5 ms·

I'm curious what the optimal PPV price is for the NFL. I'd easily pay $10-15 PPV, any game. For now, they seem to actively make their product impossible to cons

by jowiar 13y ago

I'm curious what the optimal PPV price is for the NFL. I'd easily pay $10-15 PPV, any game. For now, they seem to actively make their product impossible to consume for fans of non-local teams.

hsod 13y ago
> For now, they seem to actively make their product impossible to consume for fans of non-local teams. What about NFL Sunday Ticket?
twoodfin 13y ago
Would you buy 20 out-of-market non-national games per season? That's about what they'd need to make up the revenue from the current Sunday Ticket package, if DirectTV's pricing (around $300/season) is any guide. Maybe more consumers would buy access to games if they could buy them individually, so you'd end up with 4x the number of current Sunday Ticket subscribers buying at least 5 games a year. But that seems like a lot. Eventually you run out of sufficiently motivated out-of-market fans. Remember that the teams with big out-of-market fan bases are just the teams that get picked routinely for national coverage. I could easily see 6-8 Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers games/year for free already.
- curun1r 13y ago
  It's a mistake to consider only the cost of the Sunday Ticket. If that were the only factor, the NFL could easily make up the difference. There's a ton of people who either don't or can't get DirecTV who would sign up to stream NFL games, so I'd be surprised if they didn't multiply Sunday Ticket subscriptions by a factor of at least 10. But the reason why this isn't profitable for the NFL is the billion dollars per year that DirecTV pays them to be exclusive. There probably wouldn't be enough of an increase in viewership to cover that. The $300 DirecTV charges customers is actually selling it at a loss considering how much they pay the NFL. Their bet is that they can make up the difference in $60-$100 per month subscription fees.
- jowiar 13y ago
  Maybe not 20, but 10 -- definitely. Try being a fan of any other Eastern Time Zone team in DC (and presumably NY suffers from the same situation). Even if your team has a pretty national audience (i.e. Steelers, Eagles, Patriots, Giants, etc.), the Rs and Ravens block out two weekly TV slots. Anyway, you end up with perhaps two games where your team is playing the local team, another 2-3 games of national coverage, but I'd definitely be willing to PPV at least 10 games (and I'd definitely consider dropping cable and PPV-ing all 16).
rhizome 13y ago
Whatever that price is, the sooner they go PPV, the better. It works for UFC and WWF, doesn't it?
gmisra 13y ago
In the early 1980s when NFL was enjoying it's first rise to dominance on the national airwaves, PPV was seriously considered and debated. The potential audience was one of the reasons Al Davis moved the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles. However, market research demonstrated that there was strong consumer resistance for the concept of paying to watch one's "local" team, and the market for PPV out-of-market teams was not deemed large enough. (to the cite-your-source pedants: there is a book that says these things, I read it once, but I do not guarantee that my recall is 100% accurate, nor do I remember title of said book.)

by jowiar 13y ago

I'm curious what the optimal PPV price is for the NFL. I'd easily pay $10-15 PPV, any game. For now, they seem to actively make their product impossible to consume for fans of non-local teams.

hsod 13y ago

> For now, they seem to actively make their product impossible to consume for fans of non-local teams. What about NFL Sunday Ticket?

twoodfin 13y ago

Would you buy 20 out-of-market non-national games per season? That's about what they'd need to make up the revenue from the current Sunday Ticket package, if DirectTV's pricing (around $300/season) is any guide. Maybe more consumers would buy access to games if they could buy them individually, so you'd end up with 4x the number of current Sunday Ticket subscribers buying at least 5 games a year. But that seems like a lot. Eventually you run out of sufficiently motivated out-of-market fans. Remember that the teams with big out-of-market fan bases are just the teams that get picked routinely for national coverage. I could easily see 6-8 Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers games/year for free already.

curun1r 13y ago
It's a mistake to consider only the cost of the Sunday Ticket. If that were the only factor, the NFL could easily make up the difference. There's a ton of people who either don't or can't get DirecTV who would sign up to stream NFL games, so I'd be surprised if they didn't multiply Sunday Ticket subscriptions by a factor of at least 10. But the reason why this isn't profitable for the NFL is the billion dollars per year that DirecTV pays them to be exclusive. There probably wouldn't be enough of an increase in viewership to cover that. The $300 DirecTV charges customers is actually selling it at a loss considering how much they pay the NFL. Their bet is that they can make up the difference in $60-$100 per month subscription fees.
jowiar 13y ago
Maybe not 20, but 10 -- definitely. Try being a fan of any other Eastern Time Zone team in DC (and presumably NY suffers from the same situation). Even if your team has a pretty national audience (i.e. Steelers, Eagles, Patriots, Giants, etc.), the Rs and Ravens block out two weekly TV slots. Anyway, you end up with perhaps two games where your team is playing the local team, another 2-3 games of national coverage, but I'd definitely be willing to PPV at least 10 games (and I'd definitely consider dropping cable and PPV-ing all 16).

rhizome 13y ago

Whatever that price is, the sooner they go PPV, the better. It works for UFC and WWF, doesn't it?

gmisra 13y ago

In the early 1980s when NFL was enjoying it's first rise to dominance on the national airwaves, PPV was seriously considered and debated. The potential audience was one of the reasons Al Davis moved the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles. However, market research demonstrated that there was strong consumer resistance for the concept of paying to watch one's "local" team, and the market for PPV out-of-market teams was not deemed large enough. (to the cite-your-source pedants: there is a book that says these things, I read it once, but I do not guarantee that my recall is 100% accurate, nor do I remember title of said book.)