Wasn't it also reported recently that ESPN was losing subscribers on cable due to massive cord cutting? Disney is probably gearing up for life after cable and satellite TV.
Wow. Part of the plan is to stream NBA games. Question is will ESPN force you to have a cable subscription as they currently do This shedsight on Ballmer rejected a $60m offer from TV to announce he wants to stream local games Btw. OP. I'd say the title is wrong. Competition was tight so whoever. So they competition for the contract is making them trim employes and prepare for a new way of carrying games.
The TV ads and TV subscriptions for ESPN are likely worth about 10 billion annually in total. Just for the NBA they pay 2.7 billion annually. So that is quite an investment over a 10 year period banking on the fact that cable will hold their market. And yet, I haven't watched a baseball game or nba game or football game on cable in like 5 years. If all other TV goes in the same direction, woop, there it goes. So what will ESPN be banking on?
Hopefully Chris Broussard, Chris McKendry, Paul Finebaum, Chris Carter, and Dan LeBetard are laid off.
good for the consumer they are the trendsetters when it comes to price hikes in the cable industry its gonna be easier for the cable companies to negotiate prices which hopefully trickles down to us and lower cable tv pricing
You will never see lower prices in cable ever again. Did newspapers lower subscription prices as they were dying around the country?
ESPN is the only thing holding back a mass tidal wave of people cutting their cable subscriptions and switching to the internet. Live sports is incredibly valuable to advertisers. More than ever. The day ESPN allows everyone in America to watch online without a cable subscription will go down in history.
I'm not really sure that this is really the holdup. To really cut the cord with cable and dish, there are a lot of hardware considerations beyond getting a fire hd stick and going. people that have ultra hd 4k aren't going to entrust their picture quality to a ****ty streaming service, and when you add up the cost of getting REALLY what you want, cordcutters aren't getting a better deal without making huge concessions about what they really want on their tv. cable and dish STILL have a lot of value to the masses of people. Cordcutting wont really take off until the quality of the stream (re:google fiber) can match watch cable can deliver.
Does the deal mean we get more basketball games and a fourth quarter red zone type of channel? That would be sweet
Directtv already has 4k, and comcast will have it later this year. http://corporate.comcast.com/news-information/news-feed/comcast-to-launch-4k-uhd-set-top-box http://www.directv.com/technology/4k
I have sling, so even though I cut the cable, I still pay ESPN to watch their programming. I'm pumped about this because MLB streaming is WAYYYY better than League Pass. You can jump to innings when you watch the replay. You can start the replay right after the game is finished. That's way better than starting a game that ended at 11pm at 2am. Who takes 3 hours to compress video these days?
^ Regarding replay after the game: It must be a policy as opposed to a tech limitation because Ballstreams has instantaneous archiving
If you notice, most of the local NBA carriers run the game again after the live airing. Which is probably the reason.
Don't know if that was already discussed, but if everyone started cord cutting wouldn't the next step for companies like Comcast be to start charging internet based on data usage?
