I donāt see any way LeBronās kid plays at an Adidas school.
My point is that āstreamingā already doesnāt mean what it meant four years ago. Everything is going to be streaming within a few years IMO.
I donāt see how streaming is any different than it was 4 years ago beyond the fact that more networks are forcing everyone to do it. Streaming still has the same issues it always had. 1 minute delay on the game. Lack of unified view making it difficult to switch between games. Being subject to constant buffering since most internet providers in the US are garbage. And cable prices havenāt even dropped to account for it. So needing every single networks streaming sevice plus maybe cable isnāt great for wallets.
Ah so all I need to do is become a customer of one of the most notorious customer unfriendly companies in the country!
I think we are pretty clearly coming to a tipping point on all of this stuff where people want whatās on streaming services and not what is on cable. How it plays out remains to be seen but I just donāt think ESPNU vs. streaming on Amazon or Peacock is going to mean much in a few years.
I will say that NBC does an awesome job with the EPL as far as the quality of their production, studio shows, etc. Far better than someone like FS1 does with the Big Ten, for example.
Quality is fine, and the issue goes beyond what the Big Ten chooses, but the EPL is publicly pretty upset that NBC paywalls their biggest matchups, as a game that is striving for American eyeballs. Personally, I donāt really care about studio shows, as itās something I studiously avoid watching. Broadly, speaking, adding another $15/month channel Iām mostly not going to watch isnāt something I (or most?) people want, I think.
Itās $5 (and already bundled with several major cable providers, wouldnāt be surprised to see more of that), and I think people who know what they are talking about and care to do any research make for a better product. I just think it is pretty clear in which direction the market is shifting. Everything thatās coming in the next decade is going to make the streaming experience better, not the cable experience.
The more interesting thing to me is that ESPN pulls a lot of levers in college hoops as far as the day-to-day coverage of the sport and I do think it will be interesting to see how that part plays out.
You surely donāt speak for everyone. The B1G network has had at least a decade head start on Peacock while making barrels of money and their on air/studio talent in addition to their production capabilities is inferior to Peacock across the board.
My main problem with the streaming sports is that Iām a major channel flipper, especially on a football Saturday or a big night of hoops. I like switching between different games across different networks, but it gets pretty inconvenient when youāre forced to change streaming platforms to do it. Itās even worse if I want to flip to another game for a quick couple minutes during commercial break of the main game that Iām watching.
First world problems, I know.
I feel like thatās also something that can improve as people design better streaming software. Again, compare the $ going into developing better cable boxes to the $ going into building better streaming platforms.
Why would I design Peacock so that itās easier to switch away from Peacock to Paramount Plus? That would require some very deep collaborationā¦ Also would take a piece of software that is functionally a cable box and can directly interface with every single streaming platform. Not super difficult to program, but insanely difficult to setup business wise.
Thatās basically what something like Google TV is right now.
I agree you donāt want people to leave whatever they are watching, but discoverability in these platforms will improve.
Streaming needs to vastly improve their delay/latency issues before they can clearly overtake cable IMO. Especially with legalized gambling becoming more widespread, people canāt live bet on games when there are minute+ delays on streams.
Yeah, the latency is an issue, especially for live betting but it is another thing that is going to get better not worse over time.
I donāt think the delay / latency will ever be changed. There is an inherent risk streaming that your download speed slows down and they need that delay to ensure you donāt miss something. Itās far easier to build a platform with a built in delay buffer than to try to figure out if each consumerās speed is fast enough to shorten the buffer.
Itās also about expectation setting. People streaming know there is a 30 second to 1 minute delay on the feed. They donāt like it, but they know itās there and still pay for the service. The first live sports event where people miss the end of a game because their speed slowed down and they didnāt have enough buffer would result in cancellations of the service.
Yup. TCP is a cruel mistress. Unlikely this ever consistently gets below 25-30 seconds without major nationwide infrastructure investments.
We are talking about years down the line, I donāt see why we wouldnāt expect internet infrastructure to continue to improve. Iād be pretty shocked if cable TV was the primary way that we consume sports a decade from now.
I just think that not having a streaming package included in the deal would be a mistake wherever it ends up. It sounds like it also could be Amazon or Apple.
These major tech companies operate in the context of ā9sā. They measure their latency/metrics based on at minimum 99% of their clients (often even more high of a standard than that). Internet infrastructure has actually made some decent jumps in the past 5 years or (after basically not developing at all over the previous decade plus), but it is still garbage in basically anywhere that is away from a major city center. 14% of the country lives in rural areas, and internet access will basically never get fantastic there because the profit incentive isnāt good enough due to density and distance (gonna need a major government investment for it to ever happen). Streaming companies will basically have to significantly degrade the experience of that audience in order to make the latency upgrade weāre talking about possible barring a major unforeseen change.
This was also said a decade ago and while we have come far there are still many (myself and others here it sounds like) that canāt/wonāt move away from cable because of the live sports issue.
It was said at the time 10 years ago that Delany was going to have the cable bubble pop but now it seems to be the opposite where live sports are basically the only live TV thing propping up the cable industry.