ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery team up to launch sports "super-streamer"

[jkeerie]

50 minutes ago, transient said:

Or cable companies will forced to become the equivalent of internet service providers only and they'll get in bed with the streaming services...

They're already doing that.  Spectrum has their own streaming app which I've been using a number of years.  I use it on my Apple TV as well as my TVs with Roku boxes.  Spectrum is phasing out their cable boxes and now have their own streaming device called Xumo which you can rent for a monthly fee and eventually own.   The Spectrum app BTW consolidates all the channels like cable did.  You purchase your programming package but it is streamed versus coming through a cable box.  My biggest adjustment was not having a box showing the current time.

Edited February 7 by jkeerie

[Buffalo Super Fan]

These sports leagues are going to get there money one way or the other and they are going to do what they are going to do. Everyone has a choice if it’s too much money for an individual fan don’t go or don’t buy seems pretty simple to me in my opinion. Go Bills! Go Sabres! Let’s Go Buffalo 

[Mr. Wonderful]

There will be a day when all games particularly the Super Bowl will require some type of subscription or PPV fee.  Paying monthly fees while having still having commercials is a money making scam.  

[Warcodered]

6 hours ago, Lost said:

We'll be cycling back to cable being cheaper than streaming in a few years.  

I'd say it's more like streaming will morph into essentially cable.

Edited February 7 by Warcodered

[Chaos]

6 hours ago, Mr. Wonderful said:

There will be a day when all games particularly the Super Bowl will require some type of subscription or PPV fee.  Paying monthly fees while having still having commercials is a money making scam.  

What makes it a scam? Are tricked into watching?  It seems more like a straightforward aboveboard business model than a scam. 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

"Where's our good silver?  I hocked it to pay the streaming fees."

[babulator]

And now all the other streaming services like Netflix and Prime are introducing commercials. They're trying to make streaming essentially cable, without all the copper infrastructure. They also want you to have your own ISP to access their service you pay for  

 

Right at a time when my sports fandom has severely waned. If not for JA17 and my deep love of the Bills and all the Sunday rituals,  I may not be watching sports at all anymore. I find soo many of the athletes dislikeable and the messaging coming out of these products disagreeable... I digress.

[Royale with Cheese]

15 hours ago, BillsfaninChicago said:

Betcha I will still need a password I don’t remember to get into each one each time…

 

"Email or Password are incorrect."

"Forget password."

"Create New Password"

"Password cannot be your last password."

 

FU technology.

Edited February 7 by Royale with Cheese

[teef]

10 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

"Email or Password are incorrect."

"Forget password."

"Create New Password"

"Password cannot be your last password."

 

FU technology.

i've decided to have more kids so i can use their names and birthdays as passwords.

[ScotSHO]

2 hours ago, Chaos said:

What makes it a scam? Are tricked into watching?  It seems more like a straightforward aboveboard business model than a scam. 

It just makes you realize original TV broadcasters really F'd up when they gave it away for free.  Should have put a coin slot on the front of every TV.

[4BillsintheBurgh]

If you really want to, blame Goodell and the NFL. The cost driving the money grabbing originates from the huge contracts these guys negotiate and that in the end just comes out of our pockets. The only thing you can do is not pay for it and/or don't support the advertisers. Not many people are going to do that.

[Royale with Cheese]

35 minutes ago, teef said:

i've decided to have more kids so i can use their names and birthdays as passwords.

 

You didn't cut the cord?

[UConn James]

2 hours ago, babulator said:

And now all the other streaming services like Netflix and Prime are introducing commercials. They're trying to make streaming essentially cable, without all the copper infrastructure. They also want you to have your own ISP to access their service you pay for  

 

Right at a time when my sports fandom has severely waned. If not for JA17 and my deep love of the Bills and all the Sunday rituals,  I may not be watching sports at all anymore. I find soo many of the athletes dislikeable and the messaging coming out of these products disagreeable... I digress.

Yep. Most of all for me it’s that every other commercial now during games is like “Gamble your hard-earned money away on sports outcomes!” 😠

[MR8]

Honestly for the "smaller" companies like Disney (who owns ESPN & 20th Century Fox's Portfolio and has had a long standing partnership with them), and Warner Bros. Discovery, both are small fish in the pond, but all of them are competing for the same viewers, so combining is smart.

 

They make it sound like this is groundbreaking, but this is literally what Disney orchestrated 15 years ago when they combined with then NBC, CBS, and Fox to create Hulu.  It was a conglomerate content service to battle Netflix.  It ended up getting ruined by everybody creating their own version of a streaming platform rather than strength in numbers and sharing the revenue.

 

With sports however, the content is exorbitantly expensive because of the contracts with the league, and on top of that you have all of the on-air personalities and the battling for ratings. Housing everything streaming wise under one banner allows you to eventually cut your costs and increase revenue numbers with something that is inherently difficult to make money on. ESPN for a very long time was the only part of Disney's umbrella that wasn't making money. Disney Plus and they're streaming has been a disaster making both of them not profitable. But at the end of the day ESPN because of all of the on-air personalities, contracts with so many various leagues, college sports, semi-pro sports, all of that content that they need to pay for has made it a cost center rather than a revenue generator. ESPN has been unofficially and officially for sale for a very long time but nobody wants it because it doesn't make money. 

 

This is a very "Bob Iger" solution... He did it before and Hulu was great back then, this is a great natural partnership for these companies.

[teef]

7 minutes ago, Royale with Cheese said:

 

You didn't cut the cord?

ya know...i didn't.  i think about it on the regular. my wife is covered for a few years, but i still don't like the idea.

[Royale with Cheese]

4 minutes ago, teef said:

ya know...i didn't.  i think about it on the regular. my wife is covered for a few years, but i still don't like the idea.

 

Would you like to hear an interesting study on sperm?  Of course you do.

Well, studies show that men who smoke marijuana, their swimmers swim faster when they are carrying THC.  However, they burn themselves out by the time they get to the egg and they lose the battle in the trenches.  It's like when we beat the Cowboys. 

 

So, Cheech it up more.  

[MikePJ76]

16 hours ago, Jrb1979 said:

https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/espn-fox-warner-bros-discovery-streaming-sports-service/

 

By subscribing to this focused, all-in-one premier sports service, fans would have access to the linear sports networks including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNEWS, ABC, FOX, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV, as well as ESPN+.

 

Looks it's just the beginning of sports heading to streaming only. This is being launched in fall 2024, in time for the new NFL season 

more accurately just in time for the baseball playoffs and the college football season.

[Steve Billieve]

11 hours ago, Mr. Wonderful said:

There will be a day when all games particularly the Super Bowl will require some type of subscription or PPV fee.  Paying monthly fees while having still having commercials is a money making scam.  

Superbowl commercials are so popular and expensive, there's zero chance their going to disrupt that. People will tune in to the Superbowl for the commercials.

[RkFast]

Can someone explain how needing all these apps, and having wifi all set and needing all these logins with all these different services and most imporant, all these different subscriptions to manage  is "better" than cable TV where I had everything in one place all run through one service?

Edited February 7 by RkFast

[Jrb1979]

an analysis of this new sports platform this morning had two key tidbits:

Without cbs and nbc…they don’t have a dominant position

They will have to changed MINIMUM $45-$50 a month to start to break even

 

Either you will have to pay $45-$50 a month or there will be an ad level that's half of the price. 

4 minutes ago, RkFast said:

Can someone explain how needing all these apps, and having wifi all set and needing all these logins with all these different services and most imporant, all these different subscriptions to manage  is "better" than cable TV where I had everything in one place all run through one service?

In the beginning of streaming, it was much cheaper than cable and you could watch what you want when you want.