The NBA is a great example of how individual consumers are not their customer. You want to pay money to watch NBA games, but you can't. The owners want money through ticket sales, so if you live in the "home market", you don't get to watch the game on TV. But, the owners also want money from TV deals. But they don't want your $20 to watch the game on TV, they want ABC's $3 billion (or whatever) for the right to charge you whatever ("watch these ads") to see the game. So there is no actual incentive to give you what you want; there is only incentive to sell games to networks at as high a price as possible. (Also, sell advertising, and modify the game's rules to ensure that there is extra advertising at the 7 minute and 3 minute mark.)
Basically, at one end of the equation is some dudes passing a ball around. At the other end of the equation, is you watching that. In the middle, of course, there are the middlemen, and they all want a huge cut for doing absolutely nothing. Anti-piracy legislation is all about protecting the middlemen who realize that they do nothing and they need the government to bail them out.
>Anti-piracy legislation is all about protecting the middlemen who realize that they do nothing and they need the government to bail them out.
Beautifully said. That, my fellow hackers, is copyright and anti-piracy legislation in a nutshell - to serve and protect that which provides no value at the cost of depriving everyone else of their rights.
To slightly derive from a well known quote[1] from Henry Ford: If people understood this simple fact about copyright, it would be dead and forgotten before tomorrow morning.
[1] "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."
and they all want a huge cut for doing absolutely nothing
That's silly. Acquisition and broadcast systems do not run themselves. I think the whole sports business model is exploitative and stupid, but hyperbole like the above doesn't help. Market segmentation is a time-honored business practice, but I get the sense that if the FTC forced the teams/broadcasters to adopt an open-access content model then people would be howling about government interference with private enterprise.
I paid NBA.com for their "broadband/league pass" package once. Never again.
Literally 50% of the games during the first and only week that I tried it were blacked out. I called them up and they refunded me immediately, they knew it was a crap deal.
Now I have resorted to using sites like chanfeed.com and myp2p.pe - the quality lags a bit, but I can get any and every game, for free, all on one screen. No blackouts, ever.
It's time for the NBA to get with the game.
Notice how I started out this comment by saying "I paid..."
You aren't alone, at least myself and three other Canadians I know have bought that or a similar package in the last two years and received refunds after finding out how useless the packages were.
We travel a lot for business and would like to watch games whenever we can, either live or tape-delayed. The restrictions, not just at home in Ontario, but elsewhere have meant the packages are close to useless. A horrible way to drive away fans looking to spend on what could be a quality product. The damn strike/lock-out hasn't help either.
I know the volume may not currently be there for it to be hugely profitable, but if the leagues keep playing wack-a-mole with the p2p feeds, the volume and habit may never develop for there to be a new alternative distribution model for what could be a very profitable distribution channel for the sports leagues.
> You want to pay money to watch NBA games, but you can't.
This is what frustrates the shit out of me about EVERYTHING related to TV/Cable. I HAVE MONEY THAT I WANT TO GIVE YOU FOR A GREAT PRODUCT. I know I'm not the only one. WE have money we want to fork over, PLEASE take it. You know it just blows my mind. Everything I've ever heard about capitalism/business/economics/etc. that if there is demand, someone is supposed to step in and provide. Why is it taking SO long for this to happen in this particular space?
Slight rant, I know, but goddamn does it make my blood boil thinking about this stuff.
The system is reasonably efficient at delivering the product (you) to the customer (advertisers). The programming and options needs to be just good enough to keep you away from Netflix and TPB.
In the middle, of course, there are the middlemen, and they all want a huge cut for doing absolutely nothing.
Yes, because all of that cable and fiber that was run around the city so that you could watch "some dudes passing a ball around" while you are sitting at home didn't cost anything. Or the cameras that record it, or the directors that choose the best angles, or the commentators, etc...
This is a big game a chicken between MSG and Time Warner, and unfortunately the viewer is just an indirect participant. It happens all the time. It's not about middlemen... this is about content producers vs. content distributors. Earlier this year, there was a spat between Fox and DirecTV that got signed just before the deadline. Hell, there was/is a problem with the Indianapolis NBC affiliate and the local cable company.
I'm from the Indy region. The cable company is Bright House Networks and the channel is the local NBC affiliate.
Since they have news shows locally, they have been regularly calling brighthouse customers to call up and complain that they don't take the NBC deal. It's rather slimy, but it's worked for the last 6 years the channel has done that.
I think you're pretty much spot-on here. The one thing I would add is that while everyone is talking about the cable/media companies' business models being obsolete, we could also make the same argument for the team owners. That is, when I have a 50" big screen and digital theater sound at home, and can buy a 6-pack of beer for $8 rather than a single beer, I'm much more likely to watch the game at home for (ostensibly) free, rather than pay $30 or more for a single ticket.
The atmosphere and ambiance of a live sporting event still trumps the home theater experience, but as technology improves, and ticket and concession prices rise, that gap narrows. The reflexive response to protecting ticket revenue since broadcasts of sporting events began has been the blackout. As technology improves, and technical know-how is more widely disseminated, blackouts are becoming less and less effective, as more and more people understand how to get around them.
I'm kind of frustrated that I can't go to a game and get as good a media experience as at home. Why can't I go to a game and get the announcer's live feed on my smartphone? Why can't I get replays on my own display?
You're right in that there is value in the atmosphere and excitement of a live game, but surely the price of admission could include more than a seat.
There are some that provide exactly what you're asking for. At&t park (whichever baseball team they have, I can't remember) has what they call the Digital Dugout which has instant replays, including ones that can't be shown on the big screens due to MLB rules. It's only accessible from the network in the park, but supports a multitude of smartphones. For the 2011 superbowl, the cowboys stadium had an iPad app with everything from maps to player bios to live scores to replays to a live view of different cameras.
A lot of the teams/stadiums know what's wanted, but the number of companies that can set up a WiFi network that works well under the worst possible conditions is significantly lower than the number of companies offering it. And the good ones get bought by megacorp and turned into one that can't.
Awesome! I figured the major problems would be the difficulties with infrastructure, but also renegotiating broadcast contracts, as announcers are employees of broadcasters, not venues.
It reminds me of the older guys at the ballpark that wore those radio headsets for play by play. Glad to see progress is being made, however slowly.
MLB has an app (iPhone and Android, AFAIK), that features video replays of significant plays (essentially the highlights that the MLB puts up on the game recap page on their site) and streaming audio (and video, for additional money).
There's special features for when you're actually at the ballpark, but I've never used them.
>But they don't want your $20 to watch the game on TV, they want ABC's $3 billion (or whatever) for the right to charge you whatever ("watch these ads") to see the game.
I had to look this up, but it appears that the price per year for NBA television rights was well under $1 billion/year(http://www.insidehoops.com/nba-tv-contracts.shtml). From 2002 to 2007, TNT paid about 2.2 billion in total. ESPN/ABC paid around 2.4 billion for the same time period. Per year, that's around $300 million each. Even assuming a 50% increase in cost, that comes out to around $450 million/year per network for 2012.
The biggest irony is that the NBA could be making an absolutely insane amount of money selling directly to the consumer. At $30 per month for a 6 month season, all they need to do is sell around 5 million total subscriptions to equal the net income from the television contracts. I'm positive that the NBA could get those kinds of numbers, especially with European or Chinese basketball fans who might not be able to see the games any other way.
All the NBA needs to do is actually make the service work, and provide the games that are already being televised.
They already are. NBA League Pass Broadband and Mobile deliver their games in HD and work quite well. Their sitting on the tech and I can only assume that they are preparing for the day when they can kick the networks to the curb.
Basically, at one end of the equation is some dudes passing a ball around. At the other end of the equation, is you watching that. In the middle, of course, there are the middlemen, and they all want a huge cut for doing absolutely nothing. Anti-piracy legislation is all about protecting the middlemen who realize that they do nothing and they need the government to bail them out.