Comment by marknutter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by marknutter | Hacker News Reader

As a non-cable subscriber and a big NBA fan, I find blackouts unbelievably frustrating. There is simply no legal way to watch some live NBA games unless you pay for cable. I'm constantly having to route my NBA broadband league pass through a proxy to watch my home team, and the only workaround for nationally televised games is to pirate them from sites like sportlemon.tv.

It's a classic case of frustrating customer experiences pushing users to piracy. If the NBA provided a way for me to legally pay to watch every game over the internet, I would gladly do so. In order to legally do this I have to have both a cable or satellite service in addition to a league pass subscription.

I understand that a fair amount of revenue for the NBA is probably coming from the deals it made with TNT, EPSN, and Fox, but a viewer is a viewer, whether they're watching from the net or through traditional venues - why do they care, so long as their advertisers are getting enough eyeballs?

I understand that a fair amount of revenue for the NBA is probably coming from the deals it made with TNT, EPSN, and Fox, but a viewer is a viewer, whether they're watching from the net or through traditional venues - why do they care, so long as their advertisers are getting enough eyeballs?

Not "some" all of NBA's TV Revenues come from selling the rights to networks. The networks sell the ads, and they're the ones that care about eyeballs. So the networks care if you start streaming local market games and they're going to try to prevent that. If the NBA allowed you to get your local market games via streaming it would undercut the product they sell to the various networks which is their primary source of revenue.

The NBA is basically promising these networks they will bring them eyeballs. By offering league pass to all customers without restrictions, and passing on all ad revenue to the network which holds the right to that specific game, they increasing their ability to deliver on the promise. For instance, if a game is televised on TNT, but X number of potential viewers don't have cable TV but do have internet access, by allowing them to watch the game online they are bringing even more users to TNT (passing all or most of the ad revenue less hosting expenses to TNT).

Seems like a fairly straightforward solution to me. My assumption is that the powers that be aren't technologically sophisticated enough to understand the benefits of it.

Seems like a fairly straightforward solution to me. My assumption is that the powers that be aren't technologically sophisticated enough to understand the benefits of it.

This isn't the case, most networks are extremely technically sophisticated (ESPN especially) the misunderstanding here is business related. TNT and ESPN make millions (in ESPN's case billions) a year in subscriber fees from cable operators. ESPN alone makes $3-5 from each cable subscriber in the US (there's about 120M of them) each month. A significant portion of these network's revenues are made on subscriber fees. The solution you propose jeopardizes these agreements for what would currently be a paltry amount of streaming ad revenues.

The NBA is promising these networks a product that they can attach advertising to and re-sell. The league pass devalues game in the eyes of TNT - they can't resell the content to local cable providers to attach advertising to.

If they want to cut out two middlemen (the network and the local cable provider) then the NBA must learn to create a steady audience and get money from advertisers, which is a different skill than putting on ball games.

Correct. All the major sports organizations work this way, and it makes sense from a standpoint of comparative advantage. Of course, it's horribly monopolistic and anti-consumer, but on the other hand consumers could also start patronizing other sports leagues instead...except they don't want to.

I actually have more respect for people who pirate to get things for free than people who pirate and claim that they're only doing it because X condition isn't met. X could be that it's not in the format you want, that it's not at the price point you want, or any number of other things. The publishers business model is their business model, good or bad. Own up to your decision to pirate.

It's this line of thinking that will eventually send old media to the grave. They’ll hang on for a while, grasping at the golden years of yore, but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die. It’s not about “excuses”, it’s about reality, facts. If technology and the convenience it affords isn’t used as a medium to enhance customer experience it will be its demise.

> but if they don’t adapt to demands they will die.

No business can meet all demands. I think this is what annoys me the most about the "I pirate because I'm underserved" crowd. They act like not getting what you want is unique to our times. Unique to the internet. It's not. People in all walks of life, in all times, have had to deal with not getting everything they want. Had to deal with making compromises.

In this particular case Fred had several options to see the basketball game. He has season tickets. He could have chosen a different way to pay for television (I don't live in NY but I'm assuming it has DirectTV or Dish Network or some other option besides just Time Warner). He made the choice that he made, but was unwilling to accept the downside it came with.

In the business world we call these entitled customers. These are the types of people who bring back clothes 2 years after the purchase and get huffy when the store won't return them.

These are the types of people who bring back clothes 2 years after the purchase and get huffy when the store won't return them.

But in this case, it doesn't matter if the store accepts the return or not, he gets his money thanks to the pirates. When you are competing against free, it's bad business sense to turn away paying customers like this guy.

(The retail analogy is: this guy buys some clothes. He wants to return them, and you say no. The cash register opens and gives the guy his money back anyway. So you might as well take the clothes he's trying to return.)

Show your math. It's easy to say Fred's pirating is a net loss for the NBA, much harder to prove it. For example if they were to do away with League Pass blackouts (which I pay for, by the way), surely this would have a great negative effect the next time they negotiate with MSG, WGN, etc.

This whole 'entitlement' spiel is bogus.

People expect to be able to get stuff because they know it is available.

If each piece of TV/music/whatever had to be dug out of the ground, or hand-made, at great expense, they would not be available easily. People would want them, but hardly anyone would be providing them.

But that is just not the case here. These things are trivially available. It is that they are being witheld by certain providers -- because the whole market rests on a made-up artificial scarcity. That is the basic underlying physical fact, and people feel it.

If people expect to be able to easily get stuff that is actually easily available, they are absolutely right!

Actually, he probably didn't have any other option to watch the game on TV. NYC (and especially Manhattan) residents very rarely have a choice of cable providers. If you're in a Time Warner building, no other cable company can provide service there, and it's very rare to live in a cable building where DirecTV or Dish service is also available.

So really, his choice is to move into a building with a different cable provider and hope that provider doesn't get into a similar spat.

In the business world we call these entitled customers. These are the types of people who bring back clothes 2 years after the purchase and get huffy when the store won't return them.

Then Zappos comes along and eats your lunch.

The fact is that this is an outdated business model that is still around solely because of govt control and interference. If these laws were changed, dozens if not hundreds of people from this community alone would be eating their lunch.

You're missing my point and getting caught up in the fact that entitlement annoys you. Regardless of how you feel and regardless of the consumers state of mind, this is happening.

> No business can meet all demands.

Absolutely, but it isn't being met. The demand of universal access is being fulfilled elsewhere.

>They act like not getting what you want is unique to our times. Unique to the internet. It's not.

What's unique to our time and the internet is that I can get what I want and it's more convenient than the conventional way.

That's the problem I was trying to highlight, hopefully this doesn't come across as snarky.

Isn't pirating to get things for free just a special case of X condition not being met (where X = (price = $0))?

Absolutely, but usually in that case the person doesn't have the sense of entitlement that I see from piraters who claim "i wanted to receive the content by carrier pigeon but because the option wasn't available I was forced to pirate".

That's quite the hyperbole there. Not sure it's completely warranted. I've never heard anyone seriously making outrageous claims about what they'd like, it's mainly "I want to watch one show/channel without being forced to pay for 199 channels I'll never watch."

That's pretty reasonable, I'd say. I subscribed to MLB.tv this spring and cancelled after one month because my market was blacked out the entire time. The technology is there, it works, and people are willing to pay for it. $9/mo for just baseball is a better deal for both me and the MLB than $50/mo for 200 channels I'd never watch through a reseller.

I used to pirate music. I'd usually only listen to an album a few times, then put it on the shelf to listen to more new music. Buying a song didn't make sense in that regard. Then the Zune Pass came along, $10/mo for unlimited music, virtually no restrictions. I could listen to a song once or twice, shelve it, and grab another. I got my Zune in 2009, and that was the last time I ever pirated a song. Now if only the rest of the entertainment industry could catch up.

> $9/mo for just baseball is a better deal for both me and the MLB than $50/mo for 200 channels I'd never watch through a reseller.

It's obviously not a better deal for the MLB or they wouldn't be blacking out the games. If you're going to make the claim that a company is not acting in its own financial self-interest please show your math. I think people here are drastically underestimating the cost to a sports league breaking cable contracts to better serve high-maintenance customers.

If they show me the game on MLB.tv - $9/mo basically for the foreseeable future.

If they make me subscribe to cable - $0/mo forever. How much does the MLB make per cable subscriber is the question I cannot answer.

Data point: ESPN gets the largest slice of your cable bill.

I like a few web-comics that have no official English language translation (Noblesse, Knight Run, etc). Now, I can go to the website and look at the pictures and guess what's going on but if I want to actually read a translation I need to go to a website that breaks copy-write.

As this is a digital good that they make no effort to sell to me I cost them nothing to 'pirate' it. Yet, if you can come up with a rational reason for me to stop I may consider doing so.

PS: As a side issue egscans opens a copy of the original version of the comic when you read them which may provide them with revenue, but this is effectively scamming from their advertisers. (or if it's all pay per click it might just cost them bandwidth.)

Your respect would be nice, but being able to watch my favorite sport without subscribing to cable television is nicer. I'm at peace with my decision to pirate. Feelings and morals aside, at the end of the day the NBA and their customers are losing ad-revenue because it's more convenient for people like me to pirate live events than it is to legitimately pay for access to them. Self-righteousness doesn't put money in the bank (unless SOPA passes, of course).

He was - he pirated because there was no other way to get the content he had paid for. In some cases, there is no other way, period. When X condition is "Getting something I paid for", I have respect. Look at what happened here - a rather well known person openly admitted to pirating. You are saying you would rather he just said "I wanted it for free?"

My guess is that they're trying to maximize "butts in seats" at the event itself. If people were given the option, they might choose to stay home and avoid the inevitable annoyances of crowded events (like, you know, other people), and that would cut down on revenue for the venue itself.

There is also the psychological effect of a large crowd in a venue showing enthusiasm for the sport. How much fun would a basketball game actually be if there were no crowd cheering and no people present? Athletes might live for the sport, but they get a boost from crowd enthusiasm. This follows on into the remote audience as well.

It would be an interesting (though costly) experiment to see just what happens, on many levels, if you do away with the crowds and just have teams playing in an empty venue, with only online and/or video spectators. I think most people would tune it out and stop watching completely, if not the first time, then soon after.

> My guess is that they're trying to maximize "butts in seats" at the event itself.

I bet you're right, but two things: 1) they blackout home-team games that are played away from home, and 2) most people can't make it to every home game. If you're on the verge of making the transition from casual fan to rabid fan, staying in sync with the team by watching as many games as possible. I greatly prefer attending the event to watching it on TV, so in my case access to more content doesn't reduce my desire to go to games. In fact, because I've had access to all their games (through both breaking the NBA League Pass rules by going over a proxy and pirating nationally televised games) I've become a huge fan and attend live games all the time now.

The #1 goal of the NBA is to increase the number of NBA fans. In my humble opinion, this is best done by getting their product, which speaks for itself, in front of as many people as they can. It's also they best way for them to break free from the hold that the major media outlets have on them and control their own destiny by broadcasting games on their own terms.

You're thinking like someone who has grown up with the internet. Most of those owners are one foot in the grave at best.

They are not really into changing their paradigm to suit others.

The best solution I have found is to use a non-US (UK, France, whatever) VPN service and sign up for the NBA International League Pass Broadband (http://ilp.nba.com/).

The International Pass has no blackouts and you can watch the All Star game, playoffs, and Finals. The US Broadband League Pass does not give you access to playoffs or the finals.

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