I haven't watched sports on p+ for a while. Just gave them a shot for the supercoppa italia - much better! I take back about half the negative things I said about them. Still takes them too long to move a match over to on-demand though.
The Peacock streaming is really good now. Better and more features than you can ever get with regular TV. This includes the option of catching-up with key plays if you join the game in progress, watching extended highlights shortly after the match ends, and being able to watch the post-match analysis on demand (often these are removed from the replay streams). BUT... it took a while for Peacock to get this good. IIRC, initially you couldn't even rewind if watching live.
Wasn't there a time when espn360 and espn3/watchespn or something along those lines were running concurrently and it was the newer system that we currently have that immediately had fewer features like multiple events in a single window? I feel like it was a while before Watch espn had rewind and pause again and even then it is now still limited to certain events.
I think it was Fox Sports Go that got mega nurfed. Watch ESPN/ESPN 3 had a weird bug for a while where if you fast forward it takes you to a random spot. It took literally multiple years to get fixed.
I just love that COMCAT hasn't figure out they're still giving me Peacock Premium (or whatever it's called) even though I cut off service when I moved back to TX .... in OCT
Before the deal with Apple I wondered if the CW might have been an alternative for MLS as they had the most local affiliates across the country and a free streaming network. They just signed a deal with LIV Golf. LIV Golf officially announces its TV deal with The CW network.Friday rounds will be shown only on The CW app, with Saturday and Sunday broadcast on The CW channel and app.— Dan Rapaport (@Daniel_Rapaport) January 19, 2023
Only thing with CW is I've seen Brodcast TV viewership numbers from them in the 200ks before. Viewership definitely isn't there like it used to be in the 90s with UPN and WB prior merge. This is obviously better for LIV than YouTube but it's not a huge win. Golf is something that doesn't usually pull in big numbers unless it's the majors or one of the big names. I believe this is a timeshare deal as well. PGA has really defacto black-balled them.
Yeah CW viewrship is in the dumps, that's why WB and Paramount sold it off. And now that its independent of studio backing there is no guarantee of long term survival. For selfish reasons, I would have loved MLS on CW, but not sure it would have been good for the league.
Some world Cup data on a global basic... huge metrics MLS can point to global nature of Football.. https://www.sportspromedia.com/news/qatar-2022-fifa-world-cup-final-argentina-france-viewers-engagement/#:~:text=Argentina's shootout win over France,billion viewers, Fifa has revealed. Argentina’s shootout win over France in the final of the Qatar 2022 World Cup reached a global audience of 1.5 billion viewers, FIFA has revealed. Confirmed: * 550 million global viewers tuned in to watch the opener as Ecuador beat hosts Qatar * Soccer’s global governing body says ‘around five billion people’ engaged with the World Cup. Without defining that metric, Fifa said that figure was based on fans ‘following tournament content across an array of platforms and devices across the media universe’ *From 93.6 million posts during Qatar 2022 the tournament delivered 5.95 billion social media engagements *World Cup posts scored a cumulative reach of 262 billion across all platforms
So, looks like the Fox schedule has come out. Any clues when Apple will release their list of games outside the paywall? One thing that I am already seeing is that without RSNs on board, nobody is covering the preseason at all. Slightly disappointing. CityPark's first MLS game will also not be on TV outside the league's package. That's only the second stadium opener to not be on nation TV from what I can remember, after DCs.
FIFA showed admirable restraint in setting their made up number at 1.5 billion. I had the over/under set at eleventy billion.
I would imagine that's not ever going to be released more than a week or two in advance, why would they let people know how much their team is going to be in front or behind the paywall, Apple wants everyone to think they need the season pass to watch their team. If people see that 65% of their teams games (as a hypothetical) are either free or only need ATV+ they may not decide to buy the season pass.
In a weird way this probably makes the MLS HQ folks feel better about their Apple TV deal New: America's largest owner of local sports channels is heading toward bankruptcy court, putting at risk its payments to MLB, NBA and NHL teams. Story w/ @EK_Hudson @rachel_butt https://t.co/t0I8Bz01iA— Gerry Smith (@gerryfsmith) January 25, 2023
Yeah the folks upset about the games no longer being on regional sports networks might go little quieter .....no, no they won't. They'll still be upset. Bottom line is that the Sinclair owned sports networks simply didn't have the money to pay rights fees to MLS teams. It certainly looks as if MLS dodged a bullet here. On the other side, this could/will have a huge impact on MLB, NHL and NBA teams. It could possibly open the door for streamers like Apple, Amazon, YouTube TV, and others to get rights to those leagues, or possibly the local broadcast rights.
I still maintain going all streaming hurts local market coverage and reach when you go from something on your cable or Directv to paying extra for MLS streaming of your home team on Apple TV. Impact TBD. The teams that were previously on Ballys were going to be in a hard place with either getting their rights deals rejected in BK or keeping the rights but getting stiffed on payment. Off the top of my head I think Minnesota, Columbus, Nashville, Charlotte, Orlando and maybe Dallas were all on Bally's networks owned by Sinclair.
I didn't read into the article, but would bankruptcy allow the network to negate any rights deals with teams, even if the network ultimately continues post bankruptcy?
A number of the networks are co-owned by MLB teams. I would imagine that at least some of the MLB teams buy out the local RSN. This may benefit baseball… they can package a MLB.tv that contains in-market as well as out-of-market games. Who knows… maybe MLB gets the MLS Apple treatment. The other thought is that the RSNs are also essentially production companies for their carried teams. Synergies possible.
Everyone has known this was coming for at least 5 years now, but this is a big deal and will be a hinge point of major changes in the sports business.
So that's at least 6 MLS teams. Throw in Colorado's issues and you're up to a quarter of the league having real problems getting anything even on TV, much less getting paid well for it. Its not hard then to see a path where AppleTV made a lot more sense than hoping 3/4ths of the league could make up for the missing 1/4th.