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Comment by kioleanu | Hacker News Reader

I very very rarely use streams but what Sky fails to understand is that I wouldn’t buy their service even if there wasn’t any stream available. It is simply too expensive.

I am talking about Sky Sports here for example. Also in Germany for example. Last I checked, they wanted 30 euros per month and a yearly subscription when I want to see a Bundesliga match every x months. I have a season ticket for my team so I see all matches live and away games sometimes on TV. Even if I were to justify the price (it’s exactly the same price as my season pass), it’s not guaranteed that they show the match, it may be shown by DAZN, who also want 30 euros per month, but at least don’t ask for a year’s commitment. Neither service sells pay per view - I would gladly pay 5 - 10 euros per match seen

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Also, Sky has horrible software/infra. If you buy it thinking you can stream their stuff, you are in for a bad time. I never had a live event without a stream connection loss or extreme quality drop, worse then youtube 360p.

Oh and when (not if) your stream connection drops, you will have to watch their ads again.

You pay 30 euros subscription and you have ads too? Jesus

It’s just ridiculous that they give you 720p AT MOST with the Sky X app (can only talk about the Sports package) - for 30€ a month…

> Also, Sky has horrible software/infra.

That’s how SportsNet is in Canada for the NHL. It isn’t terrible, but it’s pretty bad and they’re obviously taking advantage of their monopoly (for broadcast rights) to foist a low quality, premium priced service onto the public.

ESPN+ in the US costs half of what we pay for SportsNet in Canada and it’s better quality. I can’t coax a 60fps stream out of SportsNet while a 720p60 ESPN+ with upscaling on an Nvidia Shield looks very good.

So, in Canada you don’t have any good options. You either pay for the legit service that’s terrible quality or you get something that’s grey market (ESPN+ via VPN) or flat out piracy.

Over the last 3 years I’ve spent more on piracy than what a SportsNet subscription would cost. My money is there for them to take if they can ever deliver a product that’s not absolute trash.

Same for F1. In other countries you can get a monthly subscription to watch all of the Grand Prix for around £10/month. In the UK it doesn't show them live, only highlights, and so you need to pay for Sky with the sports package - something like £45/month.

>> I would gladly pay 5 - 10 euros per match seen

In the UK at least Sky offer this. You can buy a 'day pass' and get full access to all their sports channels for a day. It's about £12. Or you can pay £34.99 for the monthly plan. In reality they constantly offer deals and when you try to cancel they offer huge discounts. I think I've been paying about £20 per month for the full sports package for the last couple of years. It's wildly more accessible now than it was when you had to buy their satellite package etc. and commit for multiple years.

They offer it in Germany too under the WOW brand (previously Sky Ticket). I don't think they offer the day pass but they certainly offer the single month for the sports channels.

Just checked, it’s only month to month for 30 euros

The per game is through their brand now https://www.nowtv.com/

It is an absoultely brutal experience, and drove me back to streaming.

I bought a game last year, first i couldn't watch it on my computer (linux) next i realised that i had to pay extra for HD.

Paying extra to have sport in HD? Fuck, and i cannot stress this enough, That.

You still can't watch Sky Sports on a Linux machine, so that annoyance is still there.

Oops yeah forgot to mention it's through NowTV. It might have improved since you last used it. Previously you had to find what you wanted to watch on their website and then it would open and play in a desktop app. Recently they deprecated that and you can play directly in the browser - maybe that'll solve the linux issue.

Paying extra for HD/surround sound is annoying but tbh it has no impact on me watching sport. Unless I'm watching hockey, I can see everything just fine in 720p.

My mother wants to watch soccer. And yes, it is expensive and distributed over many services. You can spent easily spent 100 Euros per month.

For a Champions League match from time to time, Amazon Prime may be worth it: https://www.amazon.de/salp/championsleague/

Prime is great as it generally have the most hyped game of the day.

>>> Even if I were to justify the price (it’s exactly the same price as my season pass), it’s not guaranteed that they show the match.

This drove me away from their service. It seemed insane to me. I also ran into this issue with some foreign channels where they would show infomercials instead of the actual, early AM game. That drove me nuts.

So now we use an alternative, and very happy with the result.

Elaborate...

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