The Big Cat

True. No harm in being conservative with his freshness though...IF Shaq's production/reliability is comparable.

IDK, James Harrison is a bona fide freak.

A couple recent gems: Sinister Trick R Treat Cabin in the Woods Drag Me to Hell House of the Devil

Which leads me to float a theory I've been pitching for years: The NFL will move to a direct-to-consumer pay per view model, thus eliminating two middle men (Networks/advertisers). Putting ST online, broadcasting on Yahoo last year, and the crumbs they accepted from Twitter was all part of the grand experiment to determine what kind of infrastructure they'd need to build/purchase/partner with to deliver live games on a subscription basis.

Pretty sure there's a share measurement?

You mean like if a bottom three team (Chicago) ceases to be featured in half the SNF games?

Here's a question: Are ratings based on relativity to other shows happened at the same time? Relativity to the general population? Relativity to estimates of people consuming media at that time? Is it fair to ask how these numbers are impacted by people dropping out of the game completely? Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, all these things: are we measuring NFL/BBT against the estimated audiences who AREN'T watching television, but who are streaming content instead? Sometimes you pay a price to squash your competitors. Sometimes you buy things to out leverage your competition, not to make money in the short term.

That's correct. Twitter is paying a LAUGHABLY small amount for their rights. Whose profits are you referring to? Google, Apple, Facebook? If so, yes. But rest assured they: Have the cash Know that challenging the dinosaurs for their most valuable assets could be the first in a series of death blows The sooner they can dispatch the dinosaurs, the better for them I think we're all sort of feeling our way around this discussion, each with a vague understanding of the numbers. I'm with you. I wish we could have some clean, meaningful data to back up a lot of these suppositions.

Right, it made the drop because it had a lot to lose and because it's waited until the last minute to figure out ways to get live content online. How will this impact rights negotiations negatively for them?

Also the NBA is definitely growing in popularity. But it sure as **** isn't the NFL.

This also an excellent point. Baseball's growth is inevitable. It's working up from the bottom.

The argument was: A drop in traditional television ratings will not have a negative impact on the next round of bids for NFL exclusivity.

I don't think that argument has been articulated at all, really. I think you provided poor apples to apples comparisons for MLB/NBA prime time numbers. I do, however, think the MLB/NBA are doing more to expand their audiences. The NFL is absolutely impacted by mobile/online proliferation because--unlike the other major sports, particularly the MLB/NBA--they have not made their content available on those platforms...until Twitter took up TNF this year and until they let Yahoo stream last year's London Debacle. No I'm not. Not at all. The biggest media companies in the world will soon be Facebook, Google and Apple--if they're not already. They are gaining media share while the old dogs are scrambling to cling to what they once had. And, oh yeah, they also provide delivery.

Again, that's a Saturday Prime Time show. What else are they competing with? Answer: nothing. It's the cheapest slot to purchase ads for a reason. That was the same argument against the MLB data ,and it's completely relevant to this conversation. Monday Night, Sunday Night, Thursday Night Football, all of these are competing with networks that are introducing new content OR have established content in those slots. That it's down relative to itself is not a surprise, again. This all ties back to the original point that eyeballs are spread insanely thin these days. This is no new revelation. Also that's a self-touting press release from the Disney Corporation who denies any dip in MNF. So take it at face value. All those numbers and stats are fluffed to the nth degree.

I believe your thinking on this is backwards. Vampire boobie shows are cheap, yes. They're also not unique and they're also a dime a dozen. Their audiences--relative to all other programming--aren't big enough to demand the kind of ad revenue the NFL can. The NFL's share may be dropping relative to itself. That shouldn't really be a surprise. What I'd like to see is how it's changed relative to everything else. That'll tell you what the content is worth.

It's awfully disingenuous to compare the first four weeks in the NFL to the NBA finals...don't you think? Likewise, MLB, in the summer time, doesn't compete with new television programming. Like hell it wasn't. I cut the cord six years ago. A lot of people my age started around then. It's just only recently started to take hold. It didn't happen suddenly. It just hit its critical mass in the past few years.

Why not? The falls in ESPN/cable subscriptions have been precipitous of late. http://www.businessinsider.com/bleacher-report-ceo-says-why-espn-has-had-trouble-2016-8

Thank god. But relative to that, per my previous post, I only see that driving bids for NFL exclusivity UP. You might have nine platforms that each show their own Vampire detective shows with boobies, but there's only one NFL.

I'm not sure why this would have any impact on the value of a franchise. And for that matter, what negative impact would this drop even have? The only thing that ratings will dictate is ad revenue, which doesn't impact the NFL until negotiations for TV contracts. BUT--now that new wave content providers like Google and Twitter want in on the broadcast game, are we really expected to think bids for NFL rights will...drop...because of this? Nah.

We're at Lincoln Station: Halsted/Fullerton/Lincoln See you Sunday. Don't forget, games are an hour earlier at here.

I actually had a Pats* fan tell me to wait and see. The Bills spied and there is evidence. He was serious.

Ross Tucker on his podcast today talked about playing guard with him in WAS in 2007. Aint that something? Anyways, carry on.

Fair.

Right. Never mind the fact that Buffalo was without their best defender, their first two draft picks and their best playmaker on offense. Spare me.

Blount got dinged yesterday. Through the quarter pole he was what he was never meant to be: a feature back. I'm wondering if some of those miles take their toll down the stretch...