(03-11-2021 09:31 AM)orangefan Wrote:  The new ESPN deal with the NHL is another interesting step towards the future of televised sports. The package includes "75 ESPN-produced national regular season games will be streamed on ESPN+ and Hulu" and ESPN+ "is effectively replacing NHL.TV as the NHL’s out-of-market streaming service, with over 1,000 games each season available for fans to stream."

An article from Zacks Equity Research emphasizes the impact of the deal on Disney's larger streaming strategy.

Quote:The Walt Disney's DIS latest seven-year media rights deal with The National Hockey League ("NHL") is set to accelerate the former’s plan to evolve as a streaming power house.

The media giant has been focusing on its direct-to-consumer business that comprises of Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu (forms Disney bundle) to tackle disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic in its movie production, theme parks and cruise businesses.

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Apart from robust content, Disney’s cross-promotional strategy with its streaming services is also expected to drive subscriber growth.

Notably, beginning Mar 10, Hulu started offering access to ESPN+ sports programming directly in the Hulu app. Markedly, users need to buy ESPL+ add-on ($5.99 per month) or Disney bundle (which will cost $13.99 monthly from Mar 26) to access ESPN+ on the Hulu app.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/disneys-d...01258.html

I love this deal as a sports fan. This is probably the first time as a sports fan that I felt that a streaming service could actually deliver a high value sports package to me in a more efficient way than linear television.

I've stated before that for any individual sporting event, there is no advantage for a streaming service over linear television. A live sports event is inherently a program where lots of people watch the exact same program at the exact same time, which is what linear television does better and more efficiently than any other platform. Moving a major sporting event (e.g. postseason NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL games, top Power Five games, etc.) to strictly streaming without any linear television still doesn't make sense and probably won't for a very long time (if ever).

However, streaming does have infinite capacity for *quantity* (at least in theory as long as the platform provider has the technical capabilities). Moving out-of-market NHL games to ESPN+ is a perfect application of a sports package to a streaming service: a high volume of games that can be delivered more efficiently via streaming compared linear television. The NHL is a niche product compared to the NFL/MLB/NBA, but much higher value content compared to what ESPN+ has right now.

Just imagine if the NBA and MLB make a similar streaming deal for their out-of-market packages in their next TV deals. This is probably what they're already thinking in their board rooms. Even better, think about how much a streaming service would pay for NFL Sunday Ticket. Those are the packages that can turn ESPN+ and whoever attempts to compete with them from "nice to have" services (which is essentially how I looked at ESPN+ until now) to "must have" services for sports fans.