[tomjakubowski]

ESPN does more than just broadcast live sporting events. They have to fill a whole 24 hours every day, so they also produce original programming (Sportscenter, PTI, Around the Horn, etc.). The original shows are surely cheaper for ESPN to produce than the live stuff (broadcast rights are expensive), but many viewers get almost no value out of them in the Web era. (I can get my "hot takes" from Twitter and blogs, thank you very much.)

If I could pay only for ESPN's coverage of live events in $SPORTS_I_CARE_ABOUT, I would do that happily. And I do pay for similar products, with my MLB.TV and NBA Game Time subscriptions, but that's only because I'm lucky enough to live outside of my favorite teams' blackout areas. Even then, though, I miss out on national broadcasts, which are blacked out, and I have to either go to a bar or find an illegal stream on the Web to watch the game.

[bwilliams18]

What's going to happen here is you won't be paying ESPN for $SPORT_I_CARE_ABOUT you'll be paying $SPORT_I_CARE_ABOUT for $SPORT_I_CARE_ABOUT.

MLB's already built out the technology, and people to make this happen in the form of MLBAdvancedMedia, (some smaller market owners suspect their ownership stake in MLBAM is more valuable than their team). It will be interesting to see if the other sports come to MLBAM (WWE, PGA, and even ESPN have done) or if they will each roll their own platform.

[monksy]

> my favorite teams' blackout areas.

This is why I won't get NHL Game cast or MLB at bat. They're not providing a service I want/need.

[ubernostrum]

As part of a class-action settlement, MLB will be required to change their blackout rules. The settlement notification lays out three things.

Right now they have to begin offering a "this is my favorite team but I live in another team's exclusive market" subscription, which lets anyone with an in-market TV subscription watch their preferred team's games even when they play against the in-market team. So, for example, I live near SF but like the Cubs; on this package I could verify that I have a TV subscription which carries Giants games, and then Cubs-Giants would not be blacked out and I could stream the Cubs' version of the broadcast.

Right now they have to handle the "unserved fan" problem, by providing streaming to any in-market fan of a team who's unable to obtain a cable or satellite subscription for the team's games (if I were a Giants fan this would affect me, as my only TV option for the Giants is DirecTV, and DirecTV says my apartment faces the wrong way and has a blocked view for installing a dish; MLB would be required to let me stream Giants games if I wanted them).

For the future, the settlement commits MLB to reaching agreements to lift blackout restrictions imposed by Comcast, Root and Fox, and freezes the subscription price of MLB streaming until those agreements are in place.

[rconti]

That model is fucking insane. I've gotten all of my TV over-the-air for years, which includes a surprising number of NFL games though almost no local baseball/hockey.. which is ironic, because the channels that air that stuff are actually worth the money to me, if I didn't have to pay the ESPN tax.

I considered the NHL all access even though I don't watch a ton of hockey, until I realized they blackout local games. Totally untenable model.

I do pay NFL.com for streaming. $100/year, I can watch any game I want at any time, and they also do those glorious condensed games that only take 45 minutes to watch, so I can sneak in a game I missed. The only drawback (and this is a biggie for some, I'm sure) is that they're not live; 10:30am PST games up for streaming by 1:30pm; 1:30pm games by 5pm, for example. That doesn't matter to me because I'm not likely to "waste" 3 hours of midday on my 2 free days of the week watching football; I'd just DVR it and watch it in the evening if it was available OTA anyway.

I'd also pay to stream F1 races, but that's not available either. I like some sports, but I just don't have any interest in the sports industrial complex.

[dba7dba]

I can't justify spending hundreds of dollars every month to pay for cable-internet/basic-cable-tv-package/wireles-phones AND super-cable-tv-package that actually includes ESPN and other sports channel. For an average family of 4-5 wirelss phones and average income, paying for cable-tv + super-cable-tv seems too much. And it is. Just to get content to show on the displays, a family has to essentially spend $ that can easily pay for a new CAR.

And because we cut cable-tv to stay sane financially, we get very little access to live sports games on over-the-air TV.

You wouldn't believe how LITTLE sports my kids watch on TV spontaneously, compared to how much I used to watch when a lot of important games were shown over-the-air TV.

What little they watch, it's from youtube. For some highlight or some incredible goals. But that's unlikely to turn them into a fan (serious or casual) of a particular sports or pro team.

The greed powered cable-tv movement has really driven a lot of fans away from pro sports teams.

This imo is a classic example of greed for short-term gain costing dearly in long-term.

Many kids in cable-tv-less households really don't interact with pro sports teams. What do you think the kids from such family will do when they grow up?

[monksy]

> greed for short-term gain costing dearly in long-term.

Pretty much summarizes amaerican business right there.

[galago]

I wanted to watch the world series, so I'm using MLB.TV via a foreign VPN. Its not something that would work if everyone did it, and its really an inferior experience. Its similar those totally illegal streams in quality, except that I'm paying for it.

[DrScump]

I don't understand. The World Series games are all free OTA broadcasts on Fox affiliates in the U.S. Are you outside the U.S.?

[tomjakubowski]

Not everyone has good OTA access. I lived in an apartment near Culver City six years ago and could only reliably pick up a handful of channels with an indoor antenna (all I was allowed, since it was an apartment).