

Is The NFL Keeping Cable/Satellite Companies In The TV Business? - tmckd
http://www.macdougherty.com/macblog/2010/12/is-the-nfl-keeping-cable-companies-in-the-cable-tv-business.html

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mikeryan
Key point here.

You can't actually stream any other major pro sport _in your local market_ you
only get out of market games (ie no Giants baseball in the Giants territory -
and the territory extends north to oregon and about 300 miles south of SF)

Here's the funny thing - you generally don't need cable to watch your local
NFL team. You can actually usually get your local NFL team using an over the
air HD antenna and if you get a decent signal you can get pretty good HD. This
is because most NFL games air on local broadcast affiliates which still
transmit an OTA signal. Most of the other sports games are on local cable
nets.

So really NFL is actually the only sport where you can get a local game feed
without cable. So to answer the article's premise - no.

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lotusleaf1987
But what about blackouts? When the team stadium sales are below x% they aren't
allowed to broadcast the game at all, in order to theoretically drive more
ticket sales.

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vsprabhakara1
True, but blackouts are relatively rare in the NFL, unless its 2009 and you're
the Raiders. In fact, the Chargers were about 1,000 tickets away from a
blackout earlier this year, and posted this on their Twitter account, and
quickly sold enough tickets.

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axomhacker
[http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2010-09-06-nfl-t...](http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2010-09-06-nfl-
tv-blackouts-forecast_N.htm)

"Last year's blackouts were confined to five teams, all of which had losing
records: the Jacksonville Jaguars (seven blackouts, seven wins); Detroit Lions
(four blackouts, two wins); Kansas City Chiefs (one blackout, four wins);
Oakland Raiders (seven blackouts, five wins); and St. Louis Rams (three
blackouts, one win)."

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jonknee
The main reason I subscribe to cable is for sports. Football is infrequent
enough that I can go to a bar, but if I went to a bar for every baseball game
I'd be poor and drunk all the time. MLB.tv is great if your favorite team
isn't your local team. If you like the home team you have to go through hoops
(alternate billing address, proxy) and always live in fear that you'll be cut
off.

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forgotAgain
I think it's the reverse at this point: The cable companies are keeping the
NFL off of the internet. The NFL makes so much money off of broadcast / cable
TV that I don't see how they could make it up with internet fees.

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adestefan
There is the model that takes cable fees and applies them to online content.
This is how espn3.com works and is getting even more interesting now that you
can stream that content to an Xbox 360.

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waterside81
Like others have said, sports is the only thing that keeps me buying cable,
but this whole "cable is dying" argument neglects one main point: the TV
viewing experience is still way better than online video. Try flipping through
100 streaming videos as quickly as you can flip through 100 TV channels. Until
IPTV or whatever you want to call it can perform as well as cable, and it
can't yet, I don't see cable dying.

Mark Cuban had a good piece on this subject a year ago, still rings true:

[http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2009/03/25/mrk-cuban:-cable-
tv-...](http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2009/03/25/mrk-cuban:-cable-tv-winning-
battle-against-internet-delivered-tv)

~~~
potatolicious
It's a demographics issue - all the 20-somethings I know follow shows, almost
nobody does the whole "I just want to see what's on" thing anymore. There's a
major shift in how people use TVs, and the new user mode supports intentional
watching (as opposed to passive surfing).

This is supported by the rise of DVRs, allowing people to choose when they
want to view their content without delving into the online realm of Hulu,
Netflix, etc.

The problem right now is that none of the major online streamers have _really
good_ integration into any TV set. There also does not exist a good discovery
system ("you like House? You might also like...") for anyone except Netflix,
and they're more of a movie house than a television one.

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larsberg
I buy a digital cable package with HD just for the football season. We only
turn it on for football games. ~300 channels and an extra $80 or so over my
cable modem costs for 2-3 games per week. We cancel post-Super Bowl every year
and restart for preseason.

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hugh3
I don't know why everybody is so keen to encourage others to give up cable TV.

Sure, I don't have cable TV, and I get most of my video-watching via the
internet. Where do I get my internet access from? Why, Comcast, the only
provider of high-speed internet in my area.

If everybody starts getting all their TV through the internet, what will
Comcast do? They'll start charging everybody a lot more for internet access in
order to make up the lost revenue. For the moment, though, I'm flying under
the radar, getting my internet _and_ all the video I can watch for less than
the cost of basic cable TV. I'd like to keep it that way. Therefore, sssshhh!

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carbocation
What you're describing sounds suspiciously like an abuse by Comcast of their
monopoly, to the consumers' detriment.

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nickpinkston
Ha - I think that's already happening...

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agraddy
I think this is an accurate assessment based on my own observations. My
brother (in his twenties) just told me the other day that the only reason he
wants cable is for Monday night football.

The one factor that cable companies can rely on is that they have positioned
themselves to be the primary ISP for a good portion of the US population. It
will be interesting to watch how/if these companies pivot in the next few
years.

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philderksen
I haven't had cable or satellite for 4 years, so this rings true for me. I go
to bars or friends' houses to watch MNF, or I just skip more of them these
days. Other than that, there's no way to get the current episodes of Dexter
online without subscribing to Showtime.

Funny thing is...I'd pay for both MNF and Dexter a la cart on iTunes/Amazon if
it we're available. As it stands, neither networks get any of my money. But
the local bars do :)

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sachinag
But the bars pay commercial rates for cable, which are thousands of dollars a
month. Trust me, the NFL is peachy keen with your purchase behavior.

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kyleslattery
I think one aspect of this is that every NFL game is on a national network.
Most NBA, MLB, and NHL games are on local stations.

I think the NFL has the tendency to sign big exclusivity contracts, given that
the only way to watch out of market games is through DirecTV.

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adestefan
I wonder how many DirectTV subscribes would jump ship if they lost Sunday
Ticket.

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vsprabhakara1
DirectTV has a strategy of using sports as an acquisition/retention tool, and
paying handsomely for it. They also have exclusive NCAA Tournament content -
like being able to watch 4 games at once on your TV. Sunday Ticket is the
biggest driver here, though, for sure.

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watty
I was recently thinking of switching from Time Warner Cable ($95/month) for
Xbox 360 with ESPN3, Roku, and OTA. However, TWC only offers ESPN3 to
customers who have internet and cable tv.

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maukdaddy
ESPN and NFL network are the _only_ reason I still pay for cable. I'd cancel
tonight if i could stream both (willing to pay significantly for both as well)

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kgermino
ESPN recently started letting you watch a simulcast of their cables channels
if you (or say your parents) get ESPN from their Time Warner cable service. I
don't know that there is any other providers signed on yet but they seem to be
working on adding more. It's how I cut the cord.

<http://espn.go.com/espnnetworks/index>

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davidj
did the author of this article actually take a moment to google for NFL
Streaming? The game hasn't started yet but I have it open in a browser and
watched many games this way before. Horrible article.

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davidj
Go ahead and down vote me for suggesting the author do a simple web search.
BTW New England is up 3 to 0.

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hristov
I don't know about that but it sure is keeping my local bar in business.

