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The irony for me is that the NHL is an excellent example of why piracy happens. Last hockey season, I could pay the NHL directly to get access to all hockey gam

by Niksko 4y ago

The irony for me is that the NHL is an excellent example of why piracy happens. Last hockey season, I could pay the NHL directly to get access to all hockey games from Australia. They have a Google TV app that was flawed, but worked well enough, and I was happy. This year, because the NHL have done a deal with ESPN, I have to do a convoluted deal with a third party to get access to ESPN, and my experience is terrible. ESPN's Android app is terrible, the Google TV app flat out doesn't work, and casting from my phone to my TV craps out during period breaks and long ad breaks. Piracy would be easier, better and cheaper than paying for things. It's the same reason Netflix reduced piracy, and now it's tanking. They created something that was easier, cheaper and better than piracy. Now with their increasing prices, declining quality, and fragmentation of their library, piracy is going to increase again.

pluc 4y ago
In Canada, I can't even buy the NHL's own product to watch hockey games! They black out their own local games because they've sold the rights to someone else. The NHL wants me to buy cable, then get not one, but four channels in order to watch one team (since RDS split the rights with TVA Sports and they are both specialty channels, that you must subscribe to their parent channels to get, or in case of RDS it _is_ the parent channel, but _must_ come with their child channels). Thanks but no thanks. The NHL is 100% the cause of NHL piracy. I have the money, give me an option that isn't retarded.
- boringg 4y ago
  Exact same thing with the NBA. Paid for their product but needed to sub to a couple local outfits to get coverage on all my teams games. It was super frustrating how bad the experience was. Now paying two separate subs to catch all the games.
- mdm_ 4y ago
  I live in Leafs region and last I checked I think you have to be subscribed to three different premium cable channels to watch all 82 Leafs games. Similarly frustrating is trying to follow tennis in Canada. There is no comprehensive tennis streaming option, the ATP and WTA use separate apps that each have a $20/month subscription, and do not have rights to show any major tournaments. So for four months out of the year, you’re actually paying $20 for two weeks of tennis coverage, and you also need to pay for TSN streaming if you want to watch the biggest tournaments. All this adds up to $60+tax/month to follow _one_ sport!
  - nyjah 4y ago
    I really enjoyed the TennisTV app in the US, but this year they updated it and added a bunch of 'features' and now its slow and ugly and the logo is big. It still 'works' but it's not nearly as good as it used to be. My biggest gripe with tennis coverage is exactly what you are saying where the Tennis app doesn't stream the grand slams. I couldn't even figure out how to watch the French Open. I was too afraid to purchase the wrong streaming option. Was it Peacock? Or TennisChannel App? Or something else? I have regular nbc. ESPN streams the other slams, but they stuff matches with commercials and it completely ruins the viewing experience if you are coming from TennisTV. Last US Open ESPN would play the same Home Depot commercial over and over and the first part of the commercial is someone using a circular saw. I have a massive phobia to saws and I couldn't change the stream fast enough to not see it in the commercial so I inevitably gave up. I'm a massive tennis fan, but I rarely watch the grand slams. . The worst part of all this though is that there is a TennisTV App for the men's and a TennisChannel App for the women's. It's unbearable. Tennis coverage is broken. mdm_ you are not alone on this one.
- pycal 4y ago
  You can buy a sportsnet subscription for $12/mo, directly from sportsnet, and stream all the NHL games (and more) live in the sportsnet app. I got it for the playoffs, it was easy, and I was ok with the pricing.
  - pluc 4y ago
    Sportsnet has the same blackout policy to not infringe on whoever owns the rights in Quebec.
- ascagnel_ 4y ago
  The cause of sports piracy and all of these weird deals is because games are most valuable in the regions of the participating teams. It's a Gordian Knot of rights issues, and it exists as a way to extract as much money from fans as possible. And the teams want it this way -- both the Leafs and Canadiens are tied into telco/cableco ownership, who has a vested interest in getting you to pay more for games.
  - pluc 4y ago
    That's correct. If I lived in Montreal and wanted to watch all the Avalanche's games, there would be no issues. If I live in Montreal and want to watch the local team, I need to agree to get fucked three different ways.
criddell 4y ago
Baseball is the worst. Their app is pretty great but you can't watch local games because they've sold rights to Bally's so you need a cable TV subscription. The Sunday morning game is only on Peacock and that's a separate fee. The Friday night game is only on Apple TV, but at least it's free. The Sunday night game is on ESPN, so again you need a TV subscription. Every once in a while, some game is only on Facebook or YouTube. Why won't they sell me a tier in their app where I can see all the games? I don't mind paying more.
- bradleyankrom 4y ago
  And if you live in Iowa, you can’t watch six teams regardless.
  - criddell 4y ago
    Yeah, those are the "local" games whose broadcast rights were sold to somebody else. When I was in Hawaii I couldn't watch any of the west coast teams - Mariners, Angels, Giants, Dodgers, A's, or Padres because they were the local teams.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      This is where it gets asinine - back now 20 years ago the local San Diego network that made a deal for the Padres also made the game free to stream for anyone in the San Diego area - that was nice. I doubt anyone is doing that these days. I don't even care if I get the ad-filled stream (for awhile you could get "raw video" feed on the MLB app, which was fun because when the game went to commercial you'd just see whatever the last camera that had been on wandering around the park) - make it so we can get the game! And don't even get me started on the "it's easier to be a fan of a team far away than your local one" that is so common now because of all the restrictions.
- ascagnel_ 4y ago
  Why would the Yankees, who own the YES Network, want to give up carriage revenue from that TV network? And it's not just the Yankees -- a surprising number of teams are tied up with regional sports networks, and they're more interested in maximizing that revenue than providing a good online product. And sports fandom is generally localized to the team's location ("we'll root, root, root for the home team/if they don't win its a shame"), so that local cable deal is generally one of the biggest sources of revenue (generally on par with ticket sales). The only reason why the MLB has a good app is because they can capture the thin slice of revenue teams miss out on from out-of-market fans with that app; there's generally not enough of those fans to drive a per-team standalone subscription service (although the MLB does offer one, it's not price-competitive with the full league option), so the league does it as a whole.
indigomm 4y ago
Welcome to the UK, where the Premier League matches are split between three different broadcasters. So there isn't even one place you can go and be sure of being able to watch your favourite teams. Instead you need to see if Sky, BT or Amazon have got the rights to that particular game - all of which require paying for.
revolvingocelot 4y ago
“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.” --Gabe Newell, [0] [0] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem/ https://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Pir...
- lucasyvas 4y ago
  He was right then, and he's still right now.
- JTbane 4y ago
  This was a big part of why Steam was such a success. You get free updates, online multiplayer, storage of your games, cross-platform support, etc
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  I absolutely love this comment, but very few creative media actually work like this. Valve is able to create a market where it makes sense to discount older games, which means that people buy more of them, and developers come out ahead. This works because Steam is fixed price pay-per-game - the more games you play, the more money comes out of your pocket and goes to the developers. This is quite possibly the most consumer-friendly business model you could pick where you still get paid for your work. It's tempting to look at Netflix and say, "oh they're stupid, why would they stop being like they were in 2012". The reality is that 2012 Netflix streaming was never going to last. They were dramatically underpricing their subscription because nobody in the TV industry understood streaming[0] and thus underpriced their TV shows. When TV companies realized, "oh no, people are actually cancelling cable to subscribe to Netflix", they started to charge Netflix higher rates... because it turns out the TV business sort of just requires that $100 + ad revenue come out of your pocket every month no matter if the bill collector is called Comcast or Netflix. Sports are like this but worse. Out of that $100+ads that cable costs, the ad revenue pays for the entertainment, and the $100 pays for the sports, because pretty much every sport is far more extravagantly expensive to run than you'd think, and never pays its way for anything[1]. This is also why sports will often have extremely customer-hostile business practices and weird blackout policies - because the audience itself has been sold to other companies who can then force them to pay more money. [0] Remember how there was a writers' strike about a decade and a half ago, over, among other things, streaming royalties? TV execs genuinely thought that Netflix was never really going to take off and replace cable. Just like how the music execs thought downloads were never really going to take off and replace CDs. [1] If you really want to get angry, look up how much money your city is paying in tax credits to your local sports teams.
luma 4y ago
I'm sitting in my chair wearing a Red Wings jersey as I type this, and I haven't watched a single game this season after several years as an NHL.tv subscriber. I always had to do some shenanigans to be able to watch my team, but as they ramped up their protections to prevent people from ever being able to watch their home team, I eventually gave up and cancelled my subscription. Haven't seen a game since and now I spend my weekends watching F1 cars drive around in circles. They seem happy to have me as a fan so that's where my money goes these days.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  After Putin's invasion in the Ukraine, Formula 1 management has cancelled the airing deal with the Russian sports channel that aired the races. Comically, this led to an immense improvement in coverage: long time TV commenters started commenting the races live on their page in VK, without the video stream, and others started streaming the race video, mixing the audio stream with their commentary. An there are NO FREAKING ADS! Ads were a curse - they took up almost 20% of the race time, but now there are simply none. And commenters and streamers get a lot of donations from fans for their service. Imagine that?!
  - ISL 4y ago
    If you are in Russia, please do whatever you can, however small, to bring this war to an end. Nobody is winning.
    - soperj 4y ago
      When people said the same thing about Iraq and Afghanistan, what did you do?
      - ISL 4y ago
        I voted and advocated for change in directions I felt were healthy and positive.
        4y ago
briffle 4y ago
In the US, I would like to watch football games from my favorite team. This team is in the Pac-12, which has its own media company https://pac-12.com/ https://pac-12.com/ My choice is literally just: 1) Subscribe to Satellite, or XFinity(comcast), or sling and make sure I pick a tier that has the Pac12 Network, ABC and FOX (local affiliates that carry some home games) and ESPN, and between them get many of the games live. I would much, much rather just give my money directly to the pac12 network, and be able to live-stream all of the football games for my teams I like (and basketball, etc)as they happen, but apparently, that isn't a thing. Piracy is so much easier, because of the business descisions that have been made by media companies to offer 'exclusive' content.
matheusmoreira 4y ago
The copyright monopolists always defeat themselves with their little "deals" that nobody really cares about. They run their little profit maximization schemes with the full knowledge that consumers have no choice but accept it. The service they offer is always of such poor quality that nobody would be giving them the time of day were it not for the actual government-enforced monopolies that rob people of choice. "Piracy" is the full realization of the potential of our computer and internet technologies. They will never, ever be able to compete it with it without legal backing.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  maybe - what about the animation and camera action on NFL football games. I don't watch sports but you have to be impressed if you watch what they built. I think of it more like Rome or Las Vegas..
  - matheusmoreira 4y ago
    Not enough to justify copyright monopolies.
blahyawnblah 4y ago
All of ESPN's streaming solutions are awful. "Your event is starting soon" messages half hour into events, events on the wrong channel, events not cutting over, and the list goes on
scarface74 4y ago
I seriously doubt that out of all the problems Netflix is having, the majority is due to piracy. Netflix content doesn’t have the mass market appeal of Disney/HBO. They don’t have the IP that gets people excited nor do they have the multiple outlets of revenue to fund content like Disney. And before the typical “I don’t like Marvel drek” response, a bunch of HN posters don’t matter. Disney has multiple billion+ franchises

by Niksko 4y ago

pluc 4y ago

In Canada, I can't even buy the NHL's own product to watch hockey games! They black out their own local games because they've sold the rights to someone else. The NHL wants me to buy cable, then get not one, but four channels in order to watch one team (since RDS split the rights with TVA Sports and they are both specialty channels, that you must subscribe to their parent channels to get, or in case of RDS it _is_ the parent channel, but _must_ come with their child channels). Thanks but no thanks. The NHL is 100% the cause of NHL piracy. I have the money, give me an option that isn't retarded.

boringg 4y ago
Exact same thing with the NBA. Paid for their product but needed to sub to a couple local outfits to get coverage on all my teams games. It was super frustrating how bad the experience was. Now paying two separate subs to catch all the games.
mdm_ 4y ago
I live in Leafs region and last I checked I think you have to be subscribed to three different premium cable channels to watch all 82 Leafs games. Similarly frustrating is trying to follow tennis in Canada. There is no comprehensive tennis streaming option, the ATP and WTA use separate apps that each have a $20/month subscription, and do not have rights to show any major tournaments. So for four months out of the year, you’re actually paying $20 for two weeks of tennis coverage, and you also need to pay for TSN streaming if you want to watch the biggest tournaments. All this adds up to $60+tax/month to follow _one_ sport!
- nyjah 4y ago
  I really enjoyed the TennisTV app in the US, but this year they updated it and added a bunch of 'features' and now its slow and ugly and the logo is big. It still 'works' but it's not nearly as good as it used to be. My biggest gripe with tennis coverage is exactly what you are saying where the Tennis app doesn't stream the grand slams. I couldn't even figure out how to watch the French Open. I was too afraid to purchase the wrong streaming option. Was it Peacock? Or TennisChannel App? Or something else? I have regular nbc. ESPN streams the other slams, but they stuff matches with commercials and it completely ruins the viewing experience if you are coming from TennisTV. Last US Open ESPN would play the same Home Depot commercial over and over and the first part of the commercial is someone using a circular saw. I have a massive phobia to saws and I couldn't change the stream fast enough to not see it in the commercial so I inevitably gave up. I'm a massive tennis fan, but I rarely watch the grand slams. . The worst part of all this though is that there is a TennisTV App for the men's and a TennisChannel App for the women's. It's unbearable. Tennis coverage is broken. mdm_ you are not alone on this one.
pycal 4y ago
You can buy a sportsnet subscription for $12/mo, directly from sportsnet, and stream all the NHL games (and more) live in the sportsnet app. I got it for the playoffs, it was easy, and I was ok with the pricing.
- pluc 4y ago
  Sportsnet has the same blackout policy to not infringe on whoever owns the rights in Quebec.
ascagnel_ 4y ago
The cause of sports piracy and all of these weird deals is because games are most valuable in the regions of the participating teams. It's a Gordian Knot of rights issues, and it exists as a way to extract as much money from fans as possible. And the teams want it this way -- both the Leafs and Canadiens are tied into telco/cableco ownership, who has a vested interest in getting you to pay more for games.
- pluc 4y ago
  That's correct. If I lived in Montreal and wanted to watch all the Avalanche's games, there would be no issues. If I live in Montreal and want to watch the local team, I need to agree to get fucked three different ways.

criddell 4y ago

Baseball is the worst. Their app is pretty great but you can't watch local games because they've sold rights to Bally's so you need a cable TV subscription. The Sunday morning game is only on Peacock and that's a separate fee. The Friday night game is only on Apple TV, but at least it's free. The Sunday night game is on ESPN, so again you need a TV subscription. Every once in a while, some game is only on Facebook or YouTube. Why won't they sell me a tier in their app where I can see all the games? I don't mind paying more.

bradleyankrom 4y ago
And if you live in Iowa, you can’t watch six teams regardless.
- criddell 4y ago
  Yeah, those are the "local" games whose broadcast rights were sold to somebody else. When I was in Hawaii I couldn't watch any of the west coast teams - Mariners, Angels, Giants, Dodgers, A's, or Padres because they were the local teams.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    This is where it gets asinine - back now 20 years ago the local San Diego network that made a deal for the Padres also made the game free to stream for anyone in the San Diego area - that was nice. I doubt anyone is doing that these days. I don't even care if I get the ad-filled stream (for awhile you could get "raw video" feed on the MLB app, which was fun because when the game went to commercial you'd just see whatever the last camera that had been on wandering around the park) - make it so we can get the game! And don't even get me started on the "it's easier to be a fan of a team far away than your local one" that is so common now because of all the restrictions.
ascagnel_ 4y ago
Why would the Yankees, who own the YES Network, want to give up carriage revenue from that TV network? And it's not just the Yankees -- a surprising number of teams are tied up with regional sports networks, and they're more interested in maximizing that revenue than providing a good online product. And sports fandom is generally localized to the team's location ("we'll root, root, root for the home team/if they don't win its a shame"), so that local cable deal is generally one of the biggest sources of revenue (generally on par with ticket sales). The only reason why the MLB has a good app is because they can capture the thin slice of revenue teams miss out on from out-of-market fans with that app; there's generally not enough of those fans to drive a per-team standalone subscription service (although the MLB does offer one, it's not price-competitive with the full league option), so the league does it as a whole.

indigomm 4y ago

Welcome to the UK, where the Premier League matches are split between three different broadcasters. So there isn't even one place you can go and be sure of being able to watch your favourite teams. Instead you need to see if Sky, BT or Amazon have got the rights to that particular game - all of which require paying for.

revolvingocelot 4y ago

“We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. If a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country 3 months after the US release, and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate’s service is more valuable.” --Gabe Newell, [0] [0] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Piracy-Is-a-Service-Problem/ https://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-Says-Pir...

lucasyvas 4y ago
He was right then, and he's still right now.
JTbane 4y ago
This was a big part of why Steam was such a success. You get free updates, online multiplayer, storage of your games, cross-platform support, etc
kmeisthax 4y ago
I absolutely love this comment, but very few creative media actually work like this. Valve is able to create a market where it makes sense to discount older games, which means that people buy more of them, and developers come out ahead. This works because Steam is fixed price pay-per-game - the more games you play, the more money comes out of your pocket and goes to the developers. This is quite possibly the most consumer-friendly business model you could pick where you still get paid for your work. It's tempting to look at Netflix and say, "oh they're stupid, why would they stop being like they were in 2012". The reality is that 2012 Netflix streaming was never going to last. They were dramatically underpricing their subscription because nobody in the TV industry understood streaming[0] and thus underpriced their TV shows. When TV companies realized, "oh no, people are actually cancelling cable to subscribe to Netflix", they started to charge Netflix higher rates... because it turns out the TV business sort of just requires that $100 + ad revenue come out of your pocket every month no matter if the bill collector is called Comcast or Netflix. Sports are like this but worse. Out of that $100+ads that cable costs, the ad revenue pays for the entertainment, and the $100 pays for the sports, because pretty much every sport is far more extravagantly expensive to run than you'd think, and never pays its way for anything[1]. This is also why sports will often have extremely customer-hostile business practices and weird blackout policies - because the audience itself has been sold to other companies who can then force them to pay more money. [0] Remember how there was a writers' strike about a decade and a half ago, over, among other things, streaming royalties? TV execs genuinely thought that Netflix was never really going to take off and replace cable. Just like how the music execs thought downloads were never really going to take off and replace CDs. [1] If you really want to get angry, look up how much money your city is paying in tax credits to your local sports teams.

luma 4y ago

I'm sitting in my chair wearing a Red Wings jersey as I type this, and I haven't watched a single game this season after several years as an NHL.tv subscriber. I always had to do some shenanigans to be able to watch my team, but as they ramped up their protections to prevent people from ever being able to watch their home team, I eventually gave up and cancelled my subscription. Haven't seen a game since and now I spend my weekends watching F1 cars drive around in circles. They seem happy to have me as a fan so that's where my money goes these days.

Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
After Putin's invasion in the Ukraine, Formula 1 management has cancelled the airing deal with the Russian sports channel that aired the races. Comically, this led to an immense improvement in coverage: long time TV commenters started commenting the races live on their page in VK, without the video stream, and others started streaming the race video, mixing the audio stream with their commentary. An there are NO FREAKING ADS! Ads were a curse - they took up almost 20% of the race time, but now there are simply none. And commenters and streamers get a lot of donations from fans for their service. Imagine that?!
- ISL 4y ago
  If you are in Russia, please do whatever you can, however small, to bring this war to an end. Nobody is winning.
  - soperj 4y ago
    When people said the same thing about Iraq and Afghanistan, what did you do?
    - ISL 4y ago
      I voted and advocated for change in directions I felt were healthy and positive.
      - 4y ago

briffle 4y ago

In the US, I would like to watch football games from my favorite team. This team is in the Pac-12, which has its own media company https://pac-12.com/ https://pac-12.com/ My choice is literally just: 1) Subscribe to Satellite, or XFinity(comcast), or sling and make sure I pick a tier that has the Pac12 Network, ABC and FOX (local affiliates that carry some home games) and ESPN, and between them get many of the games live. I would much, much rather just give my money directly to the pac12 network, and be able to live-stream all of the football games for my teams I like (and basketball, etc)as they happen, but apparently, that isn't a thing. Piracy is so much easier, because of the business descisions that have been made by media companies to offer 'exclusive' content.

matheusmoreira 4y ago

The copyright monopolists always defeat themselves with their little "deals" that nobody really cares about. They run their little profit maximization schemes with the full knowledge that consumers have no choice but accept it. The service they offer is always of such poor quality that nobody would be giving them the time of day were it not for the actual government-enforced monopolies that rob people of choice. "Piracy" is the full realization of the potential of our computer and internet technologies. They will never, ever be able to compete it with it without legal backing.

mistrial9 4y ago
maybe - what about the animation and camera action on NFL football games. I don't watch sports but you have to be impressed if you watch what they built. I think of it more like Rome or Las Vegas..
- matheusmoreira 4y ago
  Not enough to justify copyright monopolies.

blahyawnblah 4y ago

All of ESPN's streaming solutions are awful. "Your event is starting soon" messages half hour into events, events on the wrong channel, events not cutting over, and the list goes on

scarface74 4y ago

I seriously doubt that out of all the problems Netflix is having, the majority is due to piracy. Netflix content doesn’t have the mass market appeal of Disney/HBO. They don’t have the IP that gets people excited nor do they have the multiple outlets of revenue to fund content like Disney. And before the typical “I don’t like Marvel drek” response, a bunch of HN posters don’t matter. Disney has multiple billion+ franchises