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    #26
    Originally posted by Levin View Post
    Haven't all these sports benefited from their games being on FTA? How will rugby league find new viewers if you have to buy in to that first experience?
    That's the conundrum really, and RL currently tries to manage it by having the Challenge Cup and some internationals on FTA and the week on week out stuff on pay TV. Under the new TV deal, Sky are paying a lot less for Super League, and as a minor concession are committing to put a certain number of games on FTA themselves.

    The clubs below Super League currently use a similar thing to iFollow (OurLeague) and it's this sort of thing that could be made more of - package that up into a subscription service rather than pay per view and I'd be interested.

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      #27
      What MLBtv do is they have a free game of the day through the app. This is enough for the casual fan. The they have all your teams games on if you buy access.

      You could do that with any sport. 1 or 2 free fixtures every weekend and then all the others behind a paywall of some kind. Sky have never done that because they didn't need to. They have popular sports that has built them a subscriber base and any minority sports are just bought as "filler" content for their channels.

      The iFollow model also works because you can buy a one off pass for just one game instead of having to have a subscription to an entire channel. That's better in terms of making access easier for people.

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        #28
        Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
        Sky have never done that because they didn't need to. They have popular sports that has built them a subscriber base and any minority sports are just bought as "filler" content for their channels.
        To a small extent they do, as I think they make Sky Sports Mix available on Freeview. My godson is a big NBA fan and he's happy to watch the free game every weekend on Sky Sports Mix and then he watches youtube for highlights of all the other games.

        Trouble is with narrowcasting is that I think there will be a saturation point, where people will just realise they are paying for quite a few of these streaming services and aren't using them much and then ruthlessly cut back. Certainly that is what has happened with me with regard to streaming entertainment services. I have ditched them all and just stick to the free ones like the iPlayer from now on.

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          #29
          It's going to be a shame if everything is stuck in its own pay TV silo. It will be terrible for the sports fan "all rounder" who likes to watch a little bit of everything because you are going to have to have 37 different subscriptions to watch all the various sports, leagues and competitions.

          I spent a large part of the Saturdays in my childhood glued to Grandstand and it fostered within me an appreciation for all sports - its how I (as someone from the home counties) was introduced to rugby league for instance. In 1987/88 I became an F1 and rugby union fan on account of the BBC's coverage of both and FTA also introduced me to American football and Italian football on Channel 4 and so on and so forth. It looks like those days are over.

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            #30
            Originally posted by Jon View Post
            My godson is a big NBA fan and he's happy to watch the free game every weekend on Sky Sports Mix and then he watches youtube for highlights of all the other games.
            Personally that is what I have evolved into - a youtube highlights watcher - f'rinstance I watched the youtube highlights of the Bucks-Nets game last night. I followed the Giro via highlights on the GCN channel. Its just a really efficient and inexpensive way of watching what you need to watch in an event that is of some (but not massive) interest to you.

            Most sports require a 2-3 hour investment of time to watch a game and it is pretty difficult to justify that use of time (and money) for a game that is only of passing interest to you, that's where youtube highlights come in.........

            Last edited by Cesar Rodriguez; 11-06-2021, 14:40.

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              #31
              Talking of youtube highlights, I tried to find some National League games there but pretty much drew a blank.

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                #32
                BT Sport puts its weekly National League highlights show on YouTube. They're all still on there (unless they're region blocked or something.)

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                  #33
                  Originally posted by Cesar Rodriguez View Post
                  It's going to be a shame if everything is stuck in its own pay TV silo. It will be terrible for the sports fan "all rounder" who likes to watch a little bit of everything because you are going to have to have 37 different subscriptions to watch all the various sports, leagues and competitions.

                  I spent a large part of the Saturdays in my childhood glued to Grandstand and it fostered within me an appreciation for all sports - its how I (as someone from the home counties) was introduced to rugby league for instance. In 1987/88 I became an F1 and rugby union fan on account of the BBC's coverage of both and FTA also introduced me to American football and Italian football on Channel 4 and so on and so forth. It looks like those days are over.
                  I was the same and looking back its amazing how much stuff was available, particularly live sports (and at a time when, outside of the major tournaments, only a handful of football games were shown live). I think the days of the sporting all rounder spectator are diminishing and we are losing something from it.

                  As a RL fan we bitched at the time about the lack of (and quality of) coverage, but at least when one of our guys got the token slot on Question of Sport, a decent proportion of the viewing audience would recognise their name, even if they knew little else about them.

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                    #34
                    Experimented with the LiveScore coverage for the random choice of Sheriff v Zagreb - no issues with either the picture quality or sound, no buffering, and a familiar, yet unplaceable voice on commentary (may have been Jon Champion, but definitely one of the BT freelancers). That said, would I choose it when a televised option is available - hardly.

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                      #35
                      For those of you with either Premier Sports or FreeSports, the Irish owners (formerly of Setanta) have sold the company to the Nordic broadcasters Viaplay.

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                        #36
                        The merger of BT Sport and Eurosport has been approved by the CMA.

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                          #37
                          The Country Music Association?

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                            #38
                            Are BT Sport and Eurosport cousins?

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                              #39
                              Barcelona are obviously betting on a collapse by now selling 25% of the future TV revenue to Sixth Street Partners.

                              That or their Presidential structure of screwing over the next guy until the whole house of cards falls down is reaching ever new levels a insanity.

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                                #40
                                The elect the President thing of the Spanish cheeks more and more seems a terrible ownership model. Especially the requirement they be richers. Why should the Chair or CEO of a company have to be ridiculously wealthy prior to taking the job?

                                Electing a new Sun King every 4 years who will tell you honeyed lies at election time, it's not exactly fan ownership in a positive sense.
                                Last edited by Lang Spoon; 22-07-2022, 16:19.

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                                  #41
                                  It does lead to the long term objectives issue that exists in many conglomerates. The IBGYBG approach to anything beyond the next few years that lives so strong in American Politics (I'll Be Gone, You'll Be Gone)

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                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                    The Country Music Association?
                                    Sorry, Competition and Markets Authority.

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                                      #43
                                      Originally posted by sw2borshch View Post
                                      Are BT Sport and Eurosport cousins?
                                      Both owned by Discovery now.

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                                        #44
                                        Originally posted by Discordant Resonance View Post

                                        Both owned by Discovery now.
                                        Not quite, or at least not yet - they have formed a joint venture with BT and Warner/Discovery owning 50% each. Warner/Discovery have a buyout option to buy BT's 50% during the first four years of the venture, and if they don't take it up BT can sell its share to someone else.

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                                          #45
                                          I've cancelled DAZN now that they've doubled their monthly subscription from €14.99 to €29.99. I also want to cancel my Sky subscription, but can't work out how. We got it years ago through our cable company (the execrable Unitymedia, now taken over by the equally shite Vodafone), but they say to cancel it we need to go through Sky, even though we have no customer number or account with Sky. The thought of calling them, landing in a queue, and then eventually trying to explain this is already causing me to procrastinate the task.

                                          Unitymedia had this device called a Horizon HD recorder - an totally useless piece of technology we had to have replaced three times (massive thing that more often than not failed to record set programmes, or would just go on the blink for hours, days and eventually weeks), and now we've just sent the last one back as they promised us a GIGA TV hard drive with a GIGA TV cable box. Except they only sent us the hard drive, not the cable box that slots into it. I have called them so often to find out what's happened to the cable box that I am close to throwing myself off the balcony. This has been going on for weeks, and every time you call, you get put into a voice-automated system, then a holding queue, then connected to someone who tells you that you're in the wrong department, but they can't transfer you ("I'm working from home"), you'll have to call the number again. Or that you need to call a different number that takes you into the exact same spiral. On Friday morning I was at this for three hours, until the fifth person I talked to told me the box is in the depot and will be sent out "in the next week". I told him with a hint of sarcasm that he'd just won the Employee of the Day award, and he actually said, "Oh, thank you! Can you make sure to leave some customer feedback?"

                                          We've had no TV since April - we've been streaming the Euro 22 games, and the only luck we had was that the Horizon shitbox worked suddenly for two days in May just when the Europa League final was on, before then resuming disservice.

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                                            #46
                                            This reminded me of my experience with the short-lived On Digital. I took out a subscription and naturally they insisted that I would need an aerial upgrade. Their engineer turned up and announced that he would attach it to the chimney (my aerial at the time being in the loft). When I asked why it couldn't go in the loft like the existing one, his answer was that the signal wouldn't be any good. 'I only put them in the loft when I can see the transmitter', he opined. So I invited him to turn around and pointed out the transmitter- admittedly six or seven miles away- across open countryside. 'Oh' he said. 'Well, I'll put it on the roof anyway.'. He proceeded to attach an aerial no better than my old one to the chimney, via what appeared to be a ten foot scaffolding pole (remember how we can actually see the transmitter?) 'to ensure no obstruction to the signal'.

                                            A couple of weeks later it all but pulled the chimney down. To give them their due, after several phone calls and a bit of argument over whose fault it was, they did grudgingly repair it.

                                            My aerial's back in the loft now and I never have any problems with signal strength.

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                                              #47
                                              Originally posted by imp View Post
                                              I've cancelled DAZN now that they've doubled their monthly subscription from €14.99 to €29.99. I also want to cancel my Sky subscription, but can't work out how. We got it years ago through our cable company (the execrable Unitymedia, now taken over by the equally shite Vodafone), but they say to cancel it we need to go through Sky, even though we have no customer number or account with Sky. The thought of calling them, landing in a queue, and then eventually trying to explain this is already causing me to procrastinate the task.

                                              Unitymedia had this device called a Horizon HD recorder - an totally useless piece of technology we had to have replaced three times (massive thing that more often than not failed to record set programmes, or would just go on the blink for hours, days and eventually weeks), and now we've just sent the last one back as they promised us a GIGA TV hard drive with a GIGA TV cable box. Except they only sent us the hard drive, not the cable box that slots into it. I have called them so often to find out what's happened to the cable box that I am close to throwing myself off the balcony. This has been going on for weeks, and every time you call, you get put into a voice-automated system, then a holding queue, then connected to someone who tells you that you're in the wrong department, but they can't transfer you ("I'm working from home"), you'll have to call the number again. Or that you need to call a different number that takes you into the exact same spiral. On Friday morning I was at this for three hours, until the fifth person I talked to told me the box is in the depot and will be sent out "in the next week". I told him with a hint of sarcasm that he'd just won the Employee of the Day award, and he actually said, "Oh, thank you! Can you make sure to leave some customer feedback?"

                                              We've had no TV since April - we've been streaming the Euro 22 games, and the only luck we had was that the Horizon shitbox worked suddenly for two days in May just when the Europa League final was on, before then resuming disservice.
                                              Wow. And I thought Comcast was bad...

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                                                #48
                                                The NFL launched its own streaming service, NFL+, on Monday, the latest entry in sports streaming wars.

                                                NFL+ is available in the NFL app for $4.99 a month or $39.99 annually. Fans can access live out-of-market preseason games, live local and prime-time regular season and postseason games, live local and national audio for every game, NFL Network shows on demand, and NFL Films archives. The live-in-market games had previously been free through cellular carriers.

                                                The live regular season and postseason games are only available through phones and tablets. The other features, including preseason games and game replays, can be seen on any device, including connected TVs.

                                                There is also NFL+ Premium for $9.99 a month or $79.99 a year, which offers ad-free full game replays, condensed game replays, and the all-22 coaches film, which previously had been on NFL Game Pass and is touted as allowing fans to study game tape the way coaches do.

                                                “Today marks an important day in the history of the National Football League with the launch of NFL+,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a news release. “The passionate and dedicated football fans are the lifeblood of the NFL, and being able to reach and interact with them across multiple platforms is incredibly important to us.

                                                "We look forward to continuing to grow NFL+ and deepening our relationship with fans across all ages and demographics, providing them access to a tremendous amount of NFL content, including the most valuable content in the media industry: live NFL games.”

                                                With the launch of NFL+, the NFL will no longer offer NFL Game Pass in the United States.

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                                                  #49
                                                  NBC will do that with the EPL very soon presumably (or a competitor will).

                                                  I don't see the logic of limiting it to phones and tablets.

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                                                    #50
                                                    The limit to devices has to do with their existing contracts. They don't have full control over the "broadcast" rights

                                                    NBC will only do it should they abandon Peacock or conclude that the Premier League doesn't drive subscriptions to it.

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