OT:NFL Chief Media and Business Officer says Sunday Ticket is "Ripe for Innovation"

[Hyped]

1.) Rural America isn't the reason why they have the Sunday Ticket. Those people are a captured audience. They have Sunday Ticket for the burbs and cities where people have choices and Sunday Ticket will make them more attractive than cable. And with the new infrastructure bill, much of rural America will get broadband internet which would make DirecTV obsolete.

2.) DirecTV absolutely has the streaming rights. And do actually offer the streaming service to people who live at addresses (mostly apartment buildings) where they cannot install a dish to get the satellite service.

3.) DirecTV's Sunday Ticket rights are up after this season and the NFL wants sell the streaming rights to a major provider not DirecTV. DirecTV intends to renew the rights to the broadcast version of Sunday Ticket.

4.) The NFL has already said they are interested in making the service as you say where you can pay to follow only one team the entire year. That is what the NBA and MLB do with their streaming services and they find it generates more revenue for the service. So it will happen.

1.) Rural America isn't the reason why they have the Sunday Ticket. Those people are a captured audience. They have Sunday Ticket for the burbs and cities where people have choices and Sunday Ticket will make them more attractive than cable. And with the new infrastructure bill, much of rural America will get broadband internet which would make DirecTV obsolete.

2.) DirecTV absolutely has the streaming rights. And do actually offer the streaming service to people who live at addresses (mostly apartment buildings) where they cannot install a dish to get the satellite service.

3.) DirecTV's Sunday Ticket rights are up after this season and the NFL wants sell the streaming rights to a major provider not DirecTV. DirecTV intends to renew the rights to the broadcast version of Sunday Ticket.

4.) The NFL has already said they are interested in making the service as you say where you can pay to follow only one team the entire year. That is what the NBA and MLB do with their streaming services and they find it generates more revenue for the service. So it will happen.

1.) Infrastructure won't bring broadband to remote areas within five years if ever....and DTV is most likely to buy Dish

2.) ST streaming is only made available on a separate app and for people who cannot get a dish mounted physically. Select markets allow the app now, but otherwise you can't get ST on "DTV Streaming" nor "Att TV" or whatever it is called.

3.) DTV still has the rights thru the 2022 season.

4.) I have absolutely no faith in the NFL making ANY kind of bundle that is cheap....and don't care. For me its about ditching the physical dish.

 

[Hyped]

Every sports bar I have been in in recent years has wifi
And given the power boost to wifi in recent years.......
I can't imagine a sports bar transition from satellite to streaming would be all that complicated or expensive.
I would also hope the NFL chooses to be all-inclusive with its next Sunday Ticket delivery selections: Dish, Cable, & Streaming.
Leveraging consumers into unwanted choices is bullshyte

But then again, leverage is their forte.......... $14 beers. $50 parking, $5 cups of tap water, & Thursday Night Football

Satellite signal is more reliable than wifi in good weather like out here in CA. And it is dedicated to sending data downstream whereas wifi can be overloaded by multiple devices and up/down streams of data....but they could do a closed wifi network and program all smart TV's to show games...not sure.

out here in CA, we have multiple fans....even Ram/Raider fans aren't that ROOTED into their teams and Charger fans hate the Owner...so you get a lot of fans in bars here from all over.... and been watching games in bars for 25ish years out here...they have it all set up with DTV receivers, remotes, and etc... on game days. Will be kinda hard to phase out....

 

[PScottman]

Whoever pays for the rights for the streaming of Sunday Ticket are going to use it to get new subscribers for their streaming services. If you think that this is going to be a stand alone product that people can subscribe just to that, forget it. It isn't going to happen

Moreover, the infrastructure usage rights contribute to the collusion - hence why DTV has to have the "no streaming unless no dish" because they had to use other companies infrastructure to move the electrons to every end user device.

The "new company brings new model to the table" (how DTV came into being in the first place) that could be structured around single team selection, full on-demand streaming, or "fan friendly" is impossible for that reason unless that company has a new delivery method that doesn't require reliance on other companies to execute said delivery - and even then because NFL is already in bed with the other mega-corps (Disney, Universal, Time/Warner) said solution would still have to kneel before Zod - fans be damned.

 

[FreeTedWilliams]

I had Direct TV for years and loved it compared to Comcast.

A divorce, three moves to and from DC, a new wife and house now has me back with Comcast.

the original Sunday ticket was amazing with its own version of redzone, the octobox, and then condensed versions of each game loading Sunday night.

I haven’t seen Sunday ticket for a while, I’m pretty sure the condensed games are gone.

if it was available via cable I would buy it. I really wish I could get Fios at my house, I can’t tell you how much I hate Comcast.

For the last few years I’ve been in apartments or hotels so I’ve gotten quite adept at “finding” the Pats games in the interwebs. I’m usually at least a few minutes behind the Game Day thread so I try to duck in only in commercials.
But I agree, without Sunday ticket, Direct TV is dead.

 

[Fubby]

I’ve lived outside Mass for the last 15 years. Super frustrated with the NFLs approach to all this. Give me a way to purchase a streaming package for only Patriots games. You do that, I’ll pay for it (and assume many other fans living outside their favorite teams geographic area will too). Anything other than that where I’m paying for a bunch of other **** I don’t want or need, then I’m not interested.

 

[Bill Lee]

Whoever pays for the rights for the streaming of Sunday Ticket are going to use it to get new subscribers for their streaming services. If you think that this is going to be a stand alone product that people can subscribe just to that, forget it. It isn't going to happen. The price to get the rights is far too high unless you want to be like $1-2k every year to get Sunday Ticket as a stand alone product.

The DirectTV satellite deal was set up the way it was set up to avoid stepping on the toes of the dominant providers of the day, cable TV and broadcast TV. It made no sense for NFL to weaken those providers in any way. Now, those players are far less important than they were in the old days. A lot of media consolidation means the major media outlets have plays in some or all the platforms. Despite what AT&T was thinking they could do with the property, DTV has remained a fringe player.

The DirectTV streaming deal was set up in the early days of streaming when there were many different directions the market could have gone. Now we have smart TVs with apps that can be controlled by the content providers. The customers are now paying for their own equipment and their own bandwidth. So much money to be made by the NFL in this environment. It's there for the taking.

As you suggest, whatever the new streaming deal is, will be set up to extract the most possible money for the NFL. That definitely is not a world where you pay just one price for one product with your favorite team. They already have separate deals for Sunday (times two), Monday and Thursday. Merging all that into one streaming package will not make the most money for NFL.

I don't have a good handle on how they can give broad streaming rights to just one player without really undermining the value of the media deals that were just signed. It'll be interesting to see what the offering ends up looking like. I can imagine NFL is doing all kinds of simulations to try to figure out what deal makes the most money for themselves.

 

[Rob0729]

The DirectTV satellite deal was set up the way it was set up to avoid stepping on the toes of the dominant providers of the day, cable TV and broadcast TV. It made no sense for NFL to weaken those providers in any way. Now, those players are far less important than they were in the old days. A lot of media consolidation means the major media outlets have plays in some or all the platforms. Despite what AT&T was thinking they could do with the property, DTV has remained a fringe player.

The DirectTV streaming deal was set up in the early days of streaming when there were many different directions the market could have gone. Now we have smart TVs with apps that can be controlled by the content providers. The customers are now paying for their own equipment and their own bandwidth. So much money to be made by the NFL in this environment. It's there for the taking.

As you suggest, whatever the new streaming deal is, will be set up to extract the most possible money for the NFL. That definitely is not a world where you pay just one price for one product with your favorite team. They already have separate deals for Sunday (times two), Monday and Thursday. Merging all that into one streaming package will not make the most money for NFL.

I don't have a good handle on how they can give broad streaming rights to just one player without really undermining the value of the media deals that were just signed. It'll be interesting to see what the offering ends up looking like. I can imagine NFL is doing all kinds of simulations to try to figure out what deal makes the most money for themselves.

The NFL doesn't receive a dime of the subscriptions. They sell the rights and the company they sell the rights to makes the money on the subscriptions.

Where the NFL can make more money is by selling the right with that provision that allows the streaming services to allow for individual teams and by doing so could potentially increase the popularity of the NFL because people who do not live in the market of their favorite teams can

But for the networks and DirecTV, owning the rights to the NFL is a loss leader, they do not make all their money for owning the NFL rights. a large reason why the networks get it is because they can advertise all their shows on it. Fox went from a fledgling network to having shows that led the ratings because of it. They used the NFL to build the network from the distant fourth network to being on par with the other three networks.

And DirecTV gives away Sunday Ticket with new subscriptions and will practically give it way if you try to cancel to retain you as a customer. If they required Sunday Ticket to be a revenue generator based off of subscriptions, they will fold. My guess is that they did allow Sunday Ticket to be part of their streaming app, too many people would just get the service during the football season and cancel afterwards which they obviously don't want (although it might generate a lot more business).

The streaming service that Sunday Ticket will use it to get new subscriptions for their existing service. Just like Netflix will spend $100 million on a movie with big names to attract customers, Disney or Amazon will use it to get more subscriptions for Disney+ or Prime.

 

[Bill Lee]

Kind of amazing that NFL can not only get what their product can earn on its own, but also what it can earn by being an advertising hook for other stuff too. Then we need to factor in that live sports is the only real "appointment TV" left, and NFL is by far the most popular sport on TV in the USA. It's the only time the advertisers can be confident they are getting eyeballs on their products.

In my case, I watch games on DVR most of my time, and do my best to never see a single ad, but of course the broadcasters insert them every time there's any sort of pause in the game.

 

[Ian]

Interesting bit of information for those who might want Sunday Ticket but don't want the dish. It sounds like that requirement may have quietly dropped off for the remainder of this season:

The NFL Quietly Takes 'Sunday Ticket' DTC and OTT

NFLSundayTicket.tv is supposed to available only to students and apartment dwellers who can't get DirecTV satellite TV service. But the NFL seems to be marketing it to anyone and everyone

www.nexttv.com

 

[Rob0729]

Interesting bit of information for those who might want Sunday Ticket but don't want the dish. It sounds like that requirement may have quietly dropped off for the remainder of this season:

The NFL Quietly Takes 'Sunday Ticket' DTC and OTT

NFLSundayTicket.tv is supposed to available only to students and apartment dwellers who can't get DirecTV satellite TV service. But the NFL seems to be marketing it to anyone and everyone

www.nexttv.com

I tried it for shots and giggles and my address is still not eligible.

 

[fourhour]

I tried it for shots and giggles and my address is still not eligible.

I just tried as well and I'm not eligible. Perhaps it's due to my previous DTV subscription.

 

[Rob0729]

I just tried as well and I'm not eligible. Perhaps it's due to my previous DTV subscription.

My house is a brand new house on a new street only a couple of years old. So it has nothing to do with my previous DTV subscription, Maybe they had a glitch in the system or a short term promo at the time the writer of the article tried it.