NFL talking to Google -- could Sunday Ticket go to YouTube?

The experience is different though.

If I'm watching the MLB package on MLB.TV through my Apple TV, I can't flip channels between innings as easily, or check the score during a commercial of another program I might be watching.

It's just not as integrated. I have to switch "inputs" first. And, while it's a simple thing, it's not as simple as simply changing channels, and alters the experience.

 

Are we going to have the privilege of looking at Bieber or Gaga wrap-around ads as we watch games on YouTube?

 

You're also at the infancy of the technology. You don't think that as a market for this stuff increases, that will improve? That seems like a rather minor issue.

 

The whole issue of cable/satellite TV bundling seems to be rearing its head rather frequently these days. Its intuitive, but likely wrong, that a la carte TV distribution would reduce how much we pay for our programming. Here's a rather easily digestible take on it:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2013/01/does-cable-tv-ripoff-people-who-dont-like-sports.html

 

Do Dish and Time Warner offer 5 extra channels of Grand Slam tennis coverage?

They lose money on it, and only 10 percent of DirecTV subscribers have the package. It's been a prestige boost for sure, but I don't see how it would hurt them financially very much.

Heck, biggest losers would probably be the chronics who always threaten to drop the service in hopes of getting free Sunday Ticket as a reward for staying.

 

Do you have Netflix or Hulu Plus or is it just free content from the net?

 

It came with three months of free Netflix, so it virtually paid for itself.

But, yes, I have both already (as well as Apple TV -- but Chromecast works so much more smoothly).

 

The Internet as we know it will be yesterday's news in 25 years.

Brain implants, buddy.

 

There are other articles suggesting a-la-carte would raise bills for sports fans, because each channel would need to increase their fees to make the same amount of revenue they do know, plus more money to market to individual viewers to buy channels.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/05/mccain_s_la_carte_cable_bill_is_bad_deal_for_consumers.html

 

According to what I could find, DirecTV has just under 20 million subscribers, 1.1 million of which subscribe to Sunday Ticket. That latter number jumped from about 300,000 over the last couple years when DirecTV offered free Sunday Ticket with new subscriptions. So that would seem to mean that they had just over 19 million subscribers, 300,000 of which were Sunday Ticket subscribers around 2011 or 2010.

Another thing I've noticed is that DirecTV has been forced to drop the price of Sunday Ticket to current subscribers, indicating that they were not retaining all those people who had the free season of Sunday Ticket.

So, basically, Sunday Ticket jumped from 1.5% of DirecTV's business to a little over 5%. I just don't see a lot of damage coming to DirecTV. All that would happen is Google would have to offer a way for Sunday Ticket subscribers to hook Google up to their televisions and Google would have to do so at a price similar to the price Sunday Ticket subscribers pay to DirecTV.

People won't be cancelling their DirecTV and moving to Google for Sunday Ticket until Google offers all the other channels DirecTV brings to them. They would simply keep subscribing to DirecTV and add a separate Google service to their TVs.

Now it could be a different story if Dish Network or AT&T Uverse or some other competing national cable or satellite company got Sunday Ticket. But that's not what this thread is suggesting.

Sunday Ticket still only makes sense for people relocated from the market of the team they love. Otherwise, you're paying for a lot of games that you won't be watching. By that I mean you can only watch one game at a time on your TV. If you live in your team's home market and your team is playing in the 1 p.m. Sunday time slot, you're watching your local channel and missing about 10 other games. Then there's a doubleheader game that you're getting on your local channel and you're missing maybe two other games. You're getting the Thursday night, Sunday night and Monday night games without Sunday Ticket. So, unless you're living outside your favorite team's market, when your team plays the early Sunday game, you're paying for Sunday Ticket to basically have two more choices for the 4:15 Sunday game and about eight 1 p.m. games you're not going to be watching anyway -- one of which is available to you anyway (on CBS if you're watching your team on Fox, or vice-versa). It makes only a little more sense for people in western time zones where their teams play mostly in the 4:00 or 4:15 slot. Then they can have their pick from the eight or so 10 a.m. games. Is that really worth $300? Not to most Average Joes.