Excusivity gives the NFL $2-3 billion dollars without concern over how many people subscribe. A non exclusive deal means they don't get the billions unless enough people subscribe. It is theoretically possible they cold make more money on a non exclusive deal, but they would lose the guaranteed income.
I remember when there was only one game a week on TV. Saturday's Game of the Week. That was it. One game. Two teams. The whole broadcast schedule for all of MLB. We survived somehow.
"could be allowed"? The NFL can do what they want with their content and streaming is the most likely target for them now. Apparently you haven't looked into streaming very much. A lot of services offer 4k streaming and DVR capability. If your internet connection can't handle it, then upgrade to Starlink or another service that can. This is no different than people who live in apartments or block condos where you can't put up a dish. There is no universal solution that works for everyone, but the options and ability to stream are much broader than the ability to put up a 70s technology dish on your house.
I think your situation is pretty unique. How many fans follow FOUR teams at once? I follow one, and I'm luckily in their home market. I've never been a constant ST subscriber and at the current full price on whatever service it's on, I won't sub. But the years I've gotten freebies, the ONLY time I'd watch other games with the intent on watching a FULL game is for rivals of my team late in the season. Usually if my team isn't on, I'll flip to Red Zone and watch that way. And I have a good feeling DirecTV will offer Red Zone after this season. That works for me. As for other games, I can usually watch most weeks at least 4-5 other games besides my team. There's the other home team in my area, there's the doubleheader game, there's SNF, MNF, TNF. So that's at least 5 games most weeks I can watch. Plus late in the season you get a lot of extra games. That's enough football for me. I've also put up an indoor antenna that I could potentially bring in a couple of other out of market games as I can usually pull in some stations from Philly, so that's a couple of more games. I think the NFL looks at your situation as unique and sees potential for, as @James Long says 115 milling broadband subscribers as a much larger base than the number of DirecTV subscribers. So I get that not everyone is going to be happy.
How do you think a crappy team as the Cubs have so many fans? Cable tv gave them day baseball, all games,and far more losing teams than winning ones!I remember when there was only one game a week on TV. Saturday's Game of the Week. That was it. One game. Two teams. The whole broadcast schedule for all of MLB. We survived somehow.
Well put. There's also this. DirecTV is moving away from Satellite. I know a lot of people grumble when Is say this, because they fear that their service will go away, but, look at the handwriting on the wall. At least where I live, I haven't seen an ad for Sat TV in years. We used to get a lot of ads for DirecTV and Dish, and especially DirecTV at this time of year with ST as the bumper. The only ads I see now from DirecTV is for Stream. That's what they see as their future. Satellite will probably be available in rural areas for awhile, but is that enough for them to invest Billions in new birds, new equipment (and there hasn't been new equipment either in MANY years), and so forth? No. And eventually when 5G tech proliferates and streaming improves (remember where it was 10 years ago when people complained about constant buffering, even on the BEST of systems?), even rural areas will be fine. So by jettisoning ST, they save billions on a dying system. It makes business sense. If their goal was to keep satellite going, then it would definitely have been worth it for them to put in a bid for ST.
They've always had a ton of fans throughout the Midwest, and certainly the Braves can claim the same thing. But we are talking what, at LEAST 20 years now since the "superstation" model morphed into just another cable channel, without any games. That ship has sailed, and games can be had many other different (and lucrative) ways. Besides, it really was never fair to local teams that those games were on, which is why they fought for years to have those games removed or at least blacked out. If you're the Diamonbacks, how would you feel about having Cubs or Braves games competing for your eyeballs, and without any type of extra fee either as they were on basic cable.
We switched from Dish to DirecTV around 2003 to receive Dallas Cowboys games in KC from Sunday Ticket ( $299/season around 2019). Over the years, the local KC TV stations (usually Fox) opted to show the Cowboys games, anyway. Plus, the Cowboys have 5-6 nationally televised games per year. So, Sunday Ticket provided MAYBE 2-3 games per season that we couldn't watch, anyway. Finally, we ended Sunday Ticket and ordered NFL Game Pass from NFL for $99/season. We can't see those missing games live, but we can watch them about 30 minutes after they end live, so that's not bad (although I do everything possible to avoid knowing the score!). My point is to show at least one reason why Sunday Ticket may not be the best option, whether on DirecTV, streaming or other service.
There are a couple of really big reasons for the NFL to part ways with DIRECTV:
I'm betting that the NFL doesn't want to change their market rules to match those of other leagues. Why do you think they'll cave?
I'm not saying they'll cave. What I AM saying is that streamers have been working with leagues to provide whatever blackout rules they want. I see no reason why a streaming service can't work with the NFL (and the networks) to honor whatever system they want to use. Folks in here act like none of this has been discussed by the league, the services and the networks, but I'd bet it's ALL been discussed, and I'm sure those were part of the what their bids had to include. Lots of folks think that DirecTV is the only capable way of presenting ST, which is completely false, selfish and nearsighted. Are there going to be difference between how it's handled? Certainly, many laid out here, some valid points. I'll bet there could be improvements as well as compromises. The delayed in-game viewing to me might be the biggest adjustment for viewers, as I'd almost be willing to bet that the ability to watch delayed and skip commercials might no longer be possible (or perhaps possible AFTER the games are over....for an additional fee).
That is true. I flip back and forth, sometimes dvr as well. Wonder how that will work with streaming. Never streamed a game before.
How do you think the owners pay those ridiculous player contracts? $100 million for throwing a football times hundreds of players. Look for lots more timeouts for commercials.
Great. Now your going to crash the internet in September cause you told everyone here about thisJust one guy who's been watching NFL Sunday Ticket only via streaming for the past 4-5 seasons. I don't know how many of you know this, but if you're a subscriber to Sunday Ticket, you have access to the NFL Sunday Ticket streaming app. I'd encourage you to give it a try this fall. Multiview functionality (you can set up 2, 3 or 4 games to view at once on your screen, including Red Zone and/or Fantasy Zone channels), access to Short Cuts and full game re-broadcasts (without commercials!), and you can even plug in your fantasy football team for updates (for those on NFL.com leagues.)
It's not all that bad.
Streaming isn't just the future, it is the now. In reality, when DTV moved to MP4 digital receivers in the mid-2000s they really became nothing more than streaming devices that have their own dedicated satellite network connection (not to be confused with an internet connection). DTV isn't broadcasting TV signals, they are broadcasting data streams. Yes, this does work completely different than an AppleTV that is dependent on an IP network and there is an independent stream to each device, but the data they are carrying is not very much different.
A number of news sources have reported that DirecTV is interested in cutting a deal with the winning bidder to retain satellite rights. Nobody knows for sure if it will happen. I'm not worried in the least about losing access, since I have Gb fiber service with AT&T. Wherever it ends up, I will have it. The concern I have is whether I'll have the same ability to watch multiple games and time-shift them as needed. It's certainly possible that functionality could be offered. It's also possible that it will be like most of the sports streaming apps that are out there now, where you can only watch one game at a time.
Same here - I follow one in-market team and two out-of market teams, and my wife follows a third out-of market team. I often watch 5 or 6 different games on a Sunday.
