Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 62 posts

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#11

Post by kodablah »

dragonwriter wrote: post #3
aroch wrote: post #2

I would certainly pay either company to get Live streams of NFL games (with no blackouts, I hate those with a passion). I can't justify the cost of buying Cable/DTV + the $30-50 a month for the sports package but would happily pay that ~30/month during the season. NFL doesn't offer live streaming inside of the US for some daft reasons (OK, its because they get a ton from cable/DTV regardless of whether someone actual…

> I would certainly pay either company to get Live streams of NFL games (with no blackouts, I hate those with a passion). Blackouts exist to limit the extent that remote viewing substitutes for live attendance, as a means to support the live ticket prices. The alternative to blackouts is to accept that remote viewing is a substitute for live attendance, and to make the prices for remote viewing higher and those for l…

> Blackouts exist to limit the extent that remote viewing substitutes for live attendance

Y'all are confusing your words. "Blackouts" you describe are local TV broadcast blackouts if they don't sell out the stadium. "Blackouts" the GP describes are the blackouts on Sunday ticket because you are supposed to watch them locally.

Opinions: The former is good, it forces attendance. The latter is not, as it puts prevents regions that otherwise can't watch the games locally from being able to watch them at all (due to poor blackout zoning). MLB.TV is about to enter a lawsuit about this very thing, and though they'll likely win, it is a huge problem.

Couple that with the ESPN's and others having a hatred for cord-cutters and you have an area ripe for disruption, even though the sports leagues themselves can hold it down w/ their anti-trust exemptions and unfair practices. But that won't last forever once the Googles and Netflixes have the capital to force the leagues' hands.

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#12

Post by jlgreco »

tmuir wrote: post #7

I think live sports is the last bit of programming that prevents a lot people from getting rid of cable completely. On the other hand, sports, football in particular, are one of the biggest selling points of HDTV and the high resolution picture it provides. If the future of watching football consists of the same buffering, crappy framerates and resolution, and all around frustration of using Youtube as it exists toda…

> On the other hand, sports, football in particular, are one of the biggest selling points of HDTV and the high resolution picture it provides.

Many consumers are not particularly aware of video quality beyond what advertising tells them. So long as the screen is big and they think it is HD (either because the settop box that they plugged in wrong says "HD" on it, or because marketing has told them that 720p is the bees knees, or whatever), then they are pretty happy.

Buffering is something that everyone notices immediately though. That would make or break this.

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#13

Post by minikites »

pdubs wrote: post #8

Has Netflix done live video on anything approaching this scale? I don't doubt that they have the capabilities to put a live streaming infrastructure together for something like this, but DTV's out starting next year and there's a lot of work to get done in that time. That would be a lot of risk.

NBC put the Super Bowl online and it seemed to work okay as I recall. I imagine weekly Sunday games get less traffic.

Does Sunday Ticket include RedZone? That would be the real selling point.

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#14

Post by mmanfrin »

pdubs wrote: post #8

Has Netflix done live video on anything approaching this scale? I don't doubt that they have the capabilities to put a live streaming infrastructure together for something like this, but DTV's out starting next year and there's a lot of work to get done in that time. That would be a lot of risk.

At its peak, Netflix accounts for something like a full third of internet traffic in the US (almost double Youtube's haul).

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#15

Post by ajross »

tmuir wrote: post #7

I think live sports is the last bit of programming that prevents a lot people from getting rid of cable completely. On the other hand, sports, football in particular, are one of the biggest selling points of HDTV and the high resolution picture it provides. If the future of watching football consists of the same buffering, crappy framerates and resolution, and all around frustration of using Youtube as it exists toda…

I'm curious about your last paragraph. Certainly on-demand video is subject to buffering, but the rest of that doesn't seem to be my experience at all. We watch both Netflix and Youtube content at home on multiple clients (e.g. browesr, phones, the now-ancient Netflix app on the TiVo HD...) and while obviously we've seen the occasional network failure I don't think any of them seem to be service-specific.

Basically, watching "premium" 720p+ content on Youtube provides virtually indistinguishable quality and reliability. Is that really not your experience?

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#16

Post by djjose »

aroch wrote: post #4
dragonwriter wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would certainly pay either company to get Live streams of NFL games (with no blackouts, I hate those with a passion). Blackouts exist to limit the extent that remote viewing substitutes for live attendance, as a means to support the live ticket prices. The alternative to blackouts is to accept that remote viewing is a substitute for live attendance, and to make the prices for remote viewing higher and those for l…

There's no pro team with several hundred miles of me. I know why blackouts exist, and they make sense to a degree in larger cities/areas near a team. However, if we're going to be honest, they have no problems selling tickets to games people actually want to go to. Assuming I had a more flexible work schedule, I would try to go to a few Steelers games (Which would, basically, force me to fly there...I wouldn't relish…

That's what NBA League Pass offered last year. You pick a couple of teams and you get their games. I happily paid for it and will do so again this season.

The NFL has driven me crazy with not adopting a similar model. I can't get DTV at my home (condo), I don't care about the local teams, and paying for the whole league wasn't available on my local provider. They had a PS3 streaming option last season but I read it didn't work reliably so I didn't bother. Like you, I'd happily pay to follow a few teams teams + Red Zone. Luckily, as someone above posted, there's a great deal for $99 this season to purchase Madden and get Sunday Ticket included. I jumped all over that!

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#17

Post by VikingCoder »

The math here is all wrong. It's vastly more expensive than this, if you want to provide it a la carte. All cable subscribers are currently subsidizing live sports, whether they want to or not. It's a dinosaur that should die. Sports salaries should be 1/10th of what they currently are.

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#18

Post by freehunter »

kodablah wrote: post #11
dragonwriter wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would certainly pay either company to get Live streams of NFL games (with no blackouts, I hate those with a passion). Blackouts exist to limit the extent that remote viewing substitutes for live attendance, as a means to support the live ticket prices. The alternative to blackouts is to accept that remote viewing is a substitute for live attendance, and to make the prices for remote viewing higher and those for l…

> Blackouts exist to limit the extent that remote viewing substitutes for live attendance Y'all are confusing your words. "Blackouts" you describe are local TV broadcast blackouts if they don't sell out the stadium. "Blackouts" the GP describes are the blackouts on Sunday ticket because you are supposed to watch them locally. Opinions: The former is good, it forces attendance. The latter is not, as it puts prevents r…

I subscribed to MLB.tv for one month so I could watch my Detroit Tigers last year. Every game was blacked out, since I live in Michigan. I could only watch, for example, the Kansas City feed, with Kansas City announcers and Kansas City-focused commentary. I don't get antenna reception in my apartment for whatever reason, so I have no alternative.

My alternative was to visit a local bar for games I needed to see, and just not watch anything else.

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#19

Post by dbarlett »

ajross wrote: post #15
tmuir wrote: post #7

I think live sports is the last bit of programming that prevents a lot people from getting rid of cable completely. On the other hand, sports, football in particular, are one of the biggest selling points of HDTV and the high resolution picture it provides. If the future of watching football consists of the same buffering, crappy framerates and resolution, and all around frustration of using Youtube as it exists toda…

I'm curious about your last paragraph. Certainly on-demand video is subject to buffering, but the rest of that doesn't seem to be my experience at all. We watch both Netflix and Youtube content at home on multiple clients (e.g. browesr, phones, the now-ancient Netflix app on the TiVo HD...) and while obviously we've seen the occasional network failure I don't think any of them seem to be service-specific. Basically,…

What ISP do you have? Degraded streaming is widespread these days: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/why-yo...

Re: Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google

#20

Post by bhousel »

burntsushi wrote: post #6
aroch wrote: post #2

I would certainly pay either company to get Live streams of NFL games (with no blackouts, I hate those with a passion). I can't justify the cost of buying Cable/DTV + the $30-50 a month for the sports package but would happily pay that ~30/month during the season. NFL doesn't offer live streaming inside of the US for some daft reasons (OK, its because they get a ton from cable/DTV regardless of whether someone actual…

You can do it this year for $100 for the whole season. Just buy the Madden 25th Anniversary Edition on Amazon. [1] Before you read the fine print and conclude that it's only available to people who can't get DirecTV, please see this clarification [2] from Anthony Stevenson (Madden's director of marketing). If the clarification turns out to be false, Amazon will be getting a return from me and a strongly worded compla…

Looks like that doesn't include postseason..
Post reply on HN