Long time since the last "Super Sunday" slot (4pm UK) without a Big 6 club playing. West Ham-Watford last November, watched by 334k on NBCSN. That'd be above average for MLS on ESPN.
Watching our match on Gold right now. Laptop to TV with HDMI cable.With good Wi-Fi and good Internet. It's OK but the resolution and frame rate are noticeably not as good as my NBCSN cable channel.
Interestingly (ok only to me) Newcastle-Arse was pushed to Gold on NBC but was the first choice of Talksport international audio commentaries. Live on SiriusXM FC.
I wasn't too surprised. NBC's decisions seem to be pretty strongly based on where you sit in the table. The top 4-6 teams get the lion share of the NBC/NBCSN/CNBC broadcasts. If we get back to being solidly in the top 6, and better yet top 4, then I don't think we'll see us dropped down to Gold too much more. p.s. Since we're in Europa, we're also going to have a lot of Sunday games, which should further minimize our getting dumped to Gold.
I doubt it was so much our position in the table. Arsenal draws viewers and has a huge fanbase. It probably had more to do with where Newcastle is in the table than where we were.
Not sure about that. Cardiff are similarly woeful, and have an even smaller worldwide support base, but still they got the 10am CNBC slot over Newcastle? IOW, that game was selected more because Chelsea were in 2nd place and Arsenal were 9th. Also... Yeah, but by the same token, NBC has the same issue with Chelsea, who also play in Europa. So I'm really thinking it's really league standing more than anything else. Or the fact that Chelsea were one of 3 teams with perfect records on the line. I would've made the same choice NBC did.
Newcastle-Arsenal would have been a top pick few years ago, but I wouldn't watch it today with other games available. Watching Newcastle park the bus and go for their 20% possession target and Arsenal play Arsenal football is a waste of time for a neutral fan on a Saturday with so many teams and games available.
Yep. And I don't know how they're going to find 4 matches each to push Man City and Liverpool to Gold this season! (might see one this weekend though)
It looks likely that one or both will be on Gold this weekend depending on whether CNBC is utilized. I feel like the 7/10 a.m. NBC Sports match should be Manchester United vs. Wolves rather than Cardiff City vs. Man City or Liverpool vs. Southampton. The other three matches in that time slot are obvious Gold matches.
PREMIER LEAGUE L: WEST HAM/EVERTON NBC SPORTS NETWORK 10:57 AM 126 0.09 322k MLS REGULAR SEASON L: DC UNITED/NEW YORK RED BULLS ESPN 1:00 PM 137 0.09 216k
The YouTube TV schedule has the Liverpool match listed for that slot as well. I'm biased, but Man United-Wolves is the most compelling match of the weekend on paper. Part of my thinks it's behind the paywall because NBC knows it's a good match of the wish-you-had-Gold variety, but in reality NBC is just going to show Liverpool and/or Man City at all costs. I'm sure Southampton will really make a match of it just days after not being able to hold a 2-0 lead vs. Brighton.....
I posted this on the Arsenal forum, in a rant about how the new USA TV rights for UEFA suck (because Turner seems to care very minimally about broadcasting UCL/UEL). But I thought some of you media watchers in this thread might have some answers...
Turner just bought CL/EL rights and created an OTT service in B/R Live so it can show every match, and it's still showing matches on TV in both CL time slots each matchday. It sounds like Turner is pretty committed to me. Sure, not showing EL on TV stinks, but it's just a business decision Turner likely based on EL viewership history and wanting to further incentivize B/R Live subscriptions. There's a reason why Turner is paying $65 million per year for the CL/EL whereas Premier League rights cost NBC about $167 million annually. The huge cost difference boils down to relative value, which is basically viewership. I'm sure if Turner was confident that Europa League matches were a consistently good draw, it'd broadcast them on TV. But it doesn't think viewers are clamoring for an EL match between Chelsea and PAOK at 9:55 a.m. on a Thursday. And they bet those who are intent on watching will be willing to pay $10 for the viewing opportunity. It's the same thing as NBC Sports Gold: why broadcast Cardiff City v. Huddersfield on NBC Sports Alternate 1 for a few viewers at no cost when those hardcore fans will pay $50/season to see that match on Gold? Assuming the B/R Live app gets some TLC, it's not so bad to have access to all these matches for $10/mo. I canceled Spotify Premium in favor of B/R Live today.
Sorry I wasn't looking to have that debate yet again about whether things were better before when everything was on TV, as opposed to now when comparatively little is, and you have to pay extra to watch it on your laptop. What I was actually asking (which might not have been so clear) was about @Gunning4Chelsea's premise that the reason Turner chose to rely more on digital than traditional TV was because "less people watch TV". And my follow-up question about why then does the EPL TV rights keep going up and up in value when there are less broadcast viewers? Is it because the EPL lumps broadcast & digital under one umbrella called "TV"? I thought someone on this board might know that answer already... like @QPR Kevin H?
Rights £ actually went down in the last Premier League deal in the UK. With Sky paying 9mil per match vs 10mil in the last contract. What’s going up is the total money the Prem gets from international markets — networks (like NBC) in a ton of countries putting up more modest sums to broadcast. It adds up, Prem now makes more from intl markets than domestic for the first time. And yes, the rights are about all forms of broadcast. It means a lot to networks around the world to have the ability to set up things like Gold or B/R Live in addition to selling ad spots on traditional tv. Connection to the Prem via streaming and mobile is probably even higher around the world than it is in the US, UK or Western Europe. Another thing to look at with the TNT deal is how they’re using B/R to put the Champs League in front of a younger audience through social media, streaming, etc. It was pretty interesting following https://twitter.com/brfootball yesterday. It’s the whole package, and trying to get younger non-tv people to watch. For now networks around the world will keep paying for that opportunity. How that fragments in the next deals and beyond, not sure. Prem now just dabbling with streaming rights and Amazon. That’ll only continue as we head to entities like WatchESPN/ESPN+ try to become the Netflix of sports.
Cable/satellite providers are losing customers, but streaming TV providers are adding customers, so I think it's almost a break-even right now. I've followed that path this year, going from DirecTV to YouTube TV. This is part of the reason why Turner created B/R Live and has such a large percentage of matches behind a streaming-only paywall. So I'd assume it has a bit to do with viewing habits and a bit to do with maximizing profit from these TV rights. Traditional TV viewership is declining, so I suppose that does play a factor. Turner needs viewers to make money and I'd assume American advertisers don't want to pay much money for A) soccer matches in general since there aren't commercial breaks aside from halftime, and B) soccer matches played midweek while everyone with a 9-5 is at work. Turner isn't a non-profit, so it's going to prioritize its bottom line.
All morning long NBCSN was showing the league table without the all-important points column. They did it 3-4 times without correction. It even tripped up Rebecca when she alluded to West Ham having now 4pts which wasn't what was showing on the table. Finally during GoalZone they finally got it worked out, and added the points column. Hard to imagine this going on so long, with all the talent & money that they throw at this production. But oh well, not the biggest technical problem of all time.
I still can't believe the broadcast choices for last Saturday's block of matches. What happened is exactly what I expected: Liverpool and Man City win by 6+ combined goals in lopsided matches while Man United-Wolves play an honest-to-goodness competitive, entertaining match between two quality squads. It only annoys me because I don't think NBC made the choice to broadcast the good match behind the paywall as a way to temp non-subscribers; it chose to broadcast two shitty, lopsided matches on TV because it's going to choose individual clubs at the top of the table over a good match every time. It didn't impact my ability to watch, but it also didn't build any goodwill for NBC's coverage in my eyes.