The NFL is going to make up 7 billion dollars per year by charging consumers directly?

_________________

Some would but most wouldn't. I was thinking more of the college sports networks.

The question is how much is the average viewer of that channel willing to pay? And when you say massive success do you mean for the league or for ratings? Of course they were a success for the leagues since they had customers paying for their product who didn't have a choice not to.

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

They are already starting. I pay 70 some odd dollars for MLB.tv one team package. I get every cubs game in the app. That's why what NBC sports is doing with NBC gold makes sense - where you can pay by the sport. So I can pay 50 or whatever for the EPL season. Which, like the MLB package is really cheap per game.

_________________

The demamd was there to justify those costs for many years. If those fans are still around then why not? Mbl.tv charges 120 a year and it doesn't include locals. Directv charges 300 a year and many games are on cable or networks including all local games.

People pay 15 a month for HBO and watch it far less than their favorite sport.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

The demand at the level they were being paid was never there and relied on people like my sisters to pay for it through having cable.

_________________

I doubt that is true. There was a reason that even the BTN was worth what it was. These companies that paid it weren't dumb.

Cable cutting changed things though because of poor projections of subscribers.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Sure they can be dumb. Look at the Dodgers deal. Most were not smart enough to forecast the cable cutting either.

_________________

I've never understood why the NFL doesn't do pay per view for the Super Bowl.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't like it. Just from a business sense. They would make so much more money then having it on network TV.

They could charge $200. 100 million people would buy it. That would net them $200,000,000 for one game. And they can still have commercials at 4 million a spot. So add another $100,000,000 or so.

A hundred million people would not pay 200 dollars each to watch the super bowl. Especially if it was loaded with commercials.

_________________

It just stopped not paying off though. The previous deals worked for them.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

One hell of a time to stop. Just as you make one of the biggest deals in history. Plus this deal was made just as cord cutting started to make a dent. They basically stuck their heads in the sand and acted like it would never hurt them.

_________________

ring-ring-ring it's the federal government calling about your antitrust exemption

_________________

Of course but it shows the money is still there for the leagues. ESPN just got caught on the outside looking in.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

What do mean by the money? ESPN and other channels agreed to contracts with the assumption that the number of subscribers would remain constant or close to it. Without the guaranteed cable subscriber dollars we don't know what kind of money is going to be there. If ESPN is cutting all these salaries don't you think it will also affect how much they bid on live sports?

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

I guess will find out in a few years when the next MLB deal comes up in 2021. ESPN and the like will have millions less in viewers then when they signed the current deals.

_________________

ESPN and the cable companies are in effect the middleman between us and the sports leagues. The next model seems to be the fans paying either direct to the leagues or through the cable companies and league/team controlled channels. The money available from that market likely won't change much. ESPN loses the role there of being involved unless they overpay. Tough choice for them.

To put it another way, if the NFL was able to negotiate 8 billion a year in tv deals that means there is at least an 8 billion dollar market driven by fan interest they can capture in some manner. The networks weren't signing up for this to lose money. They believed they made more money paying that. At least with ESPN they failed to see the major losses of cable subscribers. That doesn't mean the people who wanted the NFL that bad suddenly quit wanting it.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

ESPN may drop out if they can't make money. The leagues will still make huge money on the content.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

From who? The cable systems aren't paying Billions for MLB games when they will continue to lose subscribers.

_________________

I disagree with this conclusion. If people are paying less for cable through streaming or completely cut the cord then the total amount of revenue for televising sports will not be as great as it has been. You literally have millions of people that will not be paying any money to ESPN, Fox Sports, The Big Ten Network ect. True, the networks were not signing up to lose money but they incorrectly assumed that the number of subscribers would stay relatively constantly. We know there will be a greater transition to paying for individual content which was mentioned earlier in this thread. They'll be less people paying more for individual sports. The question is how will that amount of revenue compare to what they've been receiving the last 10 years before people started cutting the cord. I think we'll see a rollback.

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

I explained in other reply.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Those people are still fans. They want the content. They will pay for it. How it happens is the only real question. I mean NBC pays a billion a year or more for 20 games and doesn't worry about cable subscribers.

I'm very confident the NFL can make huge money too if they do the content distribution.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Huge money- yes. As much money- no. Logically speaking, if the networks are not making as much money they will not bid as much for television right. But the NFL is the outlier. I think MLB and the NBA are the two leagues that take the biggest hit.

The big question is how much and how many fans are willing to pay individually for sports?

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Please, if there is a God, Aaron Boone will be fired after this season. The amount of fellatio on BOS-NYY Sunday Night Baseball is insane, and none of it involves Jessica Mendoza.

_________________
"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

They bid less then they get less games. That's what the BTN did and it paid off huge.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

That doesn't make sense.

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

What is so hard about this? There was obviously enough demand to justify the costs these channels were paying prior to the "unexpected" quick dropoff in total cable subscribers. The model is changing and the channels are slowly being cut out of the equation. That is it. ESPN has to figure out of they can afford to pay the rate the sports leagues want and if they can't then they just aren't involved. It sucks for them but it really doesn't change the money that the leagues make.

ESPN's parent company is doing roughly the same thing. They are starting their own distribution network for Disney stuff instead of having Netflix be the go-between with the customer. They will keep a much larger portion of the fees. Either someone will pay the sports leagues enough to keep them or they'll control the whole distribution channel with the various advantages inherent with that.

It's like people have convinced themselves that there isn't billions of dollars in available revenue from the demand of sports fans and instead it was some grand conspiracy to charge my grandmother for ESPN even though she doesn't use it and now the sports leagues will be poor. It just doesn't make sense. ESPN has to either change business models or fail but the whole system continues and it could very well be that the sports leagues make more money controlling the entire product including advertising and distribution.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

What you are not taking into consideration is that the demand was caused by ESPN and other cable channels having ridiculous revenue streams because of all those grandmothers out there that were forced to pay for sports revenue that they did not want it. Different cable channels outbidding each other is what drove up the demand and the costs. If all the cable channels are not generating as much revenue through subscribers and are not willing to pay as much in the future for sports who is going to replace all that revenue to the league? No one is saying that leagues are going to go broke but the stupid money generated through cable deals is going to decline.

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

It's a misnomer that the grandmothers were "paying for it". It was the demand for the channel that did it. It so happened that everyone paid for it but it was because that channel was popular enough to justify the costs. She may have watched the Hallmark channel all day instead but the end result was that there was 100,000 grandmas watching that channel and 20 million watching ESPN so the costs were different.

So, those 20 million people who wanted ESPN are paying 40 cents a month for Hallmark channel which is worth $8 million a month to Hallmark and those 100,000 grandmas are paying $7 a month for ESPN and that is worth $700,000 to ESPN. If those grandmas were only paying 40 cents a month to Hallmark Channel then Hallmark Channel goes away forever.

What changed though was both the 20 million ESPN fans and the 100,000 Hallmark fans are leaving and going elsewhere and the sports leagues can just follow and charge accordingly.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

LOL- you don't need to explain the dynamics of bundling channels on cable packages.

The question is can the leagues charge the hardcore sports fans enough through different streaming packages and other content bundles to compensate for all the lost revenue? I don't think they can. I think most sports fan tend to have casual, regional interests and are not going to pay a lot for individual sports packages.

_________________
Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Sure they can. Keep in mind they also get to sell advertising, and they still can sell a limited number of games. The BTN did exactly this to ESPN and it worked out brilliantly for the smaller scope of operations they have than a national professional sports league.

As I pointed out before, this is pretty much exactly what Disney is doing with their own distribution network. No reason that if the networks/cable channels drop out that the leagues can't do it.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!