(01-15-2021 11:21 AM)orangefan Wrote:  The follow up article with the real substance has now been posted!
https://www.sportico.com/business/media/...234620276/

Their prediction: major streaming platforms like Amazon Prime have the size to compete directly with linear networks for major rights packages and are likely to do so.

Quote:For rights holders to embrace streaming as a primary distribution platform, the magic “critical mass” number might be 50 million active subscribers. Here, growing direct-to-consumer services and mini-bundled subscriber bases begin to approach the shrinking pay TV universe size.

The author notes that Amazon Prime already has 112 million US subscribers, which is more subscribers than the entire multichannel (cable/satellite/virtual) industry. Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ collectively have over 100 million. Smaller SVOD services, like Peacock and CBS All Access, could combine to make competing bids. Individuals are likely to have multiple services, so distributing rights over several services would resemble the split of rights over different networks today.

Cellphone giants AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile also have over 100 million subscribers each and could be players.

My observation: one benefit to leagues and teams from the entry of such bidders is that, like cable today, the bundling with other programming will allow the cost to be spread over subscribers who may not have a high degree of interest in the sports programming, i.e. it would resemble the traditional cable bundle. Critically, this would relieve sports fans from bearing the full cost of sports programming.

We will see where this is going, but if the networks are going to push more and more of the production costs to the leagues, my guess is leagues will look at doing it themselves and keeping the revenue. YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms have “channels” that allow for someone to monetize content with zero costs to build out a streaming broadcast distribution network. All that MLB technology isn’t really needed for the vast majority of leagues or events. Other than men’s football or basketball games—the numbers requiring huge MLB streaming infrastructure technology arent there.

Besides, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (as well as others) already have technology capable of streaming live content to millions of viewers at a time. At this point, ESPN really doesn’t have any dramatically special technology as far as I can tell that’s going to make any real difference for most leagues or their viewers.