Comment by ssharp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ssharp | Hacker News Reader

The NBA just entered a massive television deal that kicks in next year. Since player's salaries are tied to the amount of revenue the league makes, a lot of players stand to make upwards of 50% more than they make now. It's a massive deal, so it's hard to swallow any impending doom. I just think viewership will continue adjusting where they get their content from.

I haven't seen anything about changes to streaming in the new deal other than the contract leaves the issue open for negotiating a joint-partnership that could supersede previous limitations, which included teams in your local market, nationally televised games, and the playoffs.

I absolutely love NBA basketball and although I don't watch a ton of it, it probably makes up for 90% of my television watching while it's in season. But I have to pay a cable bill upwards of $100 / month to do so. I really hope professional sports follows the decoupling model and offers higher-value streaming options in the future.

The NFL's online offering is equally restricting, but local NFL games are generally broadcast over-the-air, so you can pick them up with an antenna, making cord-cutting easier.

Your comments remind me of what happened in the music industry in the late 90s and early 2000s. Several of the big name artists (eg Mariah Carey, REM, Robbie Williams, even Prince) signed huge multi-album recording deals. I guess the sentiment was that these artists with a proven track record were a safe bet, even a sure thing.

Pretty much every one of these deals turned into a financial disaster. The biggest of these was probably Mariah Carey, who ended up being paid $28m not to sing [1].

My point is that the presence of massive deals doesn't guarantee continued growth or success.

The most ominous part of this article is the loss of 7m subscribers. ESPN has managed to shake off--so far--the overall trend that cable TV is dying. The average age of TV viewers is increasing [2], which is bad for advertising and thus bad for revenue.

In the US, the more subscribers a cable or satellite TV company has, the more bargaining power they have, which translates to lower per-subscriber content costs. This is why Comcast wanted to merge with TWC. It's all about reducing TV costs. It's also why cable companies will practically give away TV (ie your cable Internet is under $20 with a TV package or $60+ without).

So for the last 10+ years, ESPN has managed to thrive in a market where demographic trends are ultimately against them. The flood waters are still rising and eventually you run out of dry land.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/24/us/record-label-pays-dearl...

[2]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2014/09/05/t...

> Pretty much every one of these deals turned into a financial disaster. The biggest of these was probably Mariah Carey, who ended up being paid $28m not to sing

I worked in the entertainment industry during this time.

Great point to remember specific to Mariah Carey was that she was originally signed by Tommy Mottola who she eventually married WHILE he was the head of the label (Columbia) & Music division. This 'business' decision had a very personal side. It was more than just a financial disaster.

Sports packages are already unbundled if you look closely. There's NFL, NBA and I'm sure NHL and MLB streaming packages for European customers. They are pricey compared to what we are used to but if that 40/month for ESPN is accurate it's a decent deal. I pay 280 Euro/season for the all access NFL package. Nice HD streaming with lots of extras, access to all archived games etc. NBA is 250 Euro iirc.

[And no blackouts etc. for Europeans...eventhough I'm not sure I think UK customers had some blackouts since the NFL is a pay TV option there...blackouts are a silly concept, glad we don't have them]

I am also in Europe ( Germany ) but couldn't find this kind of deal you have ( 280 euro / season ).

Can you share it? I am a NFL fan and quite hard to see the games live except pirated streams in low quality.

https://gamepass.nfl.com/nflgp/secure/packages?ttv=0 [Remainder of the season including playoffs and SB is ~85 Euro now. RedZone is amazing if you've never seen it, think Bundesliga simulcast but better :D]

It's a massive deal, so it's hard to swallow any impending doom.

To me the deal seems more like the deals major A-list movie stars make: a cut of the up-front box office instead of a fixed salary. It's risky, but a massive upside if the movie is a hit.

If the NBA's revenue slides because of falling TV revenue, won't they be pulled down as well?

You should look into NBA League Pass. $200 for everything.

In the US, League Pass doesn't get you your local team, the national games, or any of the playoffs.

I know outside of the US, they offer an international version that has it all and seems great, but they can't do that because of television deals in the US.

The current problem with all of these deals is blacked out games. I subscribe to the NHL GameCenter (same thing, different sport) and for the money you pay, the things you can't watch are ridiculous (it's worse than the NBA one). Only out of market games are allowed, no nationally televised games (always considered "in market," even if they're showing on obscure channels), and the NHL doesn't give you any of the post season. I follow an out of town team that's bad, so it works for me.

It's the weird straddling of "old model" and "new model," and the big players trying to catch up while keeping contracts happy. Up until this year, for example, when I watched my team play on their home channel, I'd get all the commercials too. So, same as being in-state. Now I just get a message about a commercial break.

The weird crux of it all is that you can watch many of the games if you want to wait 48 hours after the broadcast ends. However, in a world so connected, even not being on social media, even following a team 2,000 miles away from me, it's still hard to be purposefully oblivious to what's happening.

I was sorta hoping the next round of contracts would leap the content divide and make streaming a first-class citizen along the rest (I don't mind watching commercials while streaming, I'd assume that would just make those spots even more lucrative.) But it looks like we're still a couple years away from that.

Yea, the Red Wings are the one thing I miss after cutting the cord. The only option for me other than GC is going to a bar, and for a few reasons, that is not an option either. So, I catch the highlights online, go to the rink when I can, and try to make sure that taking the kids to my parents house to visit just happens to line up with a game night.

My bad team that's not near me are the Avs, so I hate you out of necessity. I'm sure you understand. :)

Not that it's a great replacement, but I've really grown attached to listening to the audio-only streams through the NHL app. I'm pretty sure those aren't blacked out anywhere, and radio is still very entertaining. I especially love the crew in Ottawa and the crazy old man in Pittsburgh.

Of course, there's the whole weird, questionable business model world of hockeystreams.com -- which puts really high quality streams of all sorta of hockey games up live (not just NHL, but I believe AHL and others too), probably proxied in from other places that don't have all of the silly restrictions. Their site isn't much right now, they limit subscriptions and during the season it's all "use" mode and no "sell."

Yea, I always seem to miss the "sign up" window at hockeystreams. I'll have to check out the audio stream, I hadn't heard about that, and I listen to a whole bunch of podcasts so I'm no stranger to audio-only entertainment.

Also, I totally understand the hate from an Avs fan, and can only say, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ indeed! The outdoor game is gonna be great.

Except for locally blacked out games, which are the most interesting to people. So, that $200 deal is not that interesting to many people.

Also, for the less technological among us, a cable subscription is required, which adds quite a lot to the price tag.

You can use a VPN, or pay for a grey-market service like BallStreams.

There's no way to watch every basketball game for less than $500. LP even blacks out games that it airs on the NBA's own TV network.

Hmmm. Somehow people I know are always able to watch any game they want online in real time for free. Any sport. I think they may be pirating the games though. A google search is enough to find any game they tell me.

I may or may not have done this when I didn't have cable, but the streams were slow and it would take me a few minutes in Chrome Developer tools to eliminate all the ad code so I could actually see the player!

I don't want to be snarky, but you are basically explaining that things are free if you steal them.

I don't have League Pass, but I looked into the option last season. It turns out they black out the local team's game based on your IP geolocation. Aside from that annoying limitation, the general consensus on the Internet is that the paid pirate services can be much cheaper and have better quality streams than League pass.

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