5 ms·

Only if there was an HBO for sports too. I hate watching those stupid ads when I watch live sports!

by msoad 9y ago

jasonkostempski 9y ago
I might pay for that if the arena and equipment wasn't also covered in ads. That's never going to change.
- antimatter 9y ago
  Exactly. I think NBA League Pass cuts out the advertising from the local tv networks during timeouts and half time to show the in arena feed (kiss cam, etc). But those are often times ads now as well.
- majormajor 9y ago
  I'm meh on those sponsorships, but would definitely pay for a commercial-removed sports experience. People don't realize how much dead time is introduced to professional games solely for commercial breaks. You can ignore a sponsor logo, you can't get that time back.
tenken 9y ago
its called PPV, a showing of an ad-free event. :)
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Only if there was an HBO for sports too. There are several. HBO itself is one of them. The sports on them are fairly limited, most notably boxing, however.
alsetmusic 9y ago
> Only if there was an HBO for sports too. I hate watching those stupid ads when I watch live sports! Funny, I came here to comment on my distaste for services, such as hbonow, that throw ads in front of paid content. They place ads for their other shows in front of the thing I’m trying to watch (at least, the web service does). I hate it and I am considering dropping my subscription as a result.
- crysin 9y ago
  I don't really get this sentiment. I get not wanting to see ads that have nothing to do with the service you're using, but I personally have never been upset or revolted at HBO running their trailers for other shows before the show I want to watch. Everyone has their own tastes and to each their own I just wish I could understand the absolute revolt some people feel at even content relevant ads.
  - alsetmusic 9y ago
    Compare with a service like Netflix. Netflix has no ads and let’s me skip past the opening titles with a single click of a button. It’s highly optimized to give me what I want. HBO not only shows me ads for unrelated content (it’s really never something I’m interested in seeing), but I have to blindly click the timeline when I skip it. If I overshoot, I have to backtrack in search of the first scene. Overshooting again puts me back in the ad. It’s more about what HBO wants me to see than it is about what I want to see.
_asummers 9y ago
If you get the individual league streaming services, they often show "Commercial Break In Progress" across a semi-static image with no audio during ad breaks.
- diggernet 9y ago
  Yeah, that's one thing I really liked about MLB.tv. It's gone. :(
kevincennis 9y ago
What would a service like that do during television timeouts? I’ve found silent “we’ll be right back” screens to almost be worse than ads in some ways. It’s just a weird feeling.
- losteric 9y ago
  It does depend on the sport, but for basketball they could replay interesting plays, talk about players, theorize strategy, broadcast in-stadium fillers, or just show the team talking.
- scottwernervt 9y ago
  Scroll tweets from fans.
- diggernet 9y ago
  I've always enjoyed those quiet ad-free breaks on MLB.tv. This year they've started filling them with loud , annoying, repetitive ads. Starting to wonder why bother paying for the service.
- Spivak 9y ago
  Just treat it like any other timeout that's shown: show the fans, cut to the coaches, cut to the commentators -- call it exclusive content any you're pretty much golden.
  - flying_kangaroo 9y ago
    You could even have the commentators take a break during tv timeouts, and just have some chill crowd shots. Maybe get some teams on board to show what they'd do on jumbotrons during the breaks in action.
- js2 9y ago
  I rarely watch sports events live. Each sport has a fairly predictable timeline. For example, an NFL game is about 3.5 hours of clock time for what's an hour long game (skipping clock stoppage and half-time). So just start watching 2.5 hours after kickoff and you catch up with real time by the end of the game.
js2 9y ago
During the Winter Olympics, I tried to figure out what I would have paid NBC for an ad-free experience (I watched as much as I could via CBC, but sometimes I just wanted to watch on TV without the VPN rigeramorale). I came up with $300. I would've paid NBC $300 for two weeks of ad-free Olympics coverage.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  You think there are 3 or 4 million other households that would set the same price? (they had $900 million+ in ad revenue) It'd be a fun gimmick if they could figure out a way to auction ad free broadcasts to their viewers.
  - js2 9y ago
    Interesting, probably not. The streaming app was almost rage inducing though. Seeing periodic commercials in and of itself wouldn't be that bad. But NBC seemed to have more ad slots than ads, because I kept seeing the same dumb 3 or 4 ads over and over, and many weren't even relevant. There was a Comcast ad that made no sense to show me. I'm not in a Comcast market. Worse, you basically couldn't forward through an event since it would stop you at an "ad point" and make you watch that ad. You could then forward to the next "ad point" and have to sit through that one. And if you skipped backwards to re-watch something to earlier than the "ad point", it would show the ads again. By contrast, CBC basically shows you 90 seconds of ads up front, then lets you watch the rest of the event including skipping around ad free. The NBC app could have used logic like, for every X minutes of program time you watch, you have to watch Y minutes of ads. That would have been okay. But no, the NBC app was basically "we're going to force you to watch these ads" like that episode of Black Mirror. And BTW, this was for the paid NBC networks as I had to pickup a Sony Vue account to watch anything not on the main network. For the main network, I recorded everything on my Tablo from OTA where I could skip around as much as I wanted.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      Comcast owns NBC so will be a common filler ad on NBC whether it makes sense or not.

Only if there was an HBO for sports too. I hate watching those stupid ads when I watch live sports!

by msoad 9y ago

Only if there was an HBO for sports too. I hate watching those stupid ads when I watch live sports!

jasonkostempski 9y ago

I might pay for that if the arena and equipment wasn't also covered in ads. That's never going to change.

antimatter 9y ago
Exactly. I think NBA League Pass cuts out the advertising from the local tv networks during timeouts and half time to show the in arena feed (kiss cam, etc). But those are often times ads now as well.
majormajor 9y ago
I'm meh on those sponsorships, but would definitely pay for a commercial-removed sports experience. People don't realize how much dead time is introduced to professional games solely for commercial breaks. You can ignore a sponsor logo, you can't get that time back.

tenken 9y ago

its called PPV, a showing of an ad-free event. :)

dragonwriter 9y ago

> Only if there was an HBO for sports too. There are several. HBO itself is one of them. The sports on them are fairly limited, most notably boxing, however.

alsetmusic 9y ago

> Only if there was an HBO for sports too. I hate watching those stupid ads when I watch live sports! Funny, I came here to comment on my distaste for services, such as hbonow, that throw ads in front of paid content. They place ads for their other shows in front of the thing I’m trying to watch (at least, the web service does). I hate it and I am considering dropping my subscription as a result.

crysin 9y ago
I don't really get this sentiment. I get not wanting to see ads that have nothing to do with the service you're using, but I personally have never been upset or revolted at HBO running their trailers for other shows before the show I want to watch. Everyone has their own tastes and to each their own I just wish I could understand the absolute revolt some people feel at even content relevant ads.
- alsetmusic 9y ago
  Compare with a service like Netflix. Netflix has no ads and let’s me skip past the opening titles with a single click of a button. It’s highly optimized to give me what I want. HBO not only shows me ads for unrelated content (it’s really never something I’m interested in seeing), but I have to blindly click the timeline when I skip it. If I overshoot, I have to backtrack in search of the first scene. Overshooting again puts me back in the ad. It’s more about what HBO wants me to see than it is about what I want to see.

_asummers 9y ago

If you get the individual league streaming services, they often show "Commercial Break In Progress" across a semi-static image with no audio during ad breaks.

diggernet 9y ago
Yeah, that's one thing I really liked about MLB.tv. It's gone. :(

kevincennis 9y ago

What would a service like that do during television timeouts? I’ve found silent “we’ll be right back” screens to almost be worse than ads in some ways. It’s just a weird feeling.

losteric 9y ago
It does depend on the sport, but for basketball they could replay interesting plays, talk about players, theorize strategy, broadcast in-stadium fillers, or just show the team talking.
scottwernervt 9y ago
Scroll tweets from fans.
diggernet 9y ago
I've always enjoyed those quiet ad-free breaks on MLB.tv. This year they've started filling them with loud , annoying, repetitive ads. Starting to wonder why bother paying for the service.
Spivak 9y ago
Just treat it like any other timeout that's shown: show the fans, cut to the coaches, cut to the commentators -- call it exclusive content any you're pretty much golden.
- flying_kangaroo 9y ago
  You could even have the commentators take a break during tv timeouts, and just have some chill crowd shots. Maybe get some teams on board to show what they'd do on jumbotrons during the breaks in action.
js2 9y ago
I rarely watch sports events live. Each sport has a fairly predictable timeline. For example, an NFL game is about 3.5 hours of clock time for what's an hour long game (skipping clock stoppage and half-time). So just start watching 2.5 hours after kickoff and you catch up with real time by the end of the game.

js2 9y ago

During the Winter Olympics, I tried to figure out what I would have paid NBC for an ad-free experience (I watched as much as I could via CBC, but sometimes I just wanted to watch on TV without the VPN rigeramorale). I came up with $300. I would've paid NBC $300 for two weeks of ad-free Olympics coverage.

maxerickson 9y ago
You think there are 3 or 4 million other households that would set the same price? (they had $900 million+ in ad revenue) It'd be a fun gimmick if they could figure out a way to auction ad free broadcasts to their viewers.
- js2 9y ago
  Interesting, probably not. The streaming app was almost rage inducing though. Seeing periodic commercials in and of itself wouldn't be that bad. But NBC seemed to have more ad slots than ads, because I kept seeing the same dumb 3 or 4 ads over and over, and many weren't even relevant. There was a Comcast ad that made no sense to show me. I'm not in a Comcast market. Worse, you basically couldn't forward through an event since it would stop you at an "ad point" and make you watch that ad. You could then forward to the next "ad point" and have to sit through that one. And if you skipped backwards to re-watch something to earlier than the "ad point", it would show the ads again. By contrast, CBC basically shows you 90 seconds of ads up front, then lets you watch the rest of the event including skipping around ad free. The NBC app could have used logic like, for every X minutes of program time you watch, you have to watch Y minutes of ads. That would have been okay. But no, the NBC app was basically "we're going to force you to watch these ads" like that episode of Black Mirror. And BTW, this was for the paid NBC networks as I had to pickup a Sony Vue account to watch anything not on the main network. For the main network, I recorded everything on my Tablo from OTA where I could skip around as much as I wanted.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    Comcast owns NBC so will be a common filler ad on NBC whether it makes sense or not.