Is there a bubble? Can it all come crashing down?
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Who knows what will happen when all of these conference TV contracts expire around 2024.
Doesn't bode well for conf needing to re work deals soon.
There is obviously a bubble. People who don't watch sports have been paying increasing amounts for them for years and now the distribution models are changing and becoming more individualized. Non-sports fans are not going to keep paying for a product they don't want and that is going to change everything.
Even sports fans are bailing. I cut the chord 3 years ago. I get 28 channels over the air, and Netflix and Amazon prime for $19 per month. Rarely do I miss games I want to see.
(07-10-2015 08:57 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: [ -> ]Even sports fans are bailing. I cut the chord 3 years ago. I get 28 channels over the air, and Netflix and Amazon prime for $19 per month. Rarely do I miss games I want to see.
Oh goody...a snooty cord-cutter. I've NEVER seen one of those before!!
In a free market, success breeds competition. More players are actually good for the market as the new entries will pay more to compete, while ESPN will get less for its product (i.e. advertising dollars).
ESPN made its bed by signing everyone up to billion dollar long term deals; now as the margins begin to erode due to new technologies their gravey-train is beginning to slow.
So this story is more about ESPN and its margins, than the demand for live sports.
(07-10-2015 09:02 AM)DefCONNOne Wrote: [ -> ] (07-10-2015 08:57 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: [ -> ]Even sports fans are bailing. I cut the chord 3 years ago. I get 28 channels over the air, and Netflix and Amazon prime for $19 per month. Rarely do I miss games I want to see.
Oh goody...a snooty cord-cutter. I've NEVER seen one of those before!!
Not snooty, I rarely mention it. Just pointing out it isn't just non sports fans, dumping cable/sat. For me it opposite of snooty, I have, like many had income cut drastically over the last 8 years. couldn't afford to keep the $85 bill I had. All things being equal, I would rather have the $$$ and the cable.
94 million Americans have dropped out of the work force, and millions more make less than 10 years ago. It isn't a choice they want to make, rather one they have to make.
(07-10-2015 08:57 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: [ -> ]Even sports fans are bailing. I cut the chord 3 years ago. I get 28 channels over the air, and Netflix and Amazon prime for $19 per month. Rarely do I miss games I want to see.
I trimmed waaay back. I cut my cable/Internet bill about $100 a month. I use Sling TV, Roku3 and Amazon Prime along with a basic cable package. I gave up the DVR and HD in some instances.
(07-10-2015 08:53 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: [ -> ]Doesn't bode well for conf needing to re work deals soon.
Or maybe that means B1G switches to a full FOX contract? Tier 1 games on FS1 and the rest on BTN, sounds just fine to me.
ESPN better show the $$$ if they want to keep select games.
(07-10-2015 09:02 AM)DefCONNOne Wrote: [ -> ] (07-10-2015 08:57 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: [ -> ]Even sports fans are bailing. I cut the chord 3 years ago. I get 28 channels over the air, and Netflix and Amazon prime for $19 per month. Rarely do I miss games I want to see.
Oh goody...a snooty cord-cutter. I've NEVER seen one of those before!!
Heh, "cord-cutter". Everyone still has a cord, of some type.
Pay-TV isn't dying any time this century. It's just changing.
For example, I pay Comcast for an internet+basic+HBO package and I use an Apple TV to watch what little shows I do watch (mostly on HBO GO). The cable box I do have is whatever their most basic, non-HD box is. I don't even turn it on.
It gives me ESPN3 for free and the quality is great on the ESPN Apple TV app. If I could pay $15/mo to get all "locked" content on the ESPN app during football season, I'd do that. Then drop it after the season is done.
For broadcast HD, I use plain old indoor antenna and it works great.
(07-10-2015 09:09 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: [ -> ] (07-10-2015 09:02 AM)DefCONNOne Wrote: [ -> ] (07-10-2015 08:57 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: [ -> ]Even sports fans are bailing. I cut the chord 3 years ago. I get 28 channels over the air, and Netflix and Amazon prime for $19 per month. Rarely do I miss games I want to see.
Oh goody...a snooty cord-cutter. I've NEVER seen one of those before!!
Not snooty, I rarely mention it. Just pointing out it isn't just non sports fans, dumping cable/sat. For me it opposite of snooty, I have, like many had income cut drastically over the last 8 years. couldn't afford to keep the $85 bill I had. All things being equal, I would rather have the $$$ and the cable.
94 million Americans have dropped out of the work force, and millions more make less than 10 years ago. It isn't a choice they want to make, rather one they have to make.
Even for those still working - the bill keeps going up, the content isn't improving... cable companies need better a la carte services or they will lose everything... some are starting to realize it. The fact I have to get the highest package so I can watch all the ESPN's but I get 100 other channels I have never once watched... that's why people cut the cord.
Does anyone know how much ESPN3.com charges the ISPs to give its customers access?
(07-10-2015 09:17 AM)MplsBison Wrote: [ -> ] (07-10-2015 09:02 AM)DefCONNOne Wrote: [ -> ] (07-10-2015 08:57 AM)goodknightfl Wrote: [ -> ]Even sports fans are bailing. I cut the chord 3 years ago. I get 28 channels over the air, and Netflix and Amazon prime for $19 per month. Rarely do I miss games I want to see.
Oh goody...a snooty cord-cutter. I've NEVER seen one of those before!!
Heh, "cord-cutter". Everyone still has a cord, of some type.
Pay-TV isn't dying any time this century. It's just changing.
For example, I pay Comcast for an internet+basic+HBO package and I use an Apple TV to watch what little shows I do watch (mostly on HBO GO). The cable box I do have is whatever their most basic, non-HD box is. I don't even turn it on.
It gives me ESPN3 for free and the quality is great on the ESPN Apple TV app. If I could pay $15/mo to get all "locked" content on the ESPN app during football season, I'd do that. Then drop it after the season is done.
For broadcast HD, I use plain old indoor antenna and it works great.
What made his comment snooty? Call it what you want, cord cutting, cable defector, or whatever doesn't offend you. I'm just waiting to see what the new Apple TV offers before I choose an alternative to cable. The point here isn't that pay-tv is going away, it is that ESPN wont have the financial haul its accustomed too, they wont have the money to dominant the market and other players will take more share of the pie. The best part for me is removing ESPN's influence from college sports, and saving some dough on monthly cable bills
Not long after I joined this forum, at the beginning of 2014, I said I thought conference media contracts may have reached their high water mark. I was roundly ridiculed by some who thought that payments would just keep getting bigger with every renewal. I'm not sure if the next deal, with the Big Ten, will start a downward slide. But I doubt the conferences who don't have to renew until the early 20's will get as much as they are getting now.
And that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think the P5 schools are at a point where decreased revenue won't hurt much as long as everybody's revenue decreases more or less proportionately. The fact is, the things a lot of those newfound millions are being spent on aren't much more than unnecessary frills.
It's not how much revenue you have - it's how much more you have than your competition. It's like the arms race. What difference does it make if I can destroy you 20 times or a hundred times?
I see bubbles everywhere today. Can't see how coaching salaries don't get cut way back.
(07-10-2015 09:05 AM)FIUFan Wrote: [ -> ]So this story is more about ESPN and its margins, than the demand for live sports.
The suits got used to having a huge net profit number and they don't want it to go down, so they told Skipper to cut back on some of the extravagant spending that doesn't directly increase profit. Simmons was making $5 million a year and wanted $6 million or more; the studio in Manhattan that Olbermann insisted on using was supposedly costing ESPN $40 million a year in overhead, and neither one of those guys was working on any of ESPN's most profitable programs. (And ESPN also appeases the NFL by getting rid of two guys who bashed King Roger, in the hope that next year the NFL will give ESPN some Monday Night Football games that don't suck.)
Other "personalities" who want big raises will be allowed to leave, whereas 3 years ago ESPN might have paid them just to keep them from going elsewhere. And maybe ESPN will not overbid for certain media rights they might have locked up in the past just to say they had them. Good news for competitors who will grab some of those rights to try and build their struggling sports channels; bad news for the sports entities who will get less because the bidding wars will be milder.
The problem is we are currently at a tweener stage of what it is likely evolving into a new system.
Right now, I can't get WatchESPN on my Roku without having already having a certain provider. Once it gets to the point where it's a free for all, I could see getting it as a separate app but being charged $20 or $25 or $30 a month. And I will pay it.
Because of the 300+ channels I get now, I basically watch CBS, NBC, ABC, TNT, HBO, SHO, and the ESPN Networks. And I also have Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Under the new system that is likely coming I bet I will basically pay the same or slightly less for all of the above that I do now and not miss the 250 channels I don't watch now.
Cheers,
Neil
(07-10-2015 10:12 AM)omniorange Wrote: [ -> ]The problem is we are currently at a tweener stage of what it is likely evolving into a new system.
Right now, I can't get WatchESPN on my Roku without having already having a certain provider. Once it gets to the point where it's a free for all, I could see getting it as a separate app but being charged $20 or $25 or $30 a month. And I will pay it.
Because of the 300+ channels I get now, I basically watch CBS, NBC, ABC, TNT, HBO, SHO, and the ESPN Networks. And I also have Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Under the new system that is likely coming I bet I will basically pay the same or slightly less for all of the above that I do now and not miss the 250 channels I don't watch now.
Cheers,
Neil
This is all true - and - I think keeping it inaccessible creates more of an environment for "pirating" (I don't mean ECU
) - I think the current administration has been extremely anti-piracy and i don't think a new regime will make that a priority...
Here's what you do: You get XBMC (now called Kodi) -- originating over 10 years ago, an open-source program for all platforms. You can get a small computer (or laptop with an HDMI cable if need be) -- and you look it up to your TV.
You then get apps for it, 1 in particular which shows TV shows after they air, from people DVR'ing it and sending it to the Internet, commercial free. Follow any TV show on any channel or service (even Netflix shows) -- and watch 'em all for free.
You then get another big complex app, and you can get B1G network in HD, and the PAC12 network as well, as well as some streaming live TV channels like ESPN and CNN, as well as a poor-quality ESPN2. Get a big HD antenna to view network stations, too (even though from one of those apps for Kodi you can get some local network stations out in other areas in SD).
But of course, if you're in an area where in order to get broadband you need to subscribe to the cable company, well, you're going to be forced to pay and get basic channels anyway (network stations, TBS, and meaningless stations).
In the future though, I see cable basically being via Internet. Two will merge. Right now TVs have computers in them, so the channel changer will basically be a program in your TV, and via the app, you'll subscribe to certain channels -- or live streaming sites that'll pipe thru giving you the impression you're just channel-changing on a box. 3rd party cable companies will go downhill and just be for premium big packages like now... but for network stations and popular TV stations/channels -- it'll all be built-in via the Internet into your TV to manage.