3 ms·

I think of football as one of the killer apps for tv. Baseball is one for radio: baseball is almost always better over radio; there’s lots of space to do someth

I think of football as one of the killer apps for tv. Baseball is one for radio: baseball is almost always better over radio; there’s lots of space to do something else at the pace of most baseball games.

mysterydip 9mo ago
I spent a summer building a car in a garage with baseball on the radio. That was the most I’ve enjoyed the game by far.
- FatherOfCurses 9mo ago
  Sounds like heaven.
- AceyMan 9mo ago
  My grandmother (b. 1906)—a very intelligent lady (held her J.D.)—always had MLB game the broadcast tuned in anytime I was visiting her. The tempo and information needs of the game makes it perfect for delivery by radio.
- phatskat 9mo ago
  The most fun I’ve had with regards to baseball is either getting tanked watching the local team in clllege on cheap beer and a short walk to the stadium, or a team-management game for Wii where the main focus was building your team and playing the whole 200+ game season. There was still a game of sorts for the actual play, but it was by no means the focus in terms of presentation nor mechanics.
doctorpangloss 9mo ago
that may be. but that's like saying, "XYZ is a killer app for vinyl" haha. football as a televised spectator sport? trending down. it's not dead, but where growth is measured, it is not good. the cultural thing this guy is talking about in the article, it's going away. fewer and fewer people every year value the aesthetic experience he is describing. TV ownership? trending down. they've never been cheaper for a reason. trend for TV production since peak TV? down. football as a gambling product? up. okay, do you see what i mean by bad growth? football mediated as betting stats on apps? up. draftkings, polymarket, ESPN fantasy app ARPPU? up. ESPN streaming app ARPU? down. comcast? hated, down, everyone is cheering for it to go down. do you see? there is no way to talk about specific instances of football (and stadium sports') cultural weaknesses without sounding really cringe. maybe just, "who cares?"
- derektank 9mo ago
  >TV ownership? trending down. Do you have sales or survey data to support this claim? I’m willing to believe individual households might be less likely to purchase TVs, but my understanding is that manufacturers are producing as many or even more screens than ever, though that might be for commercial or business use. Incidentally, it’s efficiency from this scale that allows manufacturers to sell televisions at such low prices, not a lack of demand.
  - doctorpangloss 9mo ago
    haha well you wouldn't have thought that at some point in the past, tv set ownership was like 100%, so of course it has gone down, but it's still trending down. this also seems kind of obvious to me. Household Ownership Rate 2011 2020 2023 ------------------------------------- TV Set ~99% [3] 96% [3] 88% [1] Smartphone 35% [2] 85% [2] 90% [1] [1] https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/ces2024-smartphone-ownership-surpasses-tv-ownership-for-the-first-time https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/ces2024-smartphone-ownersh... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ [3] https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2020/nielsen-estimates-121-million-tv-homes-in-the-u-s-for-the-2020-2021-tv-season/ https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2020/nielsen-estimates-121-...
- vessenes 9mo ago
  Hmmm. NFL revenue continues to grow, with something like half of it from media licensing. So, I think you’re wrong. My son watches NFL on his laptop, but there’s little to distinguish how he watches it from the experience he would have on a Samsung tv - he’s not like in some chat group trying to get Ochocinco to write his name on a jersey - he’s passively consuming an edited video feed of a football game with commentary.
  - doctorpangloss 9mo ago
    okay, let's look: Entity 2016 Rev 2024 Rev Nominal Real (Adj) --------------------------------------------------------- Netflix $8.8B [5] $39.0B [6] +341% +229% NBA $6.5B [3] $11.3B [4] +74% +30% NFL $14.0B [1] $23.0B [2] +64% +22% Inflation --- --- +34% [7] 0% i didn't say the NFL made less money, because i'm not stupid. i'm trying to describe a secular trend so i'm comparing the revenue growth in different media companies. looking at this table, a simple way to interpret this is, kind of obviously, netflix isn't really about presenting on TVs per se, they make a media platform, which performed way better than the NFL did, almost 10:1, which is really reinforcing my point no? for every 1 dollar someone gives NFL, consumers give Netflix 9. see? to me that is a trend going down, even if to you, it is a trend going up. depends what your benchmark is! another POV: other people do a better job at making NFL content than the NFL does, which is what you are saying your son is consuming. and listen, honestly, ask him if he or his friends bet on football... [1] https://www.footballscoop.com/news/report-nfl-rakes-14-billion-revenue https://www.footballscoop.com/news/report-nfl-rakes-14-billi... [2] https://www.sportspro.com/news/nfl-revenue-2024-financial-year-team-distribution-roger-goodell-april-2025/ https://www.sportspro.com/news/nfl-revenue-2024-financial-ye... [3] https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2016/10/24/In-Depth/Lead/ https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2016/10... [4] https://www.sportsvalue.com.br/en/nba-teams-surpassed-us-11-3-billion-in-revenue-in-2024-total-valuation-reached-us-132-8-billion/ https://www.sportsvalue.com.br/en/nba-teams-surpassed-us-11-... [5] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NFLX/netflix/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NFLX/netflix/reven... [6] https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nasdaq/nflx/revenue https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nasdaq/nflx/revenue [7] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
bobro 9mo ago
What’s the sport for short form video?
- Analemma_ 9mo ago
  That's actually an interesting question. Table tennis, maybe? Each volley is the right length for a TikTok video, and some of them (certainly not all) have spectacular long-distance lob+smash plays. Seems like it plays well with vertical video orientation too.
- derektank 9mo ago
  Lots of Olympic events seem well suited to the format. BMX racing, freestyle skiing, luge/skeleton, and a variety of track and field events all have runs that last for less than a couple of minutes. Not sure if there’s anything comparable in the realm of professional sports besides highlights
  - wincy 9mo ago
    I remember that Turkish guy and the Korean woman who looked like total badasses in the shooting competition in the Olympics, the Turkish guy because he wasn’t using all the fancy gear, and the woman because she looked like someone out of a James Bond movie. Those highlights were just too cool.
- WorldMaker 9mo ago
  Basketball trick shots and single plays?
- vessenes 9mo ago
  I wish it were chess boxing. I love chess boxing.
- sandspar 9mo ago
  Joke answer but it would be fencing, if only we could convince people to turn their phones to landscape.
- onlypassingthru 9mo ago
shuntress 9mo ago
Baseball is killer in-person but it's also pretty nice to just have on TV. There is nothing else like the tension of a critical at-bat. Football is actually really really weird for a spectator sport and, I think, is generally presented very poorly. 80% of the game is deciphering opposing formations to determine what they each are predicting the opposing formation is about to try to do.
- vessenes 9mo ago
  Football is just a really complicated sport; one reason I think it’s popular is that it’s fun on a visceral physical individual level (“Wow, look at that run/block/hit/kick”) for ‘beginners’ watching and is also intellectually engaging as you learn more, “wait, how did they shift the secondary just now??” Baseball - I like it in lots of forms, too. But I think a good radio announcer can get you most of the fun out of a critical at bat narrating.
  - dylan604 9mo ago
    I recently watched Brockmire with Hank Azaria, and thought it was funny how the actual game announcing were just mere interruptions to whatever else he was talking about at the time. Which is pretty much how I find watching sports at a bar when there's multiple screens with multiple games and people you're with not actually into any of it.
- dylan604 9mo ago
  I went to a ball game to watch a buddy's kid throw a first pitch. I didn't know that there was more than one first pitch. We sat around talking after their first pitch and it was already the 3rd inning before I realized the game had actually started. I must have missed the "play ball" announcement.
  - recursivecaveat 9mo ago
    Every MLB game I've ever been to has had that happen lol. 3 'first pitches' and then the actual start of the game happens with absolutely zero fanfair, so it's very easy to miss. In general they announce very little audibly about the actual game, it's a very different experience from watching on TV.
dwd 9mo ago
Cricket is another where the radio broadcast was always better, as you could have the TV on in the background but listen to the radio, only looking up when something happens. The commentators, particularly for the Aus/England Ashes series were always better with the likes of Agnew and the now retired Blofeld providing much better commentary.
BigTTYGothGF 9mo ago
> I think of football as one of the killer apps for tv And just like killer apps of other technologies there were supplementary instruction books: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/chris-schenkel/how-to-watch-football-on-television/ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/chris-schenkel/...

mysterydip 9mo ago

I spent a summer building a car in a garage with baseball on the radio. That was the most I’ve enjoyed the game by far.

FatherOfCurses 9mo ago
Sounds like heaven.
AceyMan 9mo ago
My grandmother (b. 1906)—a very intelligent lady (held her J.D.)—always had MLB game the broadcast tuned in anytime I was visiting her. The tempo and information needs of the game makes it perfect for delivery by radio.
phatskat 9mo ago
The most fun I’ve had with regards to baseball is either getting tanked watching the local team in clllege on cheap beer and a short walk to the stadium, or a team-management game for Wii where the main focus was building your team and playing the whole 200+ game season. There was still a game of sorts for the actual play, but it was by no means the focus in terms of presentation nor mechanics.

doctorpangloss 9mo ago

that may be. but that's like saying, "XYZ is a killer app for vinyl" haha. football as a televised spectator sport? trending down. it's not dead, but where growth is measured, it is not good. the cultural thing this guy is talking about in the article, it's going away. fewer and fewer people every year value the aesthetic experience he is describing. TV ownership? trending down. they've never been cheaper for a reason. trend for TV production since peak TV? down. football as a gambling product? up. okay, do you see what i mean by bad growth? football mediated as betting stats on apps? up. draftkings, polymarket, ESPN fantasy app ARPPU? up. ESPN streaming app ARPU? down. comcast? hated, down, everyone is cheering for it to go down. do you see? there is no way to talk about specific instances of football (and stadium sports') cultural weaknesses without sounding really cringe. maybe just, "who cares?"

derektank 9mo ago
>TV ownership? trending down. Do you have sales or survey data to support this claim? I’m willing to believe individual households might be less likely to purchase TVs, but my understanding is that manufacturers are producing as many or even more screens than ever, though that might be for commercial or business use. Incidentally, it’s efficiency from this scale that allows manufacturers to sell televisions at such low prices, not a lack of demand.
- doctorpangloss 9mo ago
  haha well you wouldn't have thought that at some point in the past, tv set ownership was like 100%, so of course it has gone down, but it's still trending down. this also seems kind of obvious to me. Household Ownership Rate 2011 2020 2023 ------------------------------------- TV Set ~99% [3] 96% [3] 88% [1] Smartphone 35% [2] 85% [2] 90% [1] [1] https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/ces2024-smartphone-ownership-surpasses-tv-ownership-for-the-first-time https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/ces2024-smartphone-ownersh... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/ [3] https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2020/nielsen-estimates-121-million-tv-homes-in-the-u-s-for-the-2020-2021-tv-season/ https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2020/nielsen-estimates-121-...
vessenes 9mo ago
Hmmm. NFL revenue continues to grow, with something like half of it from media licensing. So, I think you’re wrong. My son watches NFL on his laptop, but there’s little to distinguish how he watches it from the experience he would have on a Samsung tv - he’s not like in some chat group trying to get Ochocinco to write his name on a jersey - he’s passively consuming an edited video feed of a football game with commentary.
- doctorpangloss 9mo ago
  okay, let's look: Entity 2016 Rev 2024 Rev Nominal Real (Adj) --------------------------------------------------------- Netflix $8.8B [5] $39.0B [6] +341% +229% NBA $6.5B [3] $11.3B [4] +74% +30% NFL $14.0B [1] $23.0B [2] +64% +22% Inflation --- --- +34% [7] 0% i didn't say the NFL made less money, because i'm not stupid. i'm trying to describe a secular trend so i'm comparing the revenue growth in different media companies. looking at this table, a simple way to interpret this is, kind of obviously, netflix isn't really about presenting on TVs per se, they make a media platform, which performed way better than the NFL did, almost 10:1, which is really reinforcing my point no? for every 1 dollar someone gives NFL, consumers give Netflix 9. see? to me that is a trend going down, even if to you, it is a trend going up. depends what your benchmark is! another POV: other people do a better job at making NFL content than the NFL does, which is what you are saying your son is consuming. and listen, honestly, ask him if he or his friends bet on football... [1] https://www.footballscoop.com/news/report-nfl-rakes-14-billion-revenue https://www.footballscoop.com/news/report-nfl-rakes-14-billi... [2] https://www.sportspro.com/news/nfl-revenue-2024-financial-year-team-distribution-roger-goodell-april-2025/ https://www.sportspro.com/news/nfl-revenue-2024-financial-ye... [3] https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2016/10/24/In-Depth/Lead/ https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2016/10... [4] https://www.sportsvalue.com.br/en/nba-teams-surpassed-us-11-3-billion-in-revenue-in-2024-total-valuation-reached-us-132-8-billion/ https://www.sportsvalue.com.br/en/nba-teams-surpassed-us-11-... [5] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NFLX/netflix/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NFLX/netflix/reven... [6] https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nasdaq/nflx/revenue https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nasdaq/nflx/revenue [7] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl

bobro 9mo ago

What’s the sport for short form video?

Analemma_ 9mo ago
That's actually an interesting question. Table tennis, maybe? Each volley is the right length for a TikTok video, and some of them (certainly not all) have spectacular long-distance lob+smash plays. Seems like it plays well with vertical video orientation too.
derektank 9mo ago
Lots of Olympic events seem well suited to the format. BMX racing, freestyle skiing, luge/skeleton, and a variety of track and field events all have runs that last for less than a couple of minutes. Not sure if there’s anything comparable in the realm of professional sports besides highlights
- wincy 9mo ago
  I remember that Turkish guy and the Korean woman who looked like total badasses in the shooting competition in the Olympics, the Turkish guy because he wasn’t using all the fancy gear, and the woman because she looked like someone out of a James Bond movie. Those highlights were just too cool.
WorldMaker 9mo ago
Basketball trick shots and single plays?
vessenes 9mo ago
I wish it were chess boxing. I love chess boxing.
sandspar 9mo ago
Joke answer but it would be fencing, if only we could convince people to turn their phones to landscape.
onlypassingthru 9mo ago

shuntress 9mo ago

Baseball is killer in-person but it's also pretty nice to just have on TV. There is nothing else like the tension of a critical at-bat. Football is actually really really weird for a spectator sport and, I think, is generally presented very poorly. 80% of the game is deciphering opposing formations to determine what they each are predicting the opposing formation is about to try to do.

vessenes 9mo ago
Football is just a really complicated sport; one reason I think it’s popular is that it’s fun on a visceral physical individual level (“Wow, look at that run/block/hit/kick”) for ‘beginners’ watching and is also intellectually engaging as you learn more, “wait, how did they shift the secondary just now??” Baseball - I like it in lots of forms, too. But I think a good radio announcer can get you most of the fun out of a critical at bat narrating.
- dylan604 9mo ago
  I recently watched Brockmire with Hank Azaria, and thought it was funny how the actual game announcing were just mere interruptions to whatever else he was talking about at the time. Which is pretty much how I find watching sports at a bar when there's multiple screens with multiple games and people you're with not actually into any of it.
dylan604 9mo ago
I went to a ball game to watch a buddy's kid throw a first pitch. I didn't know that there was more than one first pitch. We sat around talking after their first pitch and it was already the 3rd inning before I realized the game had actually started. I must have missed the "play ball" announcement.
- recursivecaveat 9mo ago
  Every MLB game I've ever been to has had that happen lol. 3 'first pitches' and then the actual start of the game happens with absolutely zero fanfair, so it's very easy to miss. In general they announce very little audibly about the actual game, it's a very different experience from watching on TV.

dwd 9mo ago

Cricket is another where the radio broadcast was always better, as you could have the TV on in the background but listen to the radio, only looking up when something happens. The commentators, particularly for the Aus/England Ashes series were always better with the likes of Agnew and the now retired Blofeld providing much better commentary.

BigTTYGothGF 9mo ago

> I think of football as one of the killer apps for tv And just like killer apps of other technologies there were supplementary instruction books: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/chris-schenkel/how-to-watch-football-on-television/ https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/chris-schenkel/...