Streaming Abdabs

[paulcomben]

Interesting thoughts about the future of TV fees versus streaming:

http://www.mob76outlook.com/digital-is-bringing-football-to-the-point-of-collapse/

"If I want to watch the 5-10 games that my club play on Sky Sports each season I have to pay £150 on a TV licence, £250 on a regular Sky Subscription plus hundreds more on the Sports upgrade. Surely it’s a matter of time before this inaccessibly awful system collapses?

Major League Baseball in the US has clocked the wider cultural shift and adapted accordingly. You can subscribe to just your team’s games for under £100 a year, accessible from pretty much any device. They also show one random game for free each day, for the more casual viewers.

I’d say I’m a fairly typical British citizen. I’m a twenty-something bloke with some disposable income and an interest in football. I go to a small handful of live games a year, but have little interest in TV in general.

To get my weekend football fix, I point my browser at the litany of streaming sites available, and suffer the pixelated blow rather than fork out the exorbitant alternatives. It looks stupid on a 104” projector, let me assure you.

If there was any sort of reasonable alternative, either through the Premier League clubs directly or through a third party, I’d snap it up. I don’t want to be a pirate, but I feel my hands are tied. Yep; it’s entitled, but I’m one of millions across the country in a similar position – potentially millions of pounds that clubs are missing out on.

I gave up the piracy as soon as convenient and affordable options were made available for music and film, and I’m willing to do so for football too. The clubs and businesses cannot compare this widespread piracy to any other era, as these days, almost no-one has any qualms about illegal streams. It’s a totally different ball game (sorry).

Something’s got to give. One day, and sooner rather than later, technology, consumer behaviour and politics will align, and football will be forced to follow the other entertainment industries. Someone’s going to make a lot of money, and it may be just enough to give the sport the kick it needs to sort its tattered wallet out while we’re at it."

[Malandro]

spending a lot of time abroad, I'd probably pay what it costs to buy a season ticket if I could watch all the games live on the net

[OCD]

The NFL do the same thing where you can buy a season pass to watch all your team's games. I would like the same in football but the argument has always been that it would adversely effect attendances. Having seen both perspectives, my guess would be that the people who go to games enjoy the atmosphere, the routine and being able to the whole game and not just what's on screen. As such, it would be interesting to see just how much effect it would have.

[regular_john]

Personally I think that losing income due to streaming is no more than the greedy bastards at SKY deserve. They charge an absolutely astronomical fee to show you, at most, 50% of your teams games for the season and even less if you support a team from the lower divisions. They then kick up a stink when people resort to other means to watch their team play!

The current situation is their own damn fault for buying the rights to games they refuse to screen. Long live streaming!

[UK Redsox]

Interesting thoughts about the future of TV fees versus streaming:

http://www.mob76outlook.com/digital-is-bringing-football-to-the-point-of-collapse/

"If I want to watch the 5-10 games that my club play on Sky Sports each season I have to pay £150 on a TV licence, £250 on a regular Sky Subscription plus hundreds more on the Sports upgrade. Surely it’s a matter of time before this inaccessibly awful system collapses?

Major League Baseball in the US has clocked the wider cultural shift and adapted accordingly. You can subscribe to just your team’s games for under £100 a year, accessible from pretty much any device. They also show one random game for free each day, for the more casual viewers.

Its actually a better deal than that. My subscription to "MLB.tv Premium" costs $130 per season and that gets me all the games, not just those of one team.

[Whiney MacWhineface]

The current situation is their own damn fault for buying the rights to games they refuse to screen. Long live streaming!

Err, which games that Sky have bought the rights to do you think they aren't screening? They show every game that their deal with the Premier League allows them to.

I see the problem with selling rights to a team's entire season being that ManU, Chelsea et al. Will demand much more for their rights than they currently get under the collective bargaining agreement currently in place. As such the lesser teams will get far less TV revenue, and so the gap between haves and have nots gets wider still.

Whatever the rights and wrongs off it, I think it will get even worse. Sky whacked their latest bid up in anticipation of Al Jazeera bidding big. They were totally surprised by BT coming in big for the lesser package.

BT have now made no secret that they plan to rival Sky when the next contract comes up so goodness only knows what utterly hatstand money will be offered (it will be eye-poppingly big). And that will mean subscriptions won't be coming down, and rights will be protected even more fiercely.

[Vancouver]

Sorry to veer slightly off topic but its a point to consider, you can only watch the NFL & NHL games locally if the tickets in the stadiums are sold out. It's their way of getting bums on seats.

I agree with you though. Something has to give as the prices are reaching tipping point

[DeKuip]

For the football, rugby league and (particularly) cricket coverage me and my family get to watch I do think my Sky Sports subscription is decent value.
By comparison my Villa season ticket is not good value and I'd be saying that even if we were playing well.
I really do feel that a decent percentage of the TV money clubs get should have to go towards rewarding/subsidising the people who make the effort to go along to live games. When Villa are on live I'm effectively paying for the same game twice.
On a cold wet winter's night or Saturday evening I do question my sanity when I drive 20 odd miles and pay a fiver to park the car, maybe pay £3fucking40 for a tin of John Smith's if I'm flush, then sit and shiver watching a game I've already paid a tv subscription to watch. Then pop in the pub on the way home and listen to people who've been watching it there, in the warm, telling me it should never have been a penalty, or it was offside or whatever because they've also had a better view than me. And for what I've just paid out on petrol, parking and expensive second rate refreshments they've had a few nice draught pints and possibly a decent steak and chips too!
We are being taken for mugs, paying over the odds to be extras in a tv show.
It's not the one's watching in pubs or in their homes or by online subscriptions who are being overcharged - it's the ones who are there at the game week in week out, rain or shine. Match ticket prices should be a fixed low cost for live tv games, and season ticket holders who have paid up front should get credits on the following season's season ticket when they attend a live game.
If it carries on like this I shall be invoicing the club for image rights payments every time my miserable face appears in the background on some tv screen in Bangkok or wherever. Double price for piss-taking close-ups of me picking my nose or tripping up the steps!

[Toronto Villa]

The NFL do the same thing where you can buy a season pass to watch all your team's games. I would like the same in football but the argument has always been that it would adversely effect attendances. Having seen both perspectives, my guess would be that the people who go to games enjoy the atmosphere, the routine and being able to the whole game and not just what's on screen. As such, it would be interesting to see just how much effect it would have.

it works in the NFL because firstly there are so few teams compared to our football, so scarcity drives demand. Add to that there are only 8 guaranteed home games a season, as opposed to 19 PL games. The best NFL teams might see those home games increase to 10 at most, whereas the best teams in the PL could play many more games with the various cups thrown in. An aggressively priced TV package would have a highly detrimental affect on all but the most popular sides, and even they might see a sharp decline, especially in the "lesser" cups.

[Mister E]

For the football, rugby league and (particularly) cricket coverage me and my family get to watch I do think my Sky Sports subscription is decent value.
By comparison my Villa season ticket is not good value and I'd be saying that even if we were playing well.
I really do feel that a decent percentage of the TV money clubs get should have to go towards rewarding/subsidising the people who make the effort to go along to live games. When Villa are on live I'm effectively paying for the same game twice.
On a cold wet winter's night or Saturday evening I do question my sanity when I drive 20 odd miles and pay a fiver to park the car, maybe pay £3fucking40 for a tin of John Smith's if I'm flush, then sit and shiver watching a game I've already paid a tv subscription to watch. Then pop in the pub on the way home and listen to people who've been watching it there, in the warm, telling me it should never have been a penalty, or it was offside or whatever because they've also had a better view than me. And for what I've just paid out on petrol, parking and expensive second rate refreshments they've had a few nice draught pints and possibly a decent steak and chips too!
We are being taken for mugs, paying over the odds to be extras in a tv show.
It's not the one's watching in pubs or in their homes or by online subscriptions who are being overcharged - it's the ones who are there at the game week in week out, rain or shine. Match ticket prices should be a fixed low cost for live tv games, and season ticket holders who have paid up front should get credits on the following season's season ticket when they attend a live game.
If it carries on like this I shall be invoicing the club for image rights payments every time my miserable face appears in the background on some tv screen in Bangkok or wherever. Double price for piss-taking close-ups of me picking my nose or tripping up the steps!

Well-argued.
I've never subscribed to SKY or ESPN, or their antecedents. I've taken this decision partly as a stand against the death of live events and also because I know that I will just become more and more couch-potato if I do!

However, I resent not being able to watch live England Rugby, Football and (to a lesser extent) Cricket. I think the latter two have limited their appeal by going across to the £££ side. And I increasingly resent the cost of a TV licence for the dross now served up on terrestrial, generally.

I like the idea of sport being made more accessible through some sort of media season ticket (I liked the Villa Streams model for example), but - as argued by RR#62 above - the competitive tendering process is likely to encourage larger firewalls rather than greater accessibility. I wonder whether BT / Sky have done the maths to show whether a more open approach (internet-streamed season ticket tariffs for club fans) would in fact garner more revenue than the current closed system.

[Legion]

Great thread title.

[eastie]

A season ticket for watching your clubs games on sky would be an interesting  idea - how much would you think they would charge if they could do it?

[Legion]

A season ticket for watching your clubs games on sky would be an interesting  idea - how much would you think they would charge if they could do it?

I don't think that would go down very well with the clubs themselves.

[eastie]

A season ticket for watching your clubs games on sky would be an interesting  idea - how much would you think they would charge if they could do it?

I don't think that would go down very well with the clubs themselves.

Depends what money they get i suppose legion.
I think a lot would still go to games but those living far away would maybe be attracted by the idea - some people love the atmosphere but i must admit i find the atmosphers pretty bland these days at games and on a cold wet night the idea of switching on to watch a villa game could be an attraction.

Not sure it would affect gates as much as some would imagine.

[dave.woodhall]

As you - quite rightly - can't show Saturday 3pm kick-offs live, the idea's a non-starter anyway.