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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

I wish Netflix could make a deal with someone like ESPN to stream sports events live. I'd gladly pay a premium to get ESPN without being forced to buy a "bundle" of channels I don't want from the cable company.

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It looks like the MLB is positioning itself to cut out the middle man when streaming becomes the primary avenue. They have quite the impressive operation.

Other than the draconian blackout restrictions. A truly impressive operation wouldn't require me to move to another state to watch my team's games. Actually, I live in Vegas and I still can't watch games for any of six teams that happen to be based in neighboring states.

Oh, I agree their "watch the home team" model is one of the stupidest things, but I think they are looking ahead to the post-tv world.

That seems to be more Hulu's territory. Netflix management has always been pretty good at staying within a tightly controlled niche (dodging Youtube or Hulu or GameFly or 5$ a pop new release type markets).

But yeah, the things you could do with sports and interactivity. Geeze. Money on the table.

I don't think it's money on the table. Sports leagues know where there bread is buttered and they extract a ton of cash out of their fans. The Netflix model is just an order of magnitude less profitable and would cannibalize their existing channels.

The money on the table reference was in regard to the kind of interactivity one could add to a sports stream: camera angles, betting, fantasy\gaming stuff, stats, alternate commentary, etc.

It really should be it's own thing. It's more than just a movie\tv show in it's possibilities, and so doesn't just plug into a Netflix model.

Even without changing much to the existing model of interaction I would appreciate the opportunity to pay a reasonable fee for access to non-local broadcasts. My ideal would be the ability to pay a discount rate for season-long subscriptions to sports or leagues, but with the ability to purchase viewing rights at a reasonable rate for games or series that wouldn't otherwise be available with your cable package.

It would be like applying the pay-per-view model that boxing has, but integrating it into a solid, unified distribution platform like iTunes is to music. Offering reasonably priced, a la carte, international sports-viewing-access with discount subscription rates would be incredible, at least in my opinion.

How much would you pay for an ESPN stream? ESPN makes about $3/mo per cable subscriber (not including its other networks like ESPN2, ESPNU, etc). An a la carte equivalent would have to be in the $15-20 range. I don't see this having many takers.

I think the market for an a la carte sports offering would be people who are really only hanging on to cable for it's live sports. If that is the case, then these people could go from paying $60-100 a month to $20 - so it really depends how many of these cable-for-sports-only consumers exist.

Access to live sports is the only thing keeping me from cutting the cord. Everything else we watch is readily available from other sources 'a la carte' which would be much less expensive than buying a giant package of cable channels I never watch.

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