Cable = Sports is why I am not watching ANY sports other than little snippets I can grab on youtube or mlb.com. Seriously. Have not watched a full game (definitely not MLB, NFL, NBA) of anything in a LONG time.
And none in family (yes little kids too) are watching much sports on TV either. Definitely not enough to grow up to be a fan of a particular pro sports league or a team, other than soccer via AYSO.
IMHO pro sports commissioners should start thinking about how less and less young kids are exposed to sports via TV (because not much to watch on non-cable TV) and what that means for potentially smaller fan base in the future. Just my 2 little cents...
My one regret with cutting the cord was that I gave up my precious Red Wings. NHL.com has a yearly subscription to watch the games online, but paying for that meant that I would have paid just as much for cutting the cord, as I did for having cable.
I don't have cable anymore, but watch most of the games with a buddies Comcast log in on my iPad.
Which is the most infuriating part... I have NBA League Pass, live in a separate TV market (same state) from my preferred team, but still a large percentage of games are blacked out.
If someone (Apple/ Amazon/ startupX) figures out how to get great live sports content on demand to consumers, they will have an amazing company.
This was my frustration also. It surprises me that they haven't worked out an arrangement to either make that feature an upgrade or worked out a way to make financial arrangements with (I'm guessing) the people who have broadcast rights for a market.
I can't believe you're making your children suffer as part of your ideological war against cable companies. Think of the children and pick up that phone and dial 1 - 800 - GETTWCCABLE now!
MLB.tv only works for out of market games, and worked amazingly when I was in school across the country, but useless when I moved back, and I got a free subscription to stream NFL Sunday ticket for the season and directv had basically no competency in streaming so it almost never worked.
Honestly, I bought a TV antennae from best buy and a long HDMI cord for my laptop and that's satisfied all of my sports needs through OTA broadcasts and questionable streaming sites.
I, too, use questionable streaming sites (well, just one since it's been reliable for the last year or two), but the picture quality is often worse than standard def, and the sound is apparently funnelled through a tin can.
It's almost bad enough to make me want to pay for cable. Almost.
Unfortunately for me, I live in Canada, where OTA stations do not care about the NBA. And I refuse to buy the League Pass since any games broadcast on cable would be blacked out.
NBA League Pass is a horrific abomination. I was debating it, and came across articles that showed that depending on your location and nominated team(s) it could be nearly impossible to get more than 25 games for your favorite team (out of an 82 game season). 30% of the season showed on a "Season Pass" costing approximately $200? No thanks.
You have to understand that Cable and Sports is a mutual lovefest. So all of these online alternatives are designed to be incremental revenue streams and specifically designed not to cannibalize the main revenue stream. They're mostly targeted at people who may away from their home market and so can't watch their favorite team on local cable.
I've been a subscriber to NHL Gamecenter for two years. If you're very far from your home team, it can be a good deal.
In California, I can catch most of Detroit's games. In a major hockey market like Toronto, however, Detroit's games are often on TSN2 (think ESPN2), which means they are blacked out. Cable was the only way to see these, even though I would have guessed they were out of market.
As much as I want to believe in these kinds of live sports services, I'm always disappointing in the quality and/or reliability of the feed. Maybe it's my ISP, I don't know. But for me streaming seems to be a second class citizen compared to cable & satellite.
As for the merger, I hate it because I actually think DirecTV is a pretty good product - even though the price is a bit high. I don't think a merger will do anything but reduce the quality of service, increase the price or both!
"Maybe it's my ISP, I don't know. But for me streaming seems to be a second class citizen compared to cable & satellite."
Don't worry - once your ISP is able to charge each streaming service more money, they might be able to budget to upgrade to slightly faster service a few years later.
For NHL, I've heard Gamecenter has poor quality feeds. Ironically, there's a one man show who runs a better service - albeit unlicensed - at hockeystreams.com
$20 per month, all games streamed in HD plus your choice of broadcast options (ie- home / away feed on NBC or TSN, etc).
FWIW, Gamecenter has had decent feeds for me; it annoys me that the browser viewer won't play the best quality (it only does 3Kbit, 30fps I think), but the ipad app will play 60fps HD streams. Missing blackout and playoff games is the worst though.
Most sports? Hardly. Sure you can, in theory, watch American Football, Rest of the World Football, basketball, and baseball on ESPN3, but if you want to see these sports played by teams that matter then you need regular ESPN or a cable subscription to view them. All the games that matter were removed from the ESPN3 lineup at least a couple of years ago.
It shows pretty much all college sports (at least, all of what's broadcasted on cable anyways -- and then some). Sometimes there's a blackout on a game, which is annoying, though....
It's just not that great for professional leagues.
I'm unable to access ESPN's live feeds without a login provided by my cable company. That login flags what ESPN channels I pay for so, for example, I can't watch ESPN U without paying for an upgraded "sports" package filled with garbage channels.
I do have access to some live and recorded events, but the selection is limited to filler content like college volleyball and minor league soccer. Another plus is the ability to use my neighbor's login without restrictions since our cable provider's flagging system is piss poor. As long as I know somebody paying for cable I can cheat the system.
This is not true. Unless something has changed recently, college football on ESPNU is not shown on ESPN3. This has caused more than one game I cared about to be (legally) unviewable for me.
Your first statement is absolutely ridiculous. Do you have data to back this up? I'm not in some "~esportz~" community - but I'm not in a sports community either, and you know what happens to my facebook when an athletic game is on? 20-30yo people talking about it in a massive flood. I have, as far as I know, never seen any of my friends (general Austinites of various walks of life) mention esports.
If you're referring to the 12-15yo crew; they don't pay cable bills anyway.
If 20-30 year olds aren't paying for television, is it because they don't want to or that they can't afford it? Narrow the criteria to people under-40 who own a house and I'd expect a much larger subscription rate.
The 20-30 group that is familiar and accustomed to streaming services, or even the basic Netflix delivery service (circa 1997) is not even remotely similar to the generation of kids born in the 70s. And the same goes with the 70s to the 50s. Who still has landlines? Those over the age of 45. (OLD graph but good info; http://ww3.hdnux.com/photos/07/74/73/2084546/7/628x471.jpg) They've spent most of their lives with land line phones being the most common means of long distance communication. It was considered essential. Cable is not considered essential to this up and coming generation (millenials) even more so than it was considered not essential to my generation.
Why are you assuming that you need to be 40 and a homeowner to be able to afford $35/mo cable? I'm 29 and have never once in my life paid for cable. I'm an engineer and own. I use Plex with Rokus and Chromecast. Prior to these devices I used Netflix mostly, they started streaming in 2007 but from 1997 to 2007 they still had a fairly decent delivery service.
Sports are pretty much the only TV I watch anymore (for the most part) and I stopped paying for cable as soon as I graduated from college (it was included in my rent payment at my apartment down there, otherwise I'd have done it sooner). There are other means to watching sports -- Sunday night NFL games are on NBC.com, for instance. Every college sport is broadcasted on ESPN3, so you can just get a couple of people together to buy a cheap subscription and use that to watch ESPN3. The only ones I miss (or, alternatively, use sketchy streaming sites for) are midday NFL games.
The people who say "get an antenna" must have never seen a mountain or high-rise building before. Television signals require line of sight and if you're unlucky enough to have a sizable obstruction between you and the transmission tower then you're out of luck.
I know, right? People wanting to talk about a common subject among their friends via social media!! And those people talking about the weather in the elevator! Simpletons.
I'll speak for the late 20's Crowd (although I just turned 30..)
No one in my age group, that I know, watches sports at home.
If they do, they go to the bar to do it.
ESports are MUCH more interesting for at-home watching.
Consider this - does any individual esports team make anywhere near what Lebron James, individually makes, including his salary and all his various sponsorships?
Its easy to sit in your SV bubble and claim such a thing but live sports is huge. ESPN alone is considered to be the most expensive sports channel [1]. Lets be real, how many American children are aiming to be the next Lebron James vs Fatil1ty (how many young people know who Fat1lity is?)
Esports might be more interesting for you and your friends, but lets make sure that we aren't projecting our preferences on 300 million Americans.
Your anecdote is not representative of the whole. You have certain interests and your friends share them. The NFL (not to mention the other major sports) is huge with young people. Much larger than your e-"sports".
A lot of people your age will eventually have children or will no longer find going to the bar regularly that enjoyable.
If you look at how much money major sports franchise owners are spending on improving the in-game experience for fans, and listen to their thoughts on doing so, it's pretty clear that they are fighting hard to get people to actually come to games rather than watching them on TV.
NFL Football is the most popular sports league in the US and quite frankly, I find the product to be almost unwatchable live compared to television. I think basketball and hockey are much more enjoyable in person, but that's also expensive and more time consuming than seeing them on TV, and both leagues play around 80 games a season, I believe.
A useless data point, but I'm 32 and never heard of eSports until this thread.
Lastly, consider this: Twitch is selling for $1 Billion dollars. The average value of a single(of 32) NFL team is more than that and television networks are paying the NFL several billion each year to broadcast games.
I upvoted you, but I'm guessing people are objecting to your attempting to "be a spokesperson for the late twenties crowd", when I think your case is exceptional. I'm mid-almost-late twenties and I've never heard of "watching e-sports" or twitch.com until this thread. I've seen speedruns of half-life on youtube and such, but I had no idea people actually seemingly stream live video game competitions. I have a wide circle of friends in their twenties and thirties, and I've never heard of e-sports.
I agree though, that live sports are mostly watched at bars by friends in my age range. I only have DirecTV because it's "free" (included in hoa fees), but I still almost never watch "live" tv. I just watch DVRed shows instead of on Hulu now. Sports, especially NFL, are still huge as I can see by my facebook feed during big games or the draft.
Heck, I didn't know what a touch down was a few years ago, but sports are so popular among mainstream (ie: non techies) I had to learn enough to pretend to be interested to fit in socially, and eventually I started actually enjoying watching and following the local teams. I suspect there may be a bit of an echo chamber in some communities that don't care about sports, but I'd wager the among the majority they are still very popular.
I downvoted you not for the opinion (which I do happen to disagree with) but because you're making the mistake of taking your own anecdote and assuming it implies everyone is like you.
Among me and my friends, nobody likes rap music, ice hockey or nightclubs, doesn't those 3 things aren't incredibly popular among many people.
It's probably because you're 30 and watch esports. I didn't downvote you, though. Most of the people I know who own houses stay home to watch games but that's mostly due to the fact that they've had to move out of the urban areas to purchase.
The downvotes are unwarranted, but my guess is: it seems like you're claiming that no one in your cohort watches sports based on your anectdata. A claim which is likely out of touch with reality. I upvoted to hopefully even out your score.
Do you mean live TV, or just having cable at all? I don't think I've watched live TV in 10 years.
I'm looking to cut my cord, but the problem is that nothing legit is as convenient as the cable+DVR setup. With those 2 things I have access to practically every TV show on the air (minus Netflix exclusive stuff).
To have access to that wide of a library without cable I need Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, iTunes (and Pirate Bay for the stuff that's just impossible to get). There is not a single (non-computer) device that can play those all on my TV. So it's a bit of a hassle, screwing around to find what service on what device has what show and then remembering when the new ones come out.
Compare that to the stupid, but venerable, DVR where every show I want from whatever random channel just shows up when it comes out in one clean interface.
I want to kill it so bad but from a UX perspective, it's just so much better.
Really, the only thing that gets close to that experience at all is flexget[1] + a private torrent tracker. How sad is that? It really should be a huge kick in the nuts to all the legit streaming services, but I doubt that they even care... DRM just ruins everything. Sigh.
I think it's really shifting away from TV. As a college student, my friends and I have been completely satisfied with Netflix and the like. I can confidently say that there is nearly a 0% chance I'll be getting cable/directv/whatever when I can just get Netflix/Hulu/etc instead.
Don't most ISPs make it economically infeasible to get internet services without also getting cable TV? Comcast here bundles servies such that internet only is more expensive than internet + cable.
Yep, this is the case here as well. Paying Comcast for TV + internet because it's $15/month cheaper than internet alone. The cable box they sent me is sitting unpacked in the closet.
What I do is call them and outright refuse to pay more for just internet. I tell them to lower my bill to below that each year my "promotion" expires. They forward me to the "Loyalty" department and somehow find a new promotion for me each time.
Interesting, do you have another provider in the area?
I think a lot of the negotiating power comes from the ability to threaten to switch to <competitor>. If they know there is nobody else (and in many places in US there isn't), they can often say "yeah sorry to see you leave", knowing that you can't really go anywhere.
I have for example been oscillating between two local providers. Both have equipment on "premises" installed and just have to switch it on and off. So as soon as one ends promotions, I switch to another and do so on. Sometimes they give me the promotion rates back without having to go the full switch around the circle.
I used to get the promotional rates re-applied every year. Now they just flat out refuse. So I cancelled my cable to call their bluff but I had to keep the internet because I have no other option. Never got a call from customer retention. So now I pay the same amount for comcast internet + directv but I refuse to switch back to comcast just because.
Not really.cthere are competitors but they suck too. I use reason with them most of the time. Once You Are transfered to the loyalty department it doesn't even matter. In some cases, just ask yo be transfered to loyalty. Losing $30 a month per customer isn't worth losing the customer or the negative social media.
Can I ask where you live, and how much you pay? In the bay area internet only is marginally cheaper than any bundle. $99 for TV + 25mbps and between $66 for just the 25mbps. Teaser rates are $59 for the bundle, $29 for internet.
I live in Kirkland (a suburb of Seattle). Paying Comcast $50/month for "Blast Plus" which is 50 mbps + TV, while it's ~$69 for just 50mbps internet. Both are "promo rates" (aka call the retention dpt. once they run out and you'll get them for another year).
$69 for internet is the full price, not the promo teaser rate. The promo rate is $34 (see linked image). I don't know if you can get the promo rate if you aren't a new customer though.
Kirkland resident here, too. Have you looked into Frontier FiOS? We pay $40/month for Internet, non-promo and no TV. (I don't think they've laid fiber optic to every neighborhood in the city yet.)
Here in Central Florida Brightouse is very strict and internet alone is more expensive than bundled. However, after only a month on $130 bundle with ATT, I've "threatened" them to switch into Brightouse (bluff), because I needed cheaper plan and they gave me a $45/month/no contract internet-only plan for 12Mb download.
Its possible that you would achieve the same with BH, but at least ATT hates when you mention competitors, and they make so much money that they would rather make less on you, than lose you big time, knowing once a customer is gone, his/her re-acquisition is very expensive. At least this is my experience. I had an impression that I could push it even harder and call again, complain and they would lower my bill even more before finally dropping me for good, but I am already satisfied with my plan.
Edit: tl;dr - always bluff with your cable provider that you drop them b/c they are expensive and see how far you can get. Most likely your $150 bill can be cut 50% and they still will make money.
This was the case for me historically as well, but I recently got an HD antenna to avoid paying the fee for digital and told them I didn't want the box. They somehow unbundled them and now I have a more expensive data plan for the same overall cost, and no TV listed anywhere on my bill. I have no idea if I'm practically any better off, but it's nice not feeling like I'm paying for something I'm not using.
The promotional rates work like that sometimes, but if you get the lowest, lowest grade of internet- at the normal non-promotional rate, it is a good deal cheaper than the bundles.
Take my service for example. $40 standard rate (promo was $30). There ain't no bundle out there that runs $40 once the promo period is up.
Between YouTube, Twitch.TV (and related, like Azubu, Speedruns, etc), Crunchyroll, and occasional piracy (GoT), I never turn on my TV unless it's the Chromecast the aforementioned content.
You cant get the same content in the same quality from places like Netflix or Youtube.
I like to watch new shows not reruns of shows/movies I have already seen, most of the time I have seen them multiple times. I am looking at you netflix.
