Yeah, since leaving England every year there was incremental progress in making it easier to support my home team - technology advancements and the proliferation of the internet and smart phones has made it almost impossible to not be able to follow a game live either by audio commentary or watching it.
Yeah, I got to see about 2/3rds of my team's games in the first half of the season this year. I could have seen more, I guess, but I do not like to do the questionable live feeds you can find on the net. Plus I often have to watch delayed anyway as we are often busy when the game is on live. But it sure has changed in the past 20+ years.
The games will be free this year on espn 3. Get TB for $5 a month. Open it, click the on switch, and watch the games live. I get why some dont wanna pay $70 for mls live, but that excuse doesnt exist now.
That's the expectation, but have they announced or laid all of these details out yet? I haven't seen anything since the contract was signed last year.
I live in Akron, so this wouldn't help me one bit, unless you think an Akron or Cleveland station would pick up the games. I don't. Are you sure about MLS Live being there this season? That article was from last May. It said that MLS Live "may" still exist in 2015. We haven't heard anything to that effect, and worryingly, they recently updated their mobile apps which now no longer include MLS Live. There are rumors that ESPN is going to work with MLS Live so that the two can co-exist, but right now, it's just rumors. ------RM
I was thinking they could try to put together a TV network. Failing that, any areas outside where the games are on OTA would likely be considered outside the team's broadcast territory and able to take advantage of the ESPN3/MLS Live/Direct Kick option.
Wait... am I reading this correctly? MM (and later AP) stated 2 main reasons for wanting to switch providers, iirc: 1) Additional content (pre- and post-game, plus in-week shows), and 2) They were tired of the Crew getting bumped. So, if the above is correct, TWC didn't give a shit enough to get alt channels up and running, so the Crew gets pissed and... gives them the entirety of the contract?
No matter what choice is made, there were always going to be people affected negatively by it. If you want a statewide footprint, OTA doesn't cut it. There are a lot more major markets you have to put together outside Columbus--the same is not true in Utah. All it takes is one market to say "nah" and you don't have state wide coverage. I think that there are at least 6-8 separate OTA markets in Ohio--maybe more. But if you choose a cable network, you get what we got with TWC (or ONN back in the day). Or you choose FSO, and the other teams take precedence. Just as happened the other night when the Jackets were preempted by the Cavs on FSO Cleveland--and not every market in Ohio will offer (or can offer in some cases) alternate channels. This was never a choice between good and bad but between sucky and less sucky. The only way out of it would be if your owner controlled the tv market(s) in some way.
I also remember that game. That was back when FSW was too cheap to send their own camera crews and their only show that involved their own cameras was the Friday night phone-in show. Things really looked bad when they would piggyback off the HDNet feed. A unedited, unaltered 16x9 feed on a 4x3 TV with the HDNet graphics that were pushed partially off the side of the screen...ugh. Yeah, that game though...SMH and facepalm.
This is entirely valid, and actually has me hopeful that there could be a bigger picture in play (although, given that it was MM in charge, I honestly doubt it). The Crew gets tired of absolute crap deals from FSO, not just financially but in terms of priority and additional content. They talk about going to TWCSN, FSO assumes it's a bluff (or just doesn't care) and doesn't budge. Crew realizes actually signing a deal with TWCSN is the only thing that would open up any space in negotiations with FSO in the future, so they do. Fans get pissed in the short-term, but it leads to longer-term gains. Still doesn't explain why MM couldn't get any kind of online streaming exception, other than that he was an incompetent wanker.
TWC and FSO are competitors. I can see why setting up alternate channles for a competitor would not be a high business priority. I don't think that's the best business sense, though, as most consumers will not parse that.
Ding. WWHO-53 OR whatever-the-heck the out-of-market package is if WWHO isn't an option. Heck, a WSYX 6.2 subchannel would be awesome. I think Philadelphia had their games on a subchannel. Besides, do those subchannels actually show anything of importance?
Yeah, that doesn't make sense. They were being hosed by Time Warner (only in some areas, as it seemed like the Dayton area was consistently the worst and others had mixed results), so the screwee gives the contract to the screwer? Huh? TWC is not FSO. TWCSN or TWCSC or whatever it is would be the competitor. It would be like Gmail (TWCSN) vs Google (TWC) and Yahoo Mail (FSO.) It's always something with Time Warner though...first, they didn't want to set up the space for ONN, as they claimed they were "full" and now this. How is it that DirecTV or U-Verse or whatever else can add new content, but TW can't seem to?
That's fine for Columbus. I'd have no problem with that personally. But when you are trying to get a statewide footprint (and I think they are right about that), in Ohio you have to negotiate with a lot of entities as there are multiple markets. And there's no guarentee that one of those markets won't pre-empt. Or even consider showing your product in the first place. So you get Columbus--but no Akron or Cleveland. Cleveland and Cincy at least consider themselves to be bigger markets than Columbus and are not as interested in what goes on down here. Philly's different. In that market, you are competing not with yourself but with two other MLS teams. There wouldn't be statewide coverage needed (Western PA fans would be far more likely to come to Columbus as it is closer) and your market is far more compact. A single station with maybe an affiliate in Lancaster and Allentown covers your real market just fine. And you are probably ok without the affiliates--in that market. It's likely the cable systems have the Philly OTA stations anyway. Ohio isn't that kind of market. And I will make one point. The Crew have tried *all* of these scenarios. They *all* fail to one extent or another. That's reality. Wishing won't make it go away.
MLSLive will still be around but only for Canada, I for one will miss it. I really liked the fact that it archived the games and I could watch them later or start a game at the beginning or watch it live. Does anybody know if you get Direct Kick can you watch the Crew games with the new FCC ruling on black outs?
The FCC blackout rules were only changed in relation to a team blacking out a game if the game isn't sold out, and only applies to their exception of the NFL's policy. There will be no changes to the TWC blackouts. http://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-eliminates-sports-blackout-rules
MLS Live is still around for 2015 (with Crew blackouts): http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...referral&utm_content=News&utm_campaign=Unpaid