ESPN Soccer Thread

"probably find" <> "free"

Not to mention the crap quality, foreign language versus HD, English, no-fuss.

I'm particularly loving the commercial-free aspect of ESPN+. That alone is worth paying $5 imo. #timesaver

 

Yeah, I don't get the resistance to paying $5 for ESPN+, unless of course you don't care about MLS or the EFL or the USL or any of their other soccer programming. Also it's going to have every match from the UEFA Nations League starting this fall.

And there are apps for it on just about every connected device and ESPN streams at a higher quality than Fox Match Pass or Fubo.

 

With BeIN streaming you have to watch commercials every time you change the channel. I can’t deal with that in the DVR / Netflix era. Yeah, I’ll pay $5

 

I think the main issue with these things (and NBC Gold is in this category) is the fact that they used to be free. Yes ESPN+ added MLS and will add other content so it's a bit different but Gold just took the games that used to be on overflow channels and put them on line to charge a rate.

But more importantly in isolation, 5 dollars isn't going to break the bank on anyone. The issue is that this seems to be the direction things are going. If you watch a bunch of different leagues, those 5 dollars for each service (or 10 or even 15) becomes an awful lot.

I also don't see these price points lasting. I think eventually they will be raised. When NBC first game out with Gold and now with ESPN and the ESPN+ all you had to do was go on Facebook and read the comments whenever their ad would show up. The amount of backlash was insane. 99% of the comments negative. So the overall feeling is extremely negative. And I think NBC and ESPN knew that. I think that's why initially we are seeing a low price.

I do see both raising tho.

 

The cynic in me thinks you're right. The optimist hopes that all these myriad individual paywalls won't go higher that $5.

But the cynic will win out. Backed by evidence from Netflix, Amazon, etc, etc.

 

ESPN+ is certainly going up in price. You saw what they paid for the rights to exclusive live UFC shows, right?

 

You can buy the yearly subscription for $50, which locks you in for a year and saves you 83 cents per month. [emoji38]

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I just did a little math. My cable TV bill is about $100/mo or $1200/yr. I get all the sports channels I need, plus cable news, BBCA, movie channels, etc. So at an average market rate of ~$50-60/yr per streaming subscription (I'm basing that on NBC & ESPN), then I would have to get 20-24 subscriptions to have equivalent costs. Or if that average rises, as some believe it will, to say $75/yr, then I'm down to 16 subscriptions to break even.

Something tells me that if I have to buy each subscription for each channel/network, or in cases like NBC, for each sport, I could end up needing 16 or more.

And the hassle of managing that many individual subscriptions would be large. Which is why I keep thinking there's a market opportunity for aggregators, where you'd buy a package from a 3rd party, which would include all the channels/subscriptions you need.

I'm not even factoring in the issue that many of the current TV channels probably don't have online streaming equivalents. So if you I want to retain those, I might have to keep some basic level of cable service, at least initially?

I'm also not factoring in the pain of unreliable streaming sources, something I've found at times for every provider I've tried... it's just a nascent industry working out the kinks, and based on a delivery platform (Internet) which is inherently harder to assure reliable video quality.

And lastly, I'm also glossing over the lack of functionality that compares favorably to my DVR. So far I've found that providers don't make 100% of their live shows available for replay streaming, and when they do, those shows have a very limited shelf life online.

So all of the above is why I'm still not happy about the current shift to streaming behind paywalls.

[/CURMUDGEON-MODE]

 

It's not a shift. You've never had access to all three divisions of Football League playoffs with your cable account. You've never had access to all out of market MLS included in a normal cable tier. There is no way on earth that I would ever expect to watch Rotherham-Scunthorpe on regular US TV.

You had access to all Premier League matches with a regular cable plan for three years. And it's crappy they switched that out, but it was three years out of the 20+ that the Premier League has been on US cable TV.

There is still an enormous amount live soccer on cable. The only question is whether or not you want to pay to stream more of the fringe fixtures.

 

It is a shift. Maybe just the beginning stages, but the shift has clearly started. And it's not just fringe fixtures either. All EPL clubs, including the top top clubs were consciously taken off of TV this year and put on Internet paywall. And if ESPN+ hadn't just launched, no doubt I would've been able to watch the Championship playoffs for free. If you're honest with yourself, you know where this is likely heading... more and more content which used to be available on TV is moving online behind paywalls which the networks must have high hopes will be lucrative.

 

The main issue for me isn't having to pay it's that there is no streaming service that covers EVERYTHING. All of the apps that have gone to a paywall also reserve some stuff for the mother channel that requires you to have a cable/streaming service that you also have to pay for. I'd pay a pretty penny for every prem game on gold. Same for access to all of ESPN content through +.

 

No, they weren't. Non cable time-slotted live matches were moved back to a standalone subscription format. As they were in the FOX days. You were spoiled by three years of NBC's contract, which clearly was not tenable because NBC changed their minds.

 

Yeah, pretty much. And in practice, how many of the streaming services showing fringle soccer fixtures can someone be interested in? I mean if you’re interested in lower league English football chances are you can live w/o fringe Ligue 1 material being shown on BeIN channel 9. And vice versa.

So yeah, while the price of subscribing to all the streaming soccer content may start adding up in the coming years, who is actually going to feel the need to subscribe to all the services?

 

I don't know what you're talking about. But I was talking about how NBC announced and followed through on moving 3 matches +/- of every EPL club to Gold. I know they did this for Arsenal, and I noticed them doing it for United & Chelsea also. Not so sure about Citeh, Pool & Spurs. And I figure that this is not a trend that they are going to reverse or even just sit tight on.... I expect more and more matches to be moved to Gold. But we shall see.

 

They still have the same number of cable and over the air time slots for matches per weekend. There are still the same number of matches covered for basic cable subscribers. Not all Arsenal matches were on live basic cable for all Americans before Gold, just like after Gold. Even with Live Extra access required certain cable company subscriptions or levels of access (a digital box/OnDemand).

You don’t have a Constitutional right to get the four worst Premier League (another country’s league, mind you) fixtures included in your cable subscription. No league in the US even does that.

I don’t like to stump for giant corporations but Comcast does not need to keep losing money every week so you can watch Arsenal-Bournemouth via standard cable tv.

 

This is based on zero knowledge. As long as NBC has the contract they will be happy to show matches in the time slots they have available, because there is value in it (they struggle for other live content, particularly with Formula One gone). Gold is not a long term revenue plan, it’s a minor loss cutter for overflow 10am ET matches. It’s not the future for NBC, it’s a tiny bandaid for matches that are not important to more than a tiny amount of overall viewers. A simple solution for a niche audience product — much like ESPN+.

 

Take it easy Kev, you don't wanna get your blood pressure going again.

Actually, for many of us we got every match on TV because of Live Extra, which for me was part of my cable sports package. This season they basically shifted those Live Extra matches to the Gold paywall.

And you say you don't like to stick up for the giant corporate networks, but from what I can tell in my last few years of listening to you, that seems to be exactly what you tend to do.

And there's nothing wrong with that. I actually have appreciated over the years your more corporate, capitalist point of view, which is often in contrast to the customers like me bitching about the changes they impose.

 

I hope you're right, but I'll just have to wait and see what they do next season and the season after. The skeptic in me, and the guy who's lived his whole adult life in the USA would be surprised if they didn't try to squeeze more revenues out of Gold by putting more top teams matches there to hopefully increase their subscriber base.

 

That would be robbing Peter to pay Paul. NBC needs the Premier League on their networks, particularly for the money spent on it. Gold is nothing compared to losing actual cable customers. If anything, you could make the argument that moving low level matches to a pay site makes more of a commitment to the cable/NBC matches because they want more eyeballs on them and not lower level matches on an alt channel.

NBCSN has nothing to show on Saturday or Sunday morning that can compare to the Prem.

 

I think we may have some indication of this in 3-4 months. If they stick with their ~3 matches per club guideline, then that will support your theory.

So let's table it till then. Not to mention that we've managed to go significantly off topic in an ESPN thread.

 

Also, keep in mind that the Premier League is introducing more TV window matches next year

http://worldsoccertalk.com/2018/02/19/big-changes-coming-premier-league-us-tv/

So in many weeks NBC will be able to show 8 out of 10 matches via cable/OTA. I seriously doubt they would put any standalone matches (like Friday afternoon) on Gold -- mostly because they have nothing else to show on NBCSN.

 

I'm curious what will actually be on Gold if they expand the TV windows.

Honestly I wish more leagues would do this. Expand the number of TV windows instead of having 4-5 games at a set time

 

I would imagine that Gold will still be used for what it's there for now, spillover 3pm UK kickoff matches. And to essentially act as Premier League TV with all the league produced shows.

And the TV match expansion does come with some heartburn in the UK. Paying fans can't stand them, particularly in a country where many can travel to away matches. Tough to plan on attending your club's matches when they could now be on any day of the week with evening kickoffs that don't allow for trains home.

 

That's true. So is that the reason behind having a set time for most games in England? Kinda a way to protect attendance figures?