(11-26-2023 02:19 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  I started googling thinking I'd prove you wrong, but the first google hit is in your favor. I googled for the top 10 cities watching last years' Ohio State- Michigan game, figuring that I'd see Atlanta and Nashville and Dallas and Houston in the top 20. Instead,

Top local markets included three Ohio cities, including OSU’s hometown of Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, plus Detroit and Indianapolis.
https://deadline.com/2022/11/michigan-oh...235182320/

Maybe, at least for now, college football isn't as nationalized as I sometimes assume, even at the top 5 vs top 5 who's-going-to-the-national-championship level.

I've always found B1G Ten football ho-hum. The universities are fine institutions, of course, and their campuses are great places to visit. But B1G teams all look alike: block letters for logos and slow-moving players making piles on the field. Rarely does the press-hype-to-actual-fun ratio show a wider discrepancy. The league offers only one game each year that anyone else in the country cares about, and it rather likes things that way.

As former PAC schools move into this league it is getting more interesting, though. If the B1G expands by blowing down the Atlantic coast to add Virginia, North Carolina and Florida State, it will get more interesting still.

(11-27-2023 09:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 02:11 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 01:08 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-25-2023 07:55 AM)schmolik Wrote:  

(11-25-2023 07:14 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  I feel like there's a greater core to this possibility of stripping broadcast content and placing it behind the paywall of streaming. That it's working for pro football is one thing. College football, because it hasn't enjoyed a truly expansive playoff structure, hasn't exactly tested this dimensionality of fandom. The possibility that games like these could have greater impact on the CFP and draw interest from casual or non-fan viewers. The NFL has done the work and made the journey to this confidence that they can thrive even outside of broadcast. Major college football hasn't really yet. But, I think it will. The networks just have to wait it out.

Is moving to streaming "working" for the NFL? Here's the last full weekend of games:

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/11...-football/

MNF: Eagles/Chiefs: 29.02M
CBS Sunday Afternoon Late DH: 20.99M (the lowest rated and least-watched standalone national window this season)
NBC SNF: 18.45M
FOX: 18.05M
Amazon TNF: 12.92M
CBS Early DH: 12.75M

Improving this year and competitive with CBS's early DH window but the NFL would be shooting themselves in the foot giving them Eagles/Chiefs or any top games. The NFL has plenty of inventory and can afford to give away one of 16 games each week as long as it isn't a mega game and can give away one Eagles and one Chiefs game as long as they aren't top games. We'll see what happens with the Peacock playoff game and how many viewers the NFL will lose. If they lose 2-3 million fans, the NFL probably can accept it. If they lose 10 million fans, the NFL will tell NBC to forget games on Peacock, at least until they can prove Peacock will be in more homes. Do you think it's a coincidence that MNF is having higher ratings because the games are available on ABC this year? There will be a growing pains with the push to streaming just like there was a push to cable a few years ago. These days, ESPN games can regularly get the same viewership as the broadcast networks. Are we there yet with streaming? No. NBC might want to push us to Peacock but there's a difference between moving USC-Notre Dame to Peacock and moving say North Carolina-Notre Dame to Peacock (a significant game but not Earth shattering).

I’ll preface this by stating that I have been saying for years that any sports fan that wanted games to move to streaming was crazy and/or didn’t understand the economics of the TV business (where non-sports viewers were subsidizing sports viewers as opposed to the other way around: 20 Lifetime/Hallmark-like channels were still cheaper than one single ESPN). I had always believed that the outcome would be that we would end up paying more money for more services but end up with fewer games compared to the traditional cable bundle. That is exactly what’s happening.

Having said that, the proverbial genie is out of the bottle. There is no alternative for the entertainment companies other than having a plan for a streaming future because the cable bundle is a dying business and that’s never going to come back.

The NFL is happy with the Amazon numbers because they’re not trying to compare them to the OTA network games, which are the most-watched programs on all of television. The league *knew* the Amazon games would have less viewership. The NFL was actually initially expecting lower numbers than what Amazon got last year in the first year of the TNF contract and the TNF numbers have gone up substantially this year, so the Amazon viewership have substantially exceeded the NFL’s expectations.

More importantly, Amazon has actually gotten very high ratings in the age 18-34 demographic and often beats the afternoon Fox and CBS games in that metrics, which is something that makes the NFL *really* happy. That’s showing that Amazon actually is bringing in new younger viewers (and if anyone knows anything about advertising, younger viewers are gold that are worth a huge premium while older viewers over age 49 are empty calories that pad viewer numbers but don’t do much for advertising revenue). The NFL wasn’t expecting that from Amazon, so they definitely that as a success.

Now, I do think it’s REALLY important to note that “streaming” isn’t some monolith where all platforms are the same. That is one of the biggest mistakes that I see when people analyze streaming sports where they often just put all of the platforms into the same bucket. It’s like saying “the Internet” is a monolith where Amazon and some sole proprietor website are in the same universe when they are clearly completely different.

Amazon, Netflix, and Disney+/Hulu are now in more homes than ESPN, so they have distribution that is similar or even arguably better than basic cable. Putting games on one of those platforms wouldn’t be a niche move for a league - those are arguably equivalent or better platforms than ESPN at this point.

In contrast, Peacock and AppleTV+ are in around 20-25 million homes, which is only one-third of ESPN and a fraction of the OTA networks. Even if every single Peacock or AppleTV+ subscriber were tuned into a game, it would still be less than the viewership of the Eagles-Chiefs game that you referred to. So, any league going onto those platforms would *clearly* be limiting their audience.

Now, what Comcast wants is to get Peacock up to the Amazon/Netflix/Disney+ subscriber levels. I have serious doubts that will ever happen, but Comcast clearly wants to try. Comcast is paying over $100 million for a single NFL Wild Card Game that is exclusive to Peacock this year. If Comcast is wiling to put an NFL playoff game on solely Peacock, which would garner a higher rating on NBC than virtually *any* college football game, then we’ve absolutely crossed the rubicon where they could put ND-USC onto Peacock. Putting an NFL playoff game on Peacock means that Comcast would put *anything* on Peacock. I’m not judging whether that’s a good idea or bad idea, but just noting that there are truly no limits on what valuable programming could end up on Peacock at this point.

HA! I watched sports in the 90's as a kid, did you? Do you know what satellite cost (we didn't have it)?!! I can stream UC Santa Barbara vs Jonestown lacrosse nowadays for peanuts!

Yes, there’s certainly more sports available compared to the 90s and it’s fair to point out that minor sports like lacrosse are now available on streaming.

However, I’m looking at it from the 2005-2020 timeframe as the sweet spot for sports that people actually care about. What most people care about is access to their local pro and power conference sports teams plus the major national games and playoff games for those sports. That constitutes the vast majority of sports viewership across the country. For most of this century, every single one of those games was available on a single basic cable package for most major markets. There was no random Sunday afternoon MLB game on Peacock or major NFL game on Amazon or SEC game on ESPN+.

So yes, I should have qualified my statement. There is a greater sheer volume of sports content with streaming today. However, when it comes to the 4 major pro sports leagues and power conference football and basketball, we now need to pay more (both cable *and* multiple streaming services) to get the same content that we had with just basic cable only 4 years ago.

The NFL never allowed us to watch any game we want through basic cable, so streaming has certainly opened that up. I don't subscribe, so I don't know if the price has jumped.

I can't make any statements of consequence regarding the other major pro sports, because I don't have the bandwidth to follow them—nor do I care—like I did in 1995.

The ACCN has allowed me to watch an overflow of teams that interest me for various reasons. ESPN+ has delivered the rest.

(11-27-2023 09:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 02:11 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 01:08 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-25-2023 07:55 AM)schmolik Wrote:  

(11-25-2023 07:14 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  I feel like there's a greater core to this possibility of stripping broadcast content and placing it behind the paywall of streaming. That it's working for pro football is one thing. College football, because it hasn't enjoyed a truly expansive playoff structure, hasn't exactly tested this dimensionality of fandom. The possibility that games like these could have greater impact on the CFP and draw interest from casual or non-fan viewers. The NFL has done the work and made the journey to this confidence that they can thrive even outside of broadcast. Major college football hasn't really yet. But, I think it will. The networks just have to wait it out.

Is moving to streaming "working" for the NFL? Here's the last full weekend of games:

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/11...-football/

MNF: Eagles/Chiefs: 29.02M
CBS Sunday Afternoon Late DH: 20.99M (the lowest rated and least-watched standalone national window this season)
NBC SNF: 18.45M
FOX: 18.05M
Amazon TNF: 12.92M
CBS Early DH: 12.75M

Improving this year and competitive with CBS's early DH window but the NFL would be shooting themselves in the foot giving them Eagles/Chiefs or any top games. The NFL has plenty of inventory and can afford to give away one of 16 games each week as long as it isn't a mega game and can give away one Eagles and one Chiefs game as long as they aren't top games. We'll see what happens with the Peacock playoff game and how many viewers the NFL will lose. If they lose 2-3 million fans, the NFL probably can accept it. If they lose 10 million fans, the NFL will tell NBC to forget games on Peacock, at least until they can prove Peacock will be in more homes. Do you think it's a coincidence that MNF is having higher ratings because the games are available on ABC this year? There will be a growing pains with the push to streaming just like there was a push to cable a few years ago. These days, ESPN games can regularly get the same viewership as the broadcast networks. Are we there yet with streaming? No. NBC might want to push us to Peacock but there's a difference between moving USC-Notre Dame to Peacock and moving say North Carolina-Notre Dame to Peacock (a significant game but not Earth shattering).

I’ll preface this by stating that I have been saying for years that any sports fan that wanted games to move to streaming was crazy and/or didn’t understand the economics of the TV business (where non-sports viewers were subsidizing sports viewers as opposed to the other way around: 20 Lifetime/Hallmark-like channels were still cheaper than one single ESPN). I had always believed that the outcome would be that we would end up paying more money for more services but end up with fewer games compared to the traditional cable bundle. That is exactly what’s happening.

Having said that, the proverbial genie is out of the bottle. There is no alternative for the entertainment companies other than having a plan for a streaming future because the cable bundle is a dying business and that’s never going to come back.

The NFL is happy with the Amazon numbers because they’re not trying to compare them to the OTA network games, which are the most-watched programs on all of television. The league *knew* the Amazon games would have less viewership. The NFL was actually initially expecting lower numbers than what Amazon got last year in the first year of the TNF contract and the TNF numbers have gone up substantially this year, so the Amazon viewership have substantially exceeded the NFL’s expectations.

More importantly, Amazon has actually gotten very high ratings in the age 18-34 demographic and often beats the afternoon Fox and CBS games in that metrics, which is something that makes the NFL *really* happy. That’s showing that Amazon actually is bringing in new younger viewers (and if anyone knows anything about advertising, younger viewers are gold that are worth a huge premium while older viewers over age 49 are empty calories that pad viewer numbers but don’t do much for advertising revenue). The NFL wasn’t expecting that from Amazon, so they definitely that as a success.

Now, I do think it’s REALLY important to note that “streaming” isn’t some monolith where all platforms are the same. That is one of the biggest mistakes that I see when people analyze streaming sports where they often just put all of the platforms into the same bucket. It’s like saying “the Internet” is a monolith where Amazon and some sole proprietor website are in the same universe when they are clearly completely different.

Amazon, Netflix, and Disney+/Hulu are now in more homes than ESPN, so they have distribution that is similar or even arguably better than basic cable. Putting games on one of those platforms wouldn’t be a niche move for a league - those are arguably equivalent or better platforms than ESPN at this point.

In contrast, Peacock and AppleTV+ are in around 20-25 million homes, which is only one-third of ESPN and a fraction of the OTA networks. Even if every single Peacock or AppleTV+ subscriber were tuned into a game, it would still be less than the viewership of the Eagles-Chiefs game that you referred to. So, any league going onto those platforms would *clearly* be limiting their audience.

Now, what Comcast wants is to get Peacock up to the Amazon/Netflix/Disney+ subscriber levels. I have serious doubts that will ever happen, but Comcast clearly wants to try. Comcast is paying over $100 million for a single NFL Wild Card Game that is exclusive to Peacock this year. If Comcast is wiling to put an NFL playoff game on solely Peacock, which would garner a higher rating on NBC than virtually *any* college football game, then we’ve absolutely crossed the rubicon where they could put ND-USC onto Peacock. Putting an NFL playoff game on Peacock means that Comcast would put *anything* on Peacock. I’m not judging whether that’s a good idea or bad idea, but just noting that there are truly no limits on what valuable programming could end up on Peacock at this point.

HA! I watched sports in the 90's as a kid, did you? Do you know what satellite cost (we didn't have it)?!! I can stream UC Santa Barbara vs Jonestown lacrosse nowadays for peanuts!

Yes, there’s certainly more sports available compared to the 90s and it’s fair to point out that minor sports like lacrosse are now available on streaming.

However, I’m looking at it from the 2005-2020 timeframe as the sweet spot for sports that people actually care about. What most people care about is access to their local pro and power conference sports teams plus the major national games and playoff games for those sports. That constitutes the vast majority of sports viewership across the country. For most of this century, every single one of those games was available on a single basic cable package for most major markets. There was no random Sunday afternoon MLB game on Peacock or major NFL game on Amazon or SEC game on ESPN+.

So yes, I should have qualified my statement. There is a greater sheer volume of sports content with streaming today. However, when it comes to the 4 major pro sports leagues and power conference football and basketball, we now need to pay more (both cable *and* multiple streaming services) to get the same content that we had with just basic cable only 4 years ago.

I have DirecTV, but had to subscribe to the FUBO 7 day free trial to watch ND/Stanford or on the PAC 12 Network.

I subscribed on Saturday afternoon and cancelled it immediately after the conclusion of the ND game

So, I got to watch it for free. Otherwise, I would not have watched it and instead would have just followed it online.

(11-27-2023 03:11 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-27-2023 09:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 02:11 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 01:08 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-25-2023 07:55 AM)schmolik Wrote:  Is moving to streaming "working" for the NFL? Here's the last full weekend of games:

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/11...-football/

MNF: Eagles/Chiefs: 29.02M
CBS Sunday Afternoon Late DH: 20.99M (the lowest rated and least-watched standalone national window this season)
NBC SNF: 18.45M
FOX: 18.05M
Amazon TNF: 12.92M
CBS Early DH: 12.75M

Improving this year and competitive with CBS's early DH window but the NFL would be shooting themselves in the foot giving them Eagles/Chiefs or any top games. The NFL has plenty of inventory and can afford to give away one of 16 games each week as long as it isn't a mega game and can give away one Eagles and one Chiefs game as long as they aren't top games. We'll see what happens with the Peacock playoff game and how many viewers the NFL will lose. If they lose 2-3 million fans, the NFL probably can accept it. If they lose 10 million fans, the NFL will tell NBC to forget games on Peacock, at least until they can prove Peacock will be in more homes. Do you think it's a coincidence that MNF is having higher ratings because the games are available on ABC this year? There will be a growing pains with the push to streaming just like there was a push to cable a few years ago. These days, ESPN games can regularly get the same viewership as the broadcast networks. Are we there yet with streaming? No. NBC might want to push us to Peacock but there's a difference between moving USC-Notre Dame to Peacock and moving say North Carolina-Notre Dame to Peacock (a significant game but not Earth shattering).

I’ll preface this by stating that I have been saying for years that any sports fan that wanted games to move to streaming was crazy and/or didn’t understand the economics of the TV business (where non-sports viewers were subsidizing sports viewers as opposed to the other way around: 20 Lifetime/Hallmark-like channels were still cheaper than one single ESPN). I had always believed that the outcome would be that we would end up paying more money for more services but end up with fewer games compared to the traditional cable bundle. That is exactly what’s happening.

Having said that, the proverbial genie is out of the bottle. There is no alternative for the entertainment companies other than having a plan for a streaming future because the cable bundle is a dying business and that’s never going to come back.

The NFL is happy with the Amazon numbers because they’re not trying to compare them to the OTA network games, which are the most-watched programs on all of television. The league *knew* the Amazon games would have less viewership. The NFL was actually initially expecting lower numbers than what Amazon got last year in the first year of the TNF contract and the TNF numbers have gone up substantially this year, so the Amazon viewership have substantially exceeded the NFL’s expectations.

More importantly, Amazon has actually gotten very high ratings in the age 18-34 demographic and often beats the afternoon Fox and CBS games in that metrics, which is something that makes the NFL *really* happy. That’s showing that Amazon actually is bringing in new younger viewers (and if anyone knows anything about advertising, younger viewers are gold that are worth a huge premium while older viewers over age 49 are empty calories that pad viewer numbers but don’t do much for advertising revenue). The NFL wasn’t expecting that from Amazon, so they definitely that as a success.

Now, I do think it’s REALLY important to note that “streaming” isn’t some monolith where all platforms are the same. That is one of the biggest mistakes that I see when people analyze streaming sports where they often just put all of the platforms into the same bucket. It’s like saying “the Internet” is a monolith where Amazon and some sole proprietor website are in the same universe when they are clearly completely different.

Amazon, Netflix, and Disney+/Hulu are now in more homes than ESPN, so they have distribution that is similar or even arguably better than basic cable. Putting games on one of those platforms wouldn’t be a niche move for a league - those are arguably equivalent or better platforms than ESPN at this point.

In contrast, Peacock and AppleTV+ are in around 20-25 million homes, which is only one-third of ESPN and a fraction of the OTA networks. Even if every single Peacock or AppleTV+ subscriber were tuned into a game, it would still be less than the viewership of the Eagles-Chiefs game that you referred to. So, any league going onto those platforms would *clearly* be limiting their audience.

Now, what Comcast wants is to get Peacock up to the Amazon/Netflix/Disney+ subscriber levels. I have serious doubts that will ever happen, but Comcast clearly wants to try. Comcast is paying over $100 million for a single NFL Wild Card Game that is exclusive to Peacock this year. If Comcast is wiling to put an NFL playoff game on solely Peacock, which would garner a higher rating on NBC than virtually *any* college football game, then we’ve absolutely crossed the rubicon where they could put ND-USC onto Peacock. Putting an NFL playoff game on Peacock means that Comcast would put *anything* on Peacock. I’m not judging whether that’s a good idea or bad idea, but just noting that there are truly no limits on what valuable programming could end up on Peacock at this point.

HA! I watched sports in the 90's as a kid, did you? Do you know what satellite cost (we didn't have it)?!! I can stream UC Santa Barbara vs Jonestown lacrosse nowadays for peanuts!

Yes, there’s certainly more sports available compared to the 90s and it’s fair to point out that minor sports like lacrosse are now available on streaming.

However, I’m looking at it from the 2005-2020 timeframe as the sweet spot for sports that people actually care about. What most people care about is access to their local pro and power conference sports teams plus the major national games and playoff games for those sports. That constitutes the vast majority of sports viewership across the country. For most of this century, every single one of those games was available on a single basic cable package for most major markets. There was no random Sunday afternoon MLB game on Peacock or major NFL game on Amazon or SEC game on ESPN+.

So yes, I should have qualified my statement. There is a greater sheer volume of sports content with streaming today. However, when it comes to the 4 major pro sports leagues and power conference football and basketball, we now need to pay more (both cable *and* multiple streaming services) to get the same content that we had with just basic cable only 4 years ago.

I have DirecTV, but had to subscribe to the FUBO 7 day free trial to watch ND/Stanford or on the PAC 12 Network.

I subscribed on Saturday afternoon and cancelled it immediately after the conclusion of the ND game

So, I got to watch it for free. Otherwise, I would not have watched it and instead would have just followed it online.

And look - I’m not some anti-streaming Luddite. My cable channels are streamed via Hulu Live TV+ and we subscribe to every major streaming service: Netflix, Disney Bundle (Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+), Max, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Peacock, and Amazon Prime Video. Add on top the Marquee Sports Network streaming service during MLB season (for Cubs games since it’s not included with Hulu Live TV+) and the Hulu sports pack during the fall (for NFL Red Zone). That is what happens when you have 4 people in a household with totally different interests.

So, I’m probably in the top percentile of streaming users, but I also recognize that it’s not a great business model for either the entertainment companies or sports organizations and it’s not a cost saver for sports fans compared to the old basic cable model.

ND has been the most transparent and metronomic actor in this whole realignment saga. Watching y'all try to convince TerryD that he's wrong about ND is pretty dang amusing.

(11-27-2023 03:24 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-27-2023 03:11 PM)TerryD Wrote:  

(11-27-2023 09:50 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 02:11 PM)esayem Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 01:08 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I’ll preface this by stating that I have been saying for years that any sports fan that wanted games to move to streaming was crazy and/or didn’t understand the economics of the TV business (where non-sports viewers were subsidizing sports viewers as opposed to the other way around: 20 Lifetime/Hallmark-like channels were still cheaper than one single ESPN). I had always believed that the outcome would be that we would end up paying more money for more services but end up with fewer games compared to the traditional cable bundle. That is exactly what’s happening.

Having said that, the proverbial genie is out of the bottle. There is no alternative for the entertainment companies other than having a plan for a streaming future because the cable bundle is a dying business and that’s never going to come back.

The NFL is happy with the Amazon numbers because they’re not trying to compare them to the OTA network games, which are the most-watched programs on all of television. The league *knew* the Amazon games would have less viewership. The NFL was actually initially expecting lower numbers than what Amazon got last year in the first year of the TNF contract and the TNF numbers have gone up substantially this year, so the Amazon viewership have substantially exceeded the NFL’s expectations.

More importantly, Amazon has actually gotten very high ratings in the age 18-34 demographic and often beats the afternoon Fox and CBS games in that metrics, which is something that makes the NFL *really* happy. That’s showing that Amazon actually is bringing in new younger viewers (and if anyone knows anything about advertising, younger viewers are gold that are worth a huge premium while older viewers over age 49 are empty calories that pad viewer numbers but don’t do much for advertising revenue). The NFL wasn’t expecting that from Amazon, so they definitely that as a success.

Now, I do think it’s REALLY important to note that “streaming” isn’t some monolith where all platforms are the same. That is one of the biggest mistakes that I see when people analyze streaming sports where they often just put all of the platforms into the same bucket. It’s like saying “the Internet” is a monolith where Amazon and some sole proprietor website are in the same universe when they are clearly completely different.

Amazon, Netflix, and Disney+/Hulu are now in more homes than ESPN, so they have distribution that is similar or even arguably better than basic cable. Putting games on one of those platforms wouldn’t be a niche move for a league - those are arguably equivalent or better platforms than ESPN at this point.

In contrast, Peacock and AppleTV+ are in around 20-25 million homes, which is only one-third of ESPN and a fraction of the OTA networks. Even if every single Peacock or AppleTV+ subscriber were tuned into a game, it would still be less than the viewership of the Eagles-Chiefs game that you referred to. So, any league going onto those platforms would *clearly* be limiting their audience.

Now, what Comcast wants is to get Peacock up to the Amazon/Netflix/Disney+ subscriber levels. I have serious doubts that will ever happen, but Comcast clearly wants to try. Comcast is paying over $100 million for a single NFL Wild Card Game that is exclusive to Peacock this year. If Comcast is wiling to put an NFL playoff game on solely Peacock, which would garner a higher rating on NBC than virtually *any* college football game, then we’ve absolutely crossed the rubicon where they could put ND-USC onto Peacock. Putting an NFL playoff game on Peacock means that Comcast would put *anything* on Peacock. I’m not judging whether that’s a good idea or bad idea, but just noting that there are truly no limits on what valuable programming could end up on Peacock at this point.

HA! I watched sports in the 90's as a kid, did you? Do you know what satellite cost (we didn't have it)?!! I can stream UC Santa Barbara vs Jonestown lacrosse nowadays for peanuts!

Yes, there’s certainly more sports available compared to the 90s and it’s fair to point out that minor sports like lacrosse are now available on streaming.

However, I’m looking at it from the 2005-2020 timeframe as the sweet spot for sports that people actually care about. What most people care about is access to their local pro and power conference sports teams plus the major national games and playoff games for those sports. That constitutes the vast majority of sports viewership across the country. For most of this century, every single one of those games was available on a single basic cable package for most major markets. There was no random Sunday afternoon MLB game on Peacock or major NFL game on Amazon or SEC game on ESPN+.

So yes, I should have qualified my statement. There is a greater sheer volume of sports content with streaming today. However, when it comes to the 4 major pro sports leagues and power conference football and basketball, we now need to pay more (both cable *and* multiple streaming services) to get the same content that we had with just basic cable only 4 years ago.

I have DirecTV, but had to subscribe to the FUBO 7 day free trial to watch ND/Stanford or on the PAC 12 Network.

I subscribed on Saturday afternoon and cancelled it immediately after the conclusion of the ND game

So, I got to watch it for free. Otherwise, I would not have watched it and instead would have just followed it online.

And look - I’m not some anti-streaming Luddite. My cable channels are streamed via Hulu Live TV+ and we subscribe to every major streaming service: Netflix, Disney Bundle (Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+), Max, Paramount+, Apple TV+, Peacock, and Amazon Prime Video. Add on top the Marquee Sports Network streaming service during MLB season (for Cubs games since it’s not included with Hulu Live TV+) and the Hulu sports pack during the fall (for NFL Red Zone). That is what happens when you have 4 people in a household with totally different interests.

So, I’m probably in the top percentile of streaming users, but I also recognize that it’s not a great business model for either the entertainment companies or sports organizations and it’s not a cost saver for sports fans compared to the old basic cable model.

You're right. The thing with Amazon and how unique they are is they include it with the Prime business model which just adds a ton of people and it's a brand we all know. Amazon is in a unique position to really becoming the streaming Goliath of sports if it chooses too. NFL TNF is solid. The pre and post game show is fun which adds a lot and every bar or restaurant I know, knows the DirecTV channel for it. If Amazon gets into the NBA it's only going to help the association. Amazon might be thinking they should've partnered up to get into CFB, the Pac-12 just had a weird timing situation but a Fox/Amazon partnership could've worked out really well for all parties since Fox just does Tubi, they saw the buzzsaw failure of being a streamer was going to be.

(11-27-2023 05:55 PM)BeepBeepJeep Wrote:  ND has been the most transparent and metronomic actor in this whole realignment saga. Watching y'all try to convince TerryD that he's wrong about ND is pretty dang amusing.

They haven't done it so far, but I have only been posting here and the old Big East board for 20 + years.

(11-27-2023 12:53 PM)Gitanole Wrote:  

(11-26-2023 02:19 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  I started googling thinking I'd prove you wrong, but the first google hit is in your favor. I googled for the top 10 cities watching last years' Ohio State- Michigan game, figuring that I'd see Atlanta and Nashville and Dallas and Houston in the top 20. Instead,

Top local markets included three Ohio cities, including OSU’s hometown of Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, plus Detroit and Indianapolis.
https://deadline.com/2022/11/michigan-oh...235182320/

Maybe, at least for now, college football isn't as nationalized as I sometimes assume, even at the top 5 vs top 5 who's-going-to-the-national-championship level.

I've always found B1G Ten football ho-hum. The universities are fine institutions, of course, and their campuses are great places to visit. But B1G teams all look alike: block letters for logos and slow-moving players making piles on the field. Rarely does the press-hype-to-actual-fun ratio show a wider discrepancy. The league offers only one game each year that anyone else in the country cares about, and it rather likes things that way.

As former PAC schools move into this league it is getting more interesting, though. If the B1G expands by blowing down the Atlantic coast to add Virginia, North Carolina and Florida State, it will get more interesting still.

I enjoy watching B1G football. I do agree with your description of how the teams look, and play. But I find that a nice contrast to the southern (mostly SEC) style I typically watch.

I also agree about the hype. B1G teams seem to fail to live up to it more than top teams from other conferences. E.g., last year the CFP decided to put both Michigan and Ohio State in the playoffs, and then both promptly lost.

That seems to happen a lot. IIRC, the B1G has only won three CFP playoff games, and two of those came the very first year, in 2014. Ohio State's win over Clemson in the covid-shortened 2020 year is the only B1G playoff win in the past eight seasons. Ohio State is also the only B1G team to win a playoff game.

The SEC won three playoff games in 2021 alone, and at least when Clemson has been hyped the past 10 years, they have delivered, winning many playoff games and two national titles.