Granted, it's only the Jags and Bills at 9AM, but I thought the NFL learned its lesson with the NFL Network highly restricting their platforms. This game won't even be on Direct TV's Sunday Ticket. I understand it opens up new bidders for NFL for future broadcast contracts to the likes of Netflix and Apple TV, but do the numbers justify it?

Link

Then what's the point of playing in London?

Yeah, I don't get it. Maybe if the moved the entire NFL Sunday ticket to a streaming service, this would be interesting.

As long as its free, maybe people will check it out. But if you have to pay for it and sit through all those commercials. No thank you.

What would interest me is a game without commercials.

WGAS WGAF ...

(03-25-2015 03:35 PM)goofus Wrote:  Yeah, I don't get it. Maybe if the moved the entire NFL Sunday ticket to a streaming service, this would be interesting.

As long as its free, maybe people will check it out. But if you have to pay for it and sit through all those commercials. No thank you.

What would interest me is a game without commercials.

It's the NFL dipping its toe into the water to see if there's a way to monetize streaming. That is the gazillion dollar question in the media world. Lots of people stream (and that will only accelerate more quickly), but very little money is made off of it compared to the exact same program being shown on traditional TV. If you can figure out how to do it, you'll be the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. So far, many of the smartest people in the world haven't been able to find a solution. Testing with the London game makes sense because it's a game that doesn't conflict with the NFL's other ticket packages on Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN and NFLN.

Also, the rights fees that DirecTV is paying to the NFL for Sunday Ticket is actually more than what CBS and Fox are paying (who are actually producing the games that are shown on Sunday Ticket). That's why all of these calls for other providers (whether cable or streaming) to offer Sunday Ticket are complete non-starters as long as the current contract is in place - DirecTV is paying an insane amount for the exclusivity.

As for commercials, I watch a fair amount of games on BTN2Go and WatchESPN and they often only have 1 commercial (or even none) during the breaks. To be honest, it's way more annoying to have elevator music with just a screen with the channel logo or a camera feed of the field/court without the announcers speaking than to have commercials playing. So, unless it's a game like soccer where there aren't breaks at all outside of the half, the lack of commercials actually sounds better than it ends up being in reality.

Yes that is what I meant. I want a game with no commercial breaks. That would be worth checking out.

Eventually the NFL will have to speed up the game. At some point, the casual fan is going to be lost. There is zero continuity. The rules and officiating is terribly inconsistent. This will be unsustainable eventually. Now they are talking about reviewing penalties and giving teams extra challenges. You got to be kidding me.

Look at MLB. The sport is damn near unwatchable spare a couple weeks in October/November. It's too slow. There is no continuity in a ball game. The rule changes this off season were desperately needed. Two hour games need to be the figure in baseball.

Eventually, football is going to run into the same problems. Growth will stagnate and viewership will start to decline. But aside from safety concerns, it's the rules of the game and the way things are officiated. They want it both ways, physical and touch football. They'll need some ingenious solution if they want to maintain long term growth and viability beyond the business they already bring in, which is ample enough.

(03-26-2015 11:47 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(03-25-2015 03:35 PM)goofus Wrote:  Yeah, I don't get it. Maybe if the moved the entire NFL Sunday ticket to a streaming service, this would be interesting.

As long as its free, maybe people will check it out. But if you have to pay for it and sit through all those commercials. No thank you.

What would interest me is a game without commercials.

It's the NFL dipping its toe into the water to see if there's a way to monetize streaming. That is the gazillion dollar question in the media world. Lots of people stream (and that will only accelerate more quickly), but very little money is made off of it compared to the exact same program being shown on traditional TV. If you can figure out how to do it, you'll be the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. So far, many of the smartest people in the world haven't been able to find a solution. Testing with the London game makes sense because it's a game that doesn't conflict with the NFL's other ticket packages on Fox, CBS, NBC, ESPN and NFLN.

Also, the rights fees that DirecTV is paying to the NFL for Sunday Ticket is actually more than what CBS and Fox are paying (who are actually producing the games that are shown on Sunday Ticket). That's why all of these calls for other providers (whether cable or streaming) to offer Sunday Ticket are complete non-starters as long as the current contract is in place - DirecTV is paying an insane amount for the exclusivity.

As for commercials, I watch a fair amount of games on BTN2Go and WatchESPN and they often only have 1 commercial (or even none) during the breaks. To be honest, it's way more annoying to have elevator music with just a screen with the channel logo or a camera feed of the field/court without the announcers speaking than to have commercials playing. So, unless it's a game like soccer where there aren't breaks at all outside of the half, the lack of commercials actually sounds better than it ends up being in reality.

I am a subscriber to NHL Game Center and the NHL logo skimming above the endless ice is tiresome, I'll take a commercial please.