[saxonww]

I'd certainly like it if I could pay YouTube TV $15 to get just the sports channels. I only subscribe a few months a year, for college football season. I don't like to watch anything else. So I'm spending $65/mo to watch 3-4 games, which is a little embarrassing to post.

I do think I'd rather pay YouTube than ESPN directly, because the latter's video services have never worked well for me. Part of me wishes the various services would just tell Disney to get lost, and let them see how much they like providing that service on their own. Though, the conventional wisdom seems to be that live sports programming can't exist on it's own, and that 'regular TV' can't exist without live sports.

[ghaff]

>Though, the conventional wisdom seems to be that live sports programming can't exist on it's own, and that 'regular TV' can't exist without live sports.

It feels that way. On the one hand, it seems like you have to be something of a super-fan to subscribe to one or more of the sport/league-specific sites/apps. On the other hand, local sports availability or even just sports as TV on in background seems like a pretty significant sweetener for a lot of people who might not pay for TV just for the occasional late night talk show, local news broadcast, or reality show.

Sports isn't enough for me to pay for cable any longer. But, if I did, watching a game now and then would probably be what would push me over the line to pay up.

[ssharp]

Sports is now getting into the territory music did in the early 2000's and movies did before streaming hit big -- where it's become significantly easier and convenient to just pirate than to do it legally.

It's much easier to just find pirated live game streams than it is to figure out the cobweb of television rights, which service actually shows local sports, if you're "in" or "out" of market, etc.

I'm sure the economics are still strongly in favor of the TV licensing deals but this has to turn at some point, I'd think, where leagues can go direct-to-consumer across all markets or they just sign deals with streaming companies directly, which Amazon is already doing with the NFL.

[tomrod]

Unfortunately the industry "bundles" (which is really de facto tying, illegal) channels with no value to most with those have are high value. The market for joint subscriptions to History, Bravo, TLC, and ESPN is probably fairly slim.

[ghaff]

IANAL but as I understand it, tying is generally only illegal (violation of antitrust) under specific circumstances that relate to having monopoly power in a market.

[tomrod]

I think that's a fair interpretation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)

> Tying (informally, product tying) is the practice of selling one product or service as a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service. In legal terms, a tying sale makes the sale of one good (the tying good) to the de facto customer (or de jure customer) conditional on the purchase of a second distinctive good (the tied good). Tying is often illegal when the products are not naturally related. It is related to but distinct from freebie marketing, a common (and legal) method of giving away (or selling at a substantial discount) one item to ensure a continual flow of sales of another related item.

> Some kinds of tying, especially by contract, have historically been regarded as anti-competitive practices. The basic idea is that consumers are harmed by being forced to buy an undesired good (the tied good) in order to purchase a good they actually want (the tying good), and so would prefer that the goods be sold separately. The company doing this bundling may have a significantly large market share so that it may impose the tie on consumers, despite the forces of market competition. The tie may also harm other companies in the market for the tied good, or who sell only single components.

> One effect of tying can be that low quality products achieve a higher market share than would otherwise be the case.

> Tying may also be a form of price discrimination: people who use more razor blades, for example, pay more than those who just need a one-time shave. Though this may improve overall welfare, by giving more consumers access to the market, such price discrimination can also transfer consumer surpluses to the producer. Tying may also be used with or in place of patents or copyrights to help protect entry into a market, discouraging innovation.

> Tying is often used when the supplier makes one product that is critical to many customers. By threatening to withhold that key product unless others are also purchased, the supplier can increase sales of less necessary products.

> In the United States, most states have laws against tying, which are enforced by state governments. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice enforces federal laws against tying through its Antitrust Division.