more the team receives -> the more the team can bid on players.
- xxpor 9y ago
  I think we agree here. Your analysis is correct in how it got to be this way, but my point is that it's basically impossible to reverse the situation. If you get rid of your team's TV contract, you'll never sign another free agent ever again. Even if every MLB team colluded to get rid of the TV contracts, the NPB and KBO would become the new MLB.
  - kodablah 9y ago
    It's not impossible. The CBAs in the capped leagues aren't going to grow the cap as much. In cases like the MLB, you'll just see a larger separation between owners willing to lose a lot of money and those not willing. Some of the MLB TV contracts (like Fox Sports Southwest for the Rangers) are for 20 years and the MLB doesn't even give them global streaming rights. It'll be the TV companies not upping their bids as high next go round. In the meantime, they will milk it for all they can, and you see more innovative and subtle ad placement (compared to traditional commercials and signage) already as a result of this. Also, just this past week, ESPN sucked up all of these regional Fox channels and are on the hook for these contracts. There is a real bubble in sports salaries right now, and it won't be supported by viewer eyeballs forever.

majormajor 9y ago

No, you didn't grow up with that sort of system. I was there too, and I remember the details you're leaving out. How do you think you watched the average college football game in 1980? The answer is: you didn't. It wasn't broadcast. A handful of games a week were broadcast anywhere. Cable slowly increased the number of games available over a few decades, but it was no longer free. There simply weren't enough broadcast channels, or enough interested eyeballs, in order to justifying broadcasting the average Oregon State @ Utah random weekly matchup anywhere before big cable bundles with lots of expensive ESPN and regional sports networks. Same for local pro sports: the 90s gradually saw more and more of my home teams' games being available on TV, but not purely on free over the air TV, the economics of that rarely made sense. Regional sports networks were the driver here, and they collected subscriber fees. The amount of advertisements shown saw some big increases too, to help recoup the costs with both revenue streams. You didn't use to always have the dude with the red hat stepping onto the field to stop play for TV timeouts nearly as much. You sure as fuck did not watch "any live sporting event I fancy, for free." That poster is living in a dream world if he thinks that will continue to happen without people paying for the goddamn content.

talmand 9y ago
Did I watch every single possible sports event for free on TV when I was a child? Of course not, but I do recall seeing quite a lot of it. I recall pro sport games in football, basketball, baseball, and hockey. I recall college games in football, basketball, and baseball. I even recall local high school games in football and baseball. All on broadcast TV before cable; for that matter after cable because we still got our local broadcast channels via cable with the exact same content. Did I get to watch high school football from three states over? Nope, I admit to that one. Did some people experience broadcast blackouts? Yes, but that was done to get the locals to actually buy tickets to go to the game. Was it the utopia of sports we have today? Nope, and I claimed no such thing. As for today, if there's money in it then they'll do it. There wasn't as much money in sports at the time. There's money there now. If they wish to continue that revenue by exploring a free streaming model with commercials, then they will find a way. Many creators said "we'll never do that" in many things over the years, and then they eventually do when they decide to not turn the money away. The only constant is that things change. In the end, if people don't want to contribute to the costs of entertainment via payment or ads, then that entertainment dies. But the model is there, has been there for years, and it's up to the content creators decide how they wish to move forward.