ESPN, FOX, Warner Bros to launch standalone streaming app

[Mugsy's Jock]

Per John Ourand’s (great) new Puck column, the NFL is PISSED that ESPN/FOX/Warner launched the new sports streamer without giving them a proper heads up, and have unleashed a flock of lawyers to comb their contracts to see if any commas are misplaced.

Ourand further breaks the news tha5 Amazon will get a streaming-only playoff game next season.

 

[TomRicardo]

MLB is not bigger than the NFL or NBA, though. A league will only air games itself if it can’t sell those rights for a lot more.

NFL sells the rights to its 280 odd games for like $11bn a year. So that’s roughly $39M per game it gets paid by those who licenses its games too. Every game they air on their own foregoes significant revenue that they can’t make up.l with affiliate fees or ads. They will continue to air a handful of games a year to justify whatever affiliate fees they get from cable providers but generally it’s the 930 AM games for Germany.

(Actually, the rights fee per game estimate is also too low since it should really be calculated based on the # windows . Many of FOX or CBS Sunday afternoon windows are more like 5-6 games at once).

No no no, I am talking about the organization that runs the league, not the league itself. MLB, not the teams in the league, has a larger organization than all the other sports leagues. There are more employees of MLB proper (including Advanced Media) than an NFL.

It is up to the owners how the parent organization is run. MLB is a far bigger cooperative than the NFL or NBA which is weird because NFL and NBA get way more league wide money in TV revenue as you point out. MLBAM is pretty big and it would be hard for another one of the Sports Leagues to set it up at this point.

Edit - Most likely MLBAM is helping with the creation of the back end infrastructure of this Sports Network if not building it completely.

 

[The Social Chair]

 

[canderson]

More with hockey than baseball now? Yikes mlb is far worse than I thought.

 

[Red(s)HawksFan]

More with hockey than baseball now? Yikes mlb is far worse than I thought.

When there are twice as many games in MLB as NHL, is it really a surprise that the average viewers per game is a bit lower for MLB?

 

[8slim]

That chart also only includes nationally telecast games. As we all know, the vast majority of MLB games air on RSNs.

 

[8slim]

No no no, I am talking about the organization that runs the league, not the league itself. MLB, not the teams in the league, has a larger organization than all the other sports leagues. There are more employees of MLB proper (including Advanced Media) than an NFL.

It is up to the owners how the parent organization is run. MLB is a far bigger cooperative than the NFL or NBA which is weird because NFL and NBA get way more league wide money in TV revenue as you point out. MLBAM is pretty big and it would be hard for another one of the Sports Leagues to set it up at this point.

Edit - Most likely MLBAM is helping with the creation of the back end infrastructure of this Sports Network if not building it completely.

FWIW, MLBAM was sold to Disney a number of years ago.

 

[TomRicardo]

FWIW, MLBAM was sold to Disney a number of years ago.

Disney bought BAMTech from MLBAM, not MLBAM itself. BAMTech is what Disney+ runs on.

 

[8slim]

Disney bought BAMTech from MLBAM, not MLBAM itself. BAMTech is what Disney+ runs on.

Oh I’m quite familiar. I worked with the BAM crew when they landed at Disney.

*edit* I should have been more precise, but was just making the general point that the guts of MLB’s streaming operation doesn’t live within MLB anymore. Obviously they have a lot of developers still there to work on MLB.com.

 

[TomRicardo]

Oh I’m quite familiar. I worked with the BAM crew when they landed at Disney.

*edit* I should have been more precise, but was just making the general point that the guts of MLB’s streaming operation doesn’t live within MLB anymore. Obviously they have a lot of developers still there to work on MLB.com.

The Chelsea Market crew is at Disney but they still maintain streaming MLB app out of Sixth Avenue.

 

[Time to Mo Vaughn]

In addition to the fact that each year these all cost more and more, the thing I hate most about sports moving off of cable is the inability to DVR and fast forward. Most of the services make games available later, but some are a full 24 hours later. If you want to start halfway through, you often need to either jump to live or "catch up via key plays". A lot of my sports watching is off a DVR and skipping through all commercials. Even when I'm free, I'll wait an hour into a game starting so I can do that. Streaming services prevent the ability to skip ads.

 

[scott bankheadcase]

The Chelsea Market crew is at Disney but they still maintain streaming MLB app out of Sixth Avenue.

So... I have very close knowledge to how the NBA does all the streaming. And they absolutely have the infrastructure setup to go direct if they want to. They've made huge capital investment taking all the infrastructure back from Turner and microsoft set most of it up for them.

The part the NBA isn't setup for is the actual broadcast, that's always been handles by the RSNs and national partners. Also, there's a lot less money in it right now. That might have be what you mean by maintaining it.

 

[TomRicardo]

So... I have very close knowledge to how the NBA does all the streaming. And they absolutely have the infrastructure setup to go direct if they want to. They've made huge capital investment taking all the infrastructure back from Turner and microsoft set most of it up for them.

The part the NBA isn't setup for is the actual broadcast, that's always been handles by the RSNs and national partners. Also, there's a lot less money in it right now. That might have be what you mean by maintaining it.

Yea, I haven't been involved since they initially started trying to put that together with Microsoft. Beyond the infrastructure they haven't built much of a team around it.

 

[Ale Xander]

fubo is suing to block

https://www.wsj.com/business/media/fubotv-sues-to-block-espn-warner-and-fox-sports-streaming-service-b117e173

 

[Patriot_Reign]

Not really related to this thread directly but randomly logged on to our Amazon Prime video account a couple hours ago and got hit with a notification that if we wanted to continue to watch their content ad free it'd come with a $2.99 subscription going forward. We cut the cord last year but have several streaming services and man I am so fucking over all of it.

 

[chrisfont9]

Let's say you are a Boston sports fan but are living in St. Louis. Wouldn't you have to pay for several services, or is there one package where you can see the Sox, B's, C's, and Pats?

Well, I'm in Seattle and I am paying for numerous services. Local cable does next to nothing for me, so while I have that, I am ready to dump it and go back to our previous system of getting around cable. This ESPN/FOX/TNT thing sounds cool to me because I have bailed on paying for each of them individually... because we have cable. These are probably the only three "channels" I watch on cable. If this unified service happens, I am 100% out on cable, for good.

 

[ifmanis5]

This idea is now on hold.
View: https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1824559949264953748

Breaking News: A judge has temporarily blocked Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery from launching a joint sports-focused streaming service.