Would you still watch sports on TV if you had to pay for every game?

[PromoTheRobot]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/igorgreenwald/2013/01/16/tv-sports-a-spectacular-bubble/

 

Good story from Forbes about the "bubble" of sports rights fees. Basically they are subsidized by cable/satellite viewers who could care less for sports. They are fighting it but sports could become an "ala carte" item you pay for by the game or season.

 

How would that change your viewing habits, if at all?

 

PTR

[Roger Goodell]

This is a very important question. Everyone please answer honestly.

[MarkyMannn]

Goodbye sports, I MAY buy Bills and Sabres playoff games that's all. LOL guess I won't be spending any money

[stevestojan]

Depending on price, sure. I pay $250 for Sunday Ticket really only for the Bills games. So that's over $15 a game. I paid $175 I think for center ice, $50 this year, so that's clearly less, but yes I would. Especially if I could pay ala cart for other channels and have my cable bill be $40 a month for the 6 channels I watch vs $90 for 200 channels I don't.

[Mike In Illinois]

If they can a la carte sports (in theory) they should a la carte ALL channels on television. I know of many channels on my DirecTv package that I don't want and would rather pay for something I do want. It may never happen because the networks make the carriers place some of these cr@p channels on air as part of a packaged deal. A lot of these channels would disappear or alter programming if it were a la carte and the consumers who chose that channel for their package controlled the market.

 

I would pay for sports, depending on price. However, I'm just as comfortable listening to a hockey game or baseball game on the radio as I am watching it on TV. Most of my favorite teams are local to me so I can hear them on radio; the Bills can be found on my smart phone through Tune In Radio (does the Bills App carry the games?).

[PromoTheRobot]

If they can a la carte sports (in theory) they should a la carte ALL channels on television. I know of many channels on my DirecTv package that I don't want and would rather pay for something I do want. It may never happen because the networks make the carriers place some of these cr@p channels on air as part of a packaged deal. A lot of these channels would disappear or alter programming if it were a la carte and the consumers who chose that channel for their package controlled the market.

 

I would pay for sports, depending on price. However, I'm just as comfortable listening to a hockey game or baseball game on the radio as I am watching it on TV. Most of my favorite teams are local to me so I can hear them on radio; the Bills can be found on my smart phone through Tune In Radio (does the Bills App carry the games?).

 

Ah...THAT is the question that the industry teeters on. Think about it, dozens of channels would just disappear if people paid by the channel. I think cable satellite companies would fight that tooth and nail.

 

PTR

Edited January 18, 2013 by PromoTheRobot

[Pete]

I would pay to watch some bills games as long as they were commercial free. As of now, I haven't watched the nfl or TV for 2 years- and find both unwatchable due to commercials. And I am not missing either

[PromoTheRobot]

I would pay to watch some bills games as long as they were commercial free. As of now, I haven't watched the nfl or TV for 2 years- and find both unwatchable due to commercials. And I am not missing either

 

Well that is NEVER going to happen. Not unless everyone can pay thousands for Sunday Ticket.

 

But your comment makes me wonder how do you know anything about the Bills if you never watch them?

 

PTR

[boyst]

Stojan has Sunday ticket, my habits would be mooching off of him.

 

And, to answer honestly. I would not worry about it. There is always an option not to pay to get content.

 

Well that is NEVER going to happen. Not unless everyone can pay thousands for Sunday Ticket.

 

But your comment makes me wonder how do you know anything about the Bills if you never watch them?

 

PTR

Knowing the Bills and knowing football are two separate things...anyone who has watched the Bills know there is a good argument that they do not play football...

[Pete]

Well that is NEVER going to happen. Not unless everyone can pay thousands for Sunday Ticket.

 

But your comment makes me wonder how do you know anything about the Bills if you never watch them?

 

PTR

I do watch the Bills online occasionally from a private feed, commercial free. And I find highlights online. But commercials were a deal breaker for me. 20 years ago commercials were barely tolerable. But now it is total overkill. Money is the ruiner of all things good. I suppose if the Bills made the playoffs I would go to a friends or a bar to watch. But now I root for them without watching them

[ExiledInIllinois]

No. I don't do it now. I use other means to get the action.

Edited January 18, 2013 by ExiledInIllinois

[Captain Hindsight]

Not a chance

[ExiledInIllinois]

What ever happened to C-Band and big ugly dishes (BUD's)... Is there still a market and do they work... Or has the DTV-iTunes store totally won out?

 

I am totally not up on the tech... But a guy across the street still has it... Barely notice it, worked right into his landscaping... Been there since 1995 or so... It was tied to an old huge projection TV... I remember watching the 1996 Olympics from across the street when their window was open... LoL

Edited January 18, 2013 by ExiledInIllinois

[PromoTheRobot]

What ever happened to C-Band and big ugly dishes (BUD's)... Is there still a market and do they work... Or has the DTV-iTunes store totally won out?

 

I am totally not up on the tech... But a guy across the street still has it... Barely notice it, worked right into his landscaping... Been there since 1995 or so... It was tied to an old huge projection TV... I remember watching the 1996 Olympics from across the street when their window was open... LoL

 

The biggest reason is that networks use fiber optic hookups now most of the time rather than satellite.

 

PTR

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

 

The biggest reason is that networks use fiber optic hookups now most of the time rather than satellite.

 

PTR

 

So it doesn't work? Actually, I never asked him (neighbor) if he still gets the signal through that BUD... LoL... FWIW, you just don't notice it! Strange...

[plenzmd1]

I would absolutely pay for the Buffalo games..that is pretty much all I watch on both packages now.

[Beerball]

I might actually prefer it as long as I can be selective about what I watch/buy.

[KD in CA]

"I've got 13 700 channels of **** on the TV to choose from......"

 

 

 

In theory, I love the concept of a la carte pricing for TV but don't think it's realistic in the short term. My guess is we start to see a la carte options on the sports (particularly football) in the coming years. That is instead of buying Sunday ticket, you can just buy this Sunday's Bills game for $30; or maybe a Sunday Ticket for just one team for half price. And that I might pay for now and then (assuming they weren't heading for another 6-10 season).

Edited January 18, 2013 by KD in CT

[JM57]

Technically speaking, I already do. I current play $124 a month to TWC. I use my DVR for maybe a dozen series, year round (Breaking Bad, Justified, Sons of Anarchy, Its Always Sunny, Workaholics, CSI, criminal Minds, and some stuff for the wife)

 

Other than that, I barely ever watch my cable channels. If the TV is on, I am watching sports or the aformentioned DVR series, which I could just subscribe to Hulu and get for $8 a month. So I am paying $124 a month for internet and sports.

Edited January 18, 2013 by JM57

[Fezmid]

That is instead of buying Sunday ticket, you can just buy this Sunday's Bills game for $30;

You can already do that with DirecTV, and that's roughly the price if I remember correctly. However at $30/game, it makes more sense to spend $200 for every game (to me, anyway).

[Dante]

I would pay to watch some bills games as long as they were commercial free. As of now, I haven't watched the nfl or TV for 2 years- and find both unwatchable due to commercials. And I am not missing either

This has been annoying me for several years now. With TV timeouts, video replays. Commercials after every score. Then one after the ensuing kick off. NFL games are indeed unwatchable. What we do now, if we can, is just DVR them for about a hour or hour and a half before I start watching. Skip all the tedious bs that stretches the game well beyond 3 hours. It speaks volumes that you can watch NFL replayed games in 30 minutes per game on Sunday Ticket on Tuesday. I wonder sometimes how NFL players do it. Game changing pick 6 then yet another 4 minute delay killing any emotional momentum.

That said I already do pay for both NFL and NHL through Sunday Ticket and NHL Center Ice. However I would pay for ala carte games instead of that if it was reasonable.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Dante

[Buftex]

My intial reaction to the original questin posed was "hell no"..but then I realize, I alread probably spend between $1,000-1,200 a year to watch most of the Sabres and Celtics games, and all of the Bills games. And, as much as that sounds, I think it is a great value. If I pay $40 a month (or whatever it is) for Center Ice, and watch 15-20 Sabres games, that is a great value as far as I am concerned. Even when they suck! Same for Celtics.

 

I pay for NHL Center Ice every season (about $280), and about a half season of the the NBA package every year ($140)...for the sole purpose of watching the Sabres and Cetlics games. True, I do watch other NHL and NBA games, only cuz I have access, but I wouldn't otherwise. If Time Warner offered the NFL package, no doubt, I would pay for that too, just to watch the Bills. As it is now, I spend somewhere between $20-30 a week to go to a bar and watch the Bills games.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Buftex

[Maury Ballstein]

i spent a year or two working for a cable company..........they are shady and IMO they will never offer the pay by the channel a la carte deal.

 

I would love to pay for my sports and random select channels at a decent price. as it stands they offer you a price then after 12 months it goes up 50% and "deal with it" is what you get in return...

[MarkyMannn]

I would pay to watch some bills games as long as they were commercial free. As of now, I haven't watched the nfl or TV for 2 years- and find both unwatchable due to commercials. And I am not missing either

A lot of channels are "unwatchable" because of all the commercial breaks. TBS & TNT and many others slot 1:15 minutes for shows that used to air an hour and fill it with commercials. As Dante said, dvr them and surf through the commercials

[KD in CA]

A lot of channels are "unwatchable" because of all the commercial breaks. TBS & TNT and many others slot 1:15 minutes for shows that used to air an hour and fill it with commercials. As Dante said, dvr them and surf through the commercials

Of course, most of the programming on TV is unwatchable too so sometimes the commercials are a welcome distraction.

[Rubes]

I've been trying to pay attention to which football games other than the Bills that I watch during the season. As it turns out, I often will have the Sunday/Monday/Thursday Night Football games on, and I occasionally will watch whatever games are being shown on CBS/FOX on Sundays. But I hardly ever watch any non-Bills games with DirecTV.

 

So I guess the question is -- with respect to football, are we talking all football games, even those on CBS/FOX and on Sunday/Monday/Thursday Night Football, only being available by pay-per-view? Or would the same games be available on CBS/FOX/NFLN/ESPN, and this ala carte model only being applied to the games not otherwise available on those channels?

 

I would probably prefer the ala carte model if games were still shown on CBS/FOX/NFLN/ESPN.

[Tux of Borg]

I'm out of market and pay for the sport packages through my ps3.

 

Sunday Ticket: $250

MLB.tv: $125

NHL Centerice: $50

 

There is a limit on what I'm willing to pay to watch sports. I'm not sure what it is but when/if the time comes i think Sunday ticket will be the first to go. It's the most expensive and has the least options (only Sunday games, no on demand) of the three.

[Maury Ballstein]

throw in the games that Sunday Ticket wont allow you to see and it is kinda a ripoff.

 

I like in Virginia.....Panthers games are never available.....seems weird...........get the rest of em.

[Fezmid]

throw in the games that Sunday Ticket the NFL wont allow you to see and it is kinda a ripoff.

Fixed your post. Sunday Ticket used to have all non-national games. Then the local networks complained to the NFL, saying that people were watching games on Sunday Ticket when they should be watching the local channels -- eating into the local revenue stream -- so the NFL forced DirecTV to black out games on the ST channels if they were being aired locally.

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

Fixed your post. Sunday Ticket used to have all non-national games. Then the local networks complained to the NFL, saying that people were watching games on Sunday Ticket when they should be watching the local channels -- eating into the local revenue stream -- so the NFL forced DirecTV to black out games on the ST channels if they were being aired locally.

 

Hey Fez... PTR never really answered my question... Can people still pull all programming with the old style big dishes... Or is that a thing of the past?

[Maury Ballstein]

Fixed your post. Sunday Ticket used to have all non-national games. Then the local networks complained to the NFL, saying that people were watching games on Sunday Ticket when they should be watching the local channels -- eating into the local revenue stream -- so the NFL forced DirecTV to black out games on the ST channels if they were being aired locally.

 

yea but what stinks is the game i am missing is not on regular tv in my area.........i have 2 tv setup for football sundays......one on tv game other on bills/other sunday ticket game..........miss all the panthers games unless they show snippets on redzone..........seems strange.

[PromoTheRobot]

Hey Fez... PTR never really answered my question... Can people still pull all programming with the old style big dishes... Or is that a thing of the past?

 

I thought I did. Those big dishes are like VCRs. People still use them but it's ancient technology compared to DVDs, DVRs and streaming video. The shows that are still available on those big dishes are things no one cares if you steal: lots of religious and shop-at-home programs. 99% of all major sports programming is delivered via fiber optic networks. So yeah, those dishes still work but there isn't much worth watching on them.'

 

PTR

[Fezmid]

yea but what stinks is the game i am missing is not on regular tv in my area.........i have 2 tv setup for football sundays......one on tv game other on bills/other sunday ticket game..........miss all the panthers games unless they show snippets on redzone..........seems strange.

If the game is blacked out in your area, you can't get it on the Ticket either. (that's an NFL thing ).

[buckeyemike]

This has been annoying me for several years now. With TV timeouts, video replays. Commercials after every score. Then one after the ensuing kick off. NFL games are indeed unwatchable.

 

If you think they are unwatchable at home, imagine being at the game. The last NFL game I went to was four years ago, and I noticed immediately when the TV timeouts were. There sure were a lot of them.

 

I know this is a post about paying for TV sporting events, but I wanted to note that.

Edited January 18, 2013 by TheFourHorsemen

[Gugny]

All of television is headed this way. Not just sports. Anyone with the Internet can watch whatever they want, whenever they want, if they so choose. It isn't as convenient as conventional cable, but more and more people "unplug" every year. It won't be long before the time Warners of the world offer your choice of 50 channels, instead of shoving 300 channels of which 240 are pure schit, down your throat.

 

Of course, this is all unless the government takes all of our guns and dictates what we watch on TV thanks to 3 less bullets in a magazine.

 

But I digress.

 

Go bills.

[Marv's Neighbor]

I'd consider paying IF they guaranteed a WIN!

[ExiledInIllinois]

 

 

I thought I did. Those big dishes are like VCRs. People still use them but it's ancient technology compared to DVDs, DVRs and streaming video. The shows that are still available on those big dishes are things no one cares if you steal: lots of religious and shop-at-home programs. 99% of all major sports programming is delivered via fiber optic networks. So yeah, those dishes still work but there isn't much worth watching on them.'

 

PTR

 

Oh... Sorry... I see what you are saying now... Stupid me, instead of saying if they still worked, I should have said can they get the really good programming! Well, that sucks! :-(

 

Edit: Interesting read Promo... As you can tell, I was never really in any tech loop through the years! LoL... I did just did some searches on this and stumbled onto one post:

 

"As a dish owner myself during those days, we were not outraged when HBO encrypted their signal. They are a premium commercial free channel and deserve a right to be paid for their programming. The problem was what should that price be? Unlike cable and current satellite that provide the equipment for you, we paid for that "big ugly dish" ourselves so the price for a subscription should reflect that.

 

The next issue was that the tide turned in the 90s and instead of nothing being scrambled everything became scrambled. So what if I could see CBC "Hockey Night In Canada"? CBC lost nothing being unscrambled on satellite. Neither did the US broadcast networks, AFRTS, NASA channel, etc.

 

Then, the issue became no one would even offer subscription programming to those with that "big ugly dish". We would still be using ours today if everyone else did not conspire against us and force us to change to DirecTV. America is supposed to be about competition and not collusion."

 

I guess this is what I was looking for... ;-)

Edited January 19, 2013 by ExiledInIllinois

[Rico]

I would watch less sports for sure, but just like I do for all the Bills games, I would just find a feed on-line.

[Helpmenow]

Nope

[Pete]

This has been annoying me for several years now. With TV timeouts, video replays. Commercials after every score. Then one after the ensuing kick off. NFL games are indeed unwatchable. What we do now, if we can, is just DVR them for about a hour or hour and a half before I start watching. Skip all the tedious bs that stretches the game well beyond 3 hours. It speaks volumes that you can watch NFL replayed games in 30 minutes per game on Sunday Ticket on Tuesday. I wonder sometimes how NFL players do it. Game changing pick 6 then yet another 4 minute delay killing any emotional momentum.

That said I already do pay for both NFL and NHL through Sunday Ticket and NHL Center Ice. However I would pay for ala carte games instead of that if it was reasonable.

FIFA and the NHL have flow, and are quite watchable IMO. The NFL has on average 12 minutes of action- and yet takes almost 4 hours to watch. Damn shame the greedy mother!@#$ers ruined a beautiful game