
Netflix should buy the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, not Google - maxhaot
https://medium.com/new-media/1e099600cb87
======
tmuir
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 today, this experiment will end halfway through Sunday of Week 1.

~~~
ajross
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?

~~~
dbarlett
What ISP do you have? Degraded streaming is widespread these days:
[http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/why-
yo...](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/why-youtube-
buffers-the-secret-deals-that-make-and-break-online-video/)

~~~
ajross
It's just a Comcast line at home. But my point wasn't that video streaming
works perfectly, just that I don't see a notable difference in reliability
between Youtube and Netflix. They both work about the same, which is to say
"well enough for me".

~~~
GFischer
I'm in Uruguay, and the difference in quality between Youtube and Netflix is
staggering.

Netflix is surprisingly smooth and fast and extremely good quality, while
Youtube stutters awfully.

It is, of course, anecdote (and not relevant to the U.S.)

------
bcrescimanno
Disclaimer: I worked at Netflix until the end of July 2013 but I have no
inside knowledge relating to anything to do with NFL Sunday Ticket.

As many have said here, Netflix has absolutely no experience in live-
streaming, which, despite the apparent similarity, is entirely different than
streaming cached content. To my knowledge, the idea of doing anything live
hasn't been on the company's radar. As recently as early February when we
launched House of Cards, the company wasn't even set up to allow for a real-
time, coordinated launch of a title on the service.

Unless something like this was being run as a top-secret, skunkworks-style
effort (which I seriously doubt) the service architecture isn't at all prepare
to handle live-content and there's little reason to believe that Netflix has
any interest in dipping its toe into the live sports world.

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pdubs
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.

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

~~~
Sargos
None of that is live streaming. Netflix can only do that via cached videos at
ISPs and other tricks.

Live steaming is a whole new ballgame and something Netflix has never tried.
YouTube has live streamed many events such as Google IO and Presidential
debates.

It would be interesting to see if Netflix's architecture is even capable of
supporting NFL Sunday Ticket.

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aroch
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 actually watched or not...)

~~~
burntsushi
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 complaint. :-)

[1] - [http://www.amazon.com/Madden-Anniversary-Edition-Sunday-
Play...](http://www.amazon.com/Madden-Anniversary-Edition-Sunday-
Playstation-3/dp/B00CF7KVGE)

[2] - [http://kotaku.com/madden-special-edition-includes-sunday-
tic...](http://kotaku.com/madden-special-edition-includes-sunday-ticket-even-
wi-508524868)

~~~
bhousel
Looks like that doesn't include postseason..

~~~
tjtrapp
Postseason typically shows all games on TV. This setup will allow us to watch
any game regardless of where you live (and what your cable provider allows you
to watch).

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dkrich
I think this is a false dichotomy. Individuals pay hundreds of dollars to get
the season or half-season package up-front. Given a four-month season (playoff
games are broadcast over regular networks), $20/month isn't even close to what
DirectTV charges. On a monthly basis, the figure would be closer to $60-$70 so
I'm not sure where the author gets his proposed figures from.

If you are a cord-cutter with no cable, having Google own the rights and
stream games over the internet would help you if you didn't already have
cable, but those that do already get about five games a week over their local
networks. So really Google would have to charge a flat fee up-front to stream
all games on Sunday Ticket.

But it's important to remember that a large percentage of Sunday Ticket
revenue comes from bars that purchase large packages to broadcast it to their
patrons. From what I'm told this cost depends on the capacity of the location
and can run into the tens of thousands of dollars for a single season. I'm not
sure how this would play into Google or Netflix's strategy.

~~~
siegecraft
I think very few people pay full price for Sunday Ticket, either via deals
like this year's Madden, getting it for free as a new customer, or calling and
complaining that you don't get it for free/threatening to leave until they
substantially discount it for you.

------
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.

~~~
heyheyhey
> Sports salaries should be 1/10th of what they currently are.

So where should that 9/10 go?

~~~
VikingCoder
If the major expense of your business is the salaries of your employees, and
your number of employees need to remain relatively unchanged, and your revenue
drops in 1/10th, then roughly you will need to higher employees who will
accept 1/10th of the wages. Some of your current employees may accept, but you
can expect massive turn-over. And arguably lower-quality employees.

In short, I'm being forced to pay for live sports, if I want cable, and I
predict that very soon that will change.

~~~
harryh
I'll bet you any amount that you care to wager that the salaries for
NBA/NFL/MLB players don't drop by anything close to 90% at any point in the
next 10 years.

~~~
VikingCoder
No try, major league sports athlete who is trying to mitigate his losses! ;-)

If taxes stopped supporting sports, and if cable / satellite customers didn't
have to subsidize sports, something would have to give.

Are you just saying those things are impossible, or are you saying I'm
overstating what the outcome would be?

~~~
harryh
I don't think your judgement about the degree to which cable customers
subsidize sports is anywhere near correct.

~~~
VikingCoder
> Needham & Co. estimates that ESPN rakes in $7 billion from cable customers,
> even though many never even watch the channel.

[http://www.npr.org/2013/08/07/209820647/the-history-and-
futu...](http://www.npr.org/2013/08/07/209820647/the-history-and-future-of-
cables-bundling)

> Threatened by Internet streaming services and a fragmenting TV audience,
> Comcast/NBC, ESPN, Fox Sports, Turner, and CBS have agreed over the last 20
> months to spend $72 billion for the TV rights to professional, Olympic, and
> college sports well into the next decade.

[http://articles.philly.com/2012-11-19/news/35187681_1_sports...](http://articles.philly.com/2012-11-19/news/35187681_1_sports-
channels-cable-tv-bill-college-sports)

> In some TV markets, Abdoulah said, sports channels account for 60 percent of
> the overall programming costs in the cable-TV bill because of fees for
> regional sports networks.

~~~
harryh
Yes, cable is not a la carte. That doesn't automatically mean that you're
subsidizing ESPN. Maybe it's the people that sign up for cable solely to get
ESPN that are subsidizing all the other channels.

~~~
VikingCoder
You are correct that mathematically, I have not proven the direction of total
subsidization.

However:

> In some TV markets, Abdoulah said, sports channels account for 60 percent of
> the overall programming costs in the cable-TV bill because of fees for
> regional sports networks.

I guarantee that it is not the case that greater than 60 percent of people who
sign up for cable do so solely to watch sports. So, in certain markets, it is
for sure people like me who subsidize sports programming, not the other way
around.

~~~
harryh
Generally I start from the point of view that gross mis-pricings where there
are multiple buyers and sellers involved are pretty rare. So the various TV
organizations are probably paying about as much for sports broadcasting rights
as their customers are willing to pay for them. Maybe it's off a bit one way
or the other but certainly not by a factor of 10 (as you claimed above).

That's basically what I think unless I'm presented with very strong evidence
to the contrary.

~~~
VikingCoder
Remember, cable is merely the _carrier_. I assert that $0 of what I pay my
cable company should go to pay for programming (other than Pay-Per-View),
considering that programming already has advertising. If I want to pay for
Premium content (like HBO, Sports), then Cable could mediate that. But that's
not the relationship we have today, at all.

~~~
harryh
Cable companies are certainly not just a carrier. They pay all kinds of money
in order to put together a package of programming that is popular enough for
them to attract a large subscriber base. They do this because that's how they
think they can best run their business.

You can assert all you want about how you think the cable company should spend
it's money, but you don't get all that much of a say in the matter.

~~~
VikingCoder
Me alone? Nope. People recognizing how awful cable is? You tell me:

Time Warner bled 191,000 subscribers in one quarter.

DirectTV lost 84,000.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/business/media/directv-
and...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/02/business/media/directv-and-time-
warner-cable-lose-subscribers-but-revenues-rise.html?_r=0)

------
raldi
If by "should" the author is referring to what would be in the best interests
of consumers, then the NFL should forget about exclusive licenses and just
sign deals with everyone.

Question for the room: If the government were to mandate FRAND licensing of
live sports content, would the benefits to the consumer outweigh the market
burden of regulation?

