[CamperBob]

In the end, though, I'd put money on Netflix existing in 2020 before I would any given broadcast network. TV is dead.

Someone is going to have to deal with the question of live sports coverage, somehow, before this can happen.

[stock_toaster]

You mean like the olympics that were streaming from the nbc website in 2010/vancouver?

I consider it a solved problem. I bet more of the big sports leagues would _love_ to cut out the middle men and monetize viewership more directly somehow (like NBA league pass and MLB.tv are).

[philwelch]

Apparently not. You must not be a sports fan if you think it's a solved problem; there is live streaming of about 2 NFL games a week and a handful of English, French, and Italian soccer league matches. Everything else is pirate at best, or stupidly requires you to have a TV subscription anyway. Olympics and World Cup are each once every four years, streaming them is helpful but not really a full solution.

[PerryCox]

The current problem is that NBC is the only network that has streaming rights for the NFL. This is basically just an artifact of their deal with the NFL. Most likely when it comes time to renew contracts that exclusive clause will be marked out and the NFL will allow all stations that have rights to broadcast games online.

The NFL is pretty much the trend setter in the sports world when it comes to media. They were the first to figure out the right way to do a TV deal back in the early 70s, the first to start their own network, etc. It's only a matter of time.

[philwelch]

The problem is the massive amount of revenue the NFL gets from television deals. They would need a paid streaming plan, with many of the same blackout provisions, to make up for that.

[niravshah]

Given the existence of MLB.tv and NBA League Pass, I'd say the NFL is behind on online streaming of their games. MLB.tv especially is quite good compared to anything the NFL offers.

[philwelch]

Can you get NBA League Pass without a television subscription? It used to be bundled with a Dish TV programming package of the same name, can you just pay for the streaming? (Obviously, you can't pay for either right now, as there is no NBA.)

[lotharbot]

Yes. NBA League Pass Broadband. I've had it for a couple years, and dumped cable when it came out.

http://www.nba.com/home/leaguepass/index.html

[ddw]

The TV deals are still good enough that the leagues won't offer all of the games through their online platform.

The hope, I suppose, is that future TV deals will decrease to the point that the leagues realize that they can make more money by just distributing it all themselves. That's seems to be what they are setting up at least, but the short term they are making so much money off of TV licensing.

The NBA All-Star game has been shown online for the last few years and it's a better experience because you can choose from four cameras (one of which was following a single player, very cool). That part of the technology is awesome, but I suppose you'd have bandwidth problems at a large enough scale.

[CamperBob]

That part of the technology is awesome, but I suppose you'd have bandwidth problems at a large enough scale.

What's going to be interesting is when both real-time rendering and motion capture get good enough to serve as a vehicle for live sports. Imagine being able to put the camera anywhere you want, or on anyone you want. That will kill TV sports if nothing else does in the meantime.

[twoodfin]

Why? Sounds like a lot of work that's best done on expensive near real-time rendering hardware by techs and producers who know what they're doing. If anything, I think it'll make TV sports even more engrossing.

[CamperBob]

We'll see. I think it's going to be a pretty huge deal once it happens.

[sukuriant]

Local stations will probably continue to exist for: * sports * news * weather

Alternatively, ESPN could stream (and should! Could you imagine if they got the ad money directly for the Super Bowl??? I bet ESPN would be licking its chops for that kind of money)