[B. Shoe]

Only 10% of DirecTV's customers ever paid for ST.
Die hard football fans had 20+ years to figure a way to get DirecTV and subscribe. And either did or lived without it.
Cable customers have been happy to either buy or live without NFL RZ.
Over 40% of this season's 272 games were available without ST.

So, with all that......

Is John Ourand right?

John Ourand: Only Winners in YouTube TV-Sunday Ticket Deal Are NFL, Companies Who Didn't Get Rights

NFL fans across the country rejoiced when it was announced that Alphabet Inc. had acquired the rights to the league’s out-of-market games package NFL Sunday Ticket to put on YouTube TV. The league was deep into …

thestreamable.com

The value in the package in the Sunday Ticket package doesn't come from the number of available games. Regardless of the amount of games available during any Sunday window, the value comes from being able to flip to any other available contest. For example, I live in an area where locals stations regularly broadcasted the not-so-glory days of the Kansas City Chiefs, the death bed years of the St. Louis Rams and the always-wishing-it-was-1985 Chicago Bears. The current iteration of the Chiefs is obviously a different story. But, back then, some Sunday afternoons couldn't end soon enough.

With NFLST, even if there's one other game that's competitive/exciting, it's available. Is it nice to have several games available? Of course. And as it is well documented, a 'cost per game' value with NFLST isn't the same as it was years ago. But it's luxury viewing, and like some items labeled/promoted as a luxury, they're sometimes overpriced. But the value for a consumer isn't always measured in quantity.

Just like you said, you prioritize a way to get it, or live without it, dependent upon its value to you.

 

[Steveknj]

The value in the package in the Sunday Ticket package doesn't come from the number of available games. Regardless of the amount of games available during any Sunday window, the value comes from being able to flip to any other available contest. For example, I live in an area where locals stations regularly broadcasted the not-so-glory days of the Kansas City Chiefs, the death bed years of the St. Louis Rams and the always-wishing-it-was-1985 Chicago Bears. The current iteration of the Chiefs is obviously a different story. But, back then, some Sunday afternoons couldn't end soon enough.

With NFLST, even if there's one other game that's competitive/exciting, it's available. Is it nice to have several games available? Of course. And as it is well documented, a 'cost per game' value with NFLST isn't the same as it was years ago. But it's luxury viewing, and like some items labeled/promoted as a luxury, they're sometimes overpriced. But the value for a consumer isn't always measured in quantity.

Just like you said, you prioritize a way to get it, or live without it, dependent upon its value to you.

I think we all have different use cases. For some the value comes from the ability to see the games of a team they root for that's not local. For others the value comes from the ability to switch between games to watch their fantasy players or teams they are betting on. And still others like the ability to switch among many games. To me, it's the third option where the value is less than it used to be, because the number of games to flip through has decreased due to the number of national games that are available now. For me, I root for a local team, so I get all 17 games, I don't gamble on sports, so there's no value in that for me, so only the third option is a reason to subscribe. And since I don't care enough to watch any of those other games on a Sunday afternoon, I won't be subscribing, just like I didn't with DirecTV, unless they comped it to me, like this season. I DO like Red Zone and I might sub to that if DirecTV offers it at a reasonable price. But more than $10 a month would probably be too much for me.

 

[wmb]

Just AS saying "I'll see you some other day".

Couldn’t help thinking of this…

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[James Long]

Exactly. Directv used it as a way to get more subs but that ability was quite limited. Additionally, if you go back to the beginning, there were at most 3 games available locally on Sunday and one on Monday night. The rest were on Sunday Ticket.

Now? You could have five games on Sunday, one or two on Monday nights and another on Thursday. Who knows what they'll try to bundle this with.

The minimum number of NFL ST eligible games for any given Sunday in the 2022 season was 9. (The average was 11.)

November 6th had six teams on a bye week (three games not played) and CBS aired their late game nationally. The other three games played week 9 were TNF, SNF and MNF. Christmas Eve also had 9 NFL ST games due to a national broadcast on NFL Network, Fox aired their late game nationally and three games were aired nationally on Christmas day.

There were four weeks with 10 games carried on NFL ST (three of them were bye weeks). The maximum number of games carried on NFL ST on any given Sunday was 13. Of the 220 games not on TNF, SNF or MNF 202 were part of NFL ST. 146 of those games were not available to non NFL ST subscribers (each market got 56 of those games over broadcast TV).

So going back to the "beginning" when there were only three Sunday games on broadcast ... how many games were on NFL ST? ("All the rest" is not a number.)

Going back to 2007 there were four Sunday games ... the same as in 2022. CBS and FOX with three games a week in each market plus Sunday Night Football. In 2007 there were 208 games played on Sunday that were able to be carried on NFL ST. Each market got 52 of those games over broadcast TV. Leaving 156 games on NFL ST in each market after blackouts.

10 less games per year - averaging less than one game a week.

 

[Grafixguy]

10 less games per year - averaging less than one game a week.

That is very fuzzy math. In the beginning (hmmm) there was no Thursday football, there was no Sunday night football and there were more restrictions on the local broadcasts on Sunday afternoon. One network got a double header and the other got one game. If the local team was home (and sold out) that game had to be shown and each network got one game only. In some markets such as NY, you only got one game on each most weeks because either the Giants or Jets were home (side note: they both sucked). There were no "bye weeks," no Sunday night games, no Thursdays.

Fast forward to now. There could quite literally be five Sunday games televised (though four is the norm).

10 games a year? Sorry, but that's just flat-out wrong.

 

[James Long]

Sunday Night Football began in 1987 - long before there was a NFL ST (or a DIRECTV).
(NBC took over the contract in 2006.)
The NFL has had regular bye weeks since 1990 - years before DIRECTV was launched and NFL ST was created.

Feel free to pick a year when NFL ST existed and there was no Sunday Night Football and we'll look at the numbers. Otherwise, you're the one who is "flat out wrong".

 

[B. Shoe]

Yearly Analysis of SundayTicket Value

Below is the 2022 Analysis for NFL SundayTicket Value.

With the inclusion this year of International games and Christmas games, this year's schedule has inched up to providing 49% of the games without SundayTicket.

But this year is further complicated with PrimeVideo providing exclusive presentation of 15 Thursday Night Football games - requiring a monthly fee for a PrimeVideo subscription.

So accounting for subscriptions to PrimeVideo along with SundayTicket, only 43% of this year's games are actually available free.

The cost is over 50% higher per game for the PrimeVideo games than for the SundayTicket games.

see the Excel Analysis here

Guys, @Gary Toma does a breakdown of this every year shortly after the schedule is released. This link will give you a general guide back to 2011.

 

[glrush]

Looks like the end of NFLST on DirecTV is happening at the same time as a pretty big layoff.
DirecTV lays off hundreds of managers as cord cutting accelerates (cnbc.com)

 

[b4pjoe]

Looks like the end of NFLST on DirecTV is happening at the same time as a pretty big layoff.
DirecTV lays off hundreds of managers as cord cutting accelerates (cnbc.com)

Managers make up about half of DirecTV’s fewer than 10,000 employees

WOW! Half of their employees are managers.

 

[harsh]

Looks like the end of NFLST on DirecTV is happening at the same time as a pretty big layoff.

I don't think it is reasonable to associate the loss of NFLST with the layoffs. They're only beginning (this week?) to see the defections resulting from the loss of NFLST.

DIRECTV has been bleeding subscribers pretty badly for several years now and a house-cleaning is perhaps long overdue.

 

[harsh]

WOW! Half of their employees are managers.

One manager for every four to six underlings isn't unusual in an office environment.

When you drill down, there's a lot of managers managing managers not to mention any assistant managers.

Remember that DIRECTV doesn't manufacture anything and they contract out a lot of the hands-on stuff (software, installs, service, etc.).

 

[JoeTheDragon]

WOW! Half of their employees are managers.

And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it.

 

[Grafixguy]

Sunday Night Football began in 1987 - long before there was a NFL ST (or a DIRECTV).
(NBC took over the contract in 2006.)
The NFL has had regular bye weeks since 1990 - years before DIRECTV was launched and NFL ST was created.

Feel free to pick a year when NFL ST existed and there was no Sunday Night Football and we'll look at the numbers. Otherwise, you're the one who is "flat out wrong".

I stand corrected on the Sunday night games...my apologies for the strong language there. But again, there are more Sunday afternoon games being televised locally now. We've gone from two many weeks to four on many weeks (this is going to vary according to local teams and where they are playing).

In any event, I think we can agree that it will be interesting to see how Google markets this; how much they charge; and ultimately how many people subscribe.

 

[B. Shoe]

And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now. So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it.

You receive +20 points for a well-placed "Office Space" reference.

 

[the2130]

I stand corrected on the Sunday night games...my apologies for the strong language there. But again, there are more Sunday afternoon games being televised locally now. We've gone from two many weeks to four on many weeks (this is going to vary according to local teams and where they are playing).

In any event, I think we can agree that it will be interesting to see how Google markets this; how much they charge; and ultimately how many people subscribe.

There are only two weeks of the season when both Fox and CBS have doubleheader coverage. In all other weeks, there are three local telecasts on Sunday afternoon - one network has single coverage and the other has the doubleheader. You can verify that from the 506 coverage maps. If you look at week 18, when both networks had doubleheader coverage in addition to two Saturday games and the Sunday night game, there were still nine games available to watch on NFLST. There are always plenty of games that can only be viewed on NFLST, which is why people subscribe to it.

 

[James Long]

But again, there are more Sunday afternoon games being televised locally now. We've gone from two many weeks to four on many weeks (this is going to vary according to local teams and where they are playing).

Four including Sunday night. Five on Sunday two weeks per year (including Sunday night). There are more games being played than years ago (which is why the Sunday Ticket count remains close to 15 years ago).

Back in the day you might have missed one of the three afternoon games due to a blackout protecting the in market team. Having only one afternoon game would be rare. Were the missing game on Sunday Ticket? If the blackout was due to protecting an in market team's broadcast one would probably get the out of market game. But if the blackout was to protect ticket sales would that game not be on Sunday Ticket?

 

[harsh]

But if the blackout was to protect ticket sales would that game not be on Sunday Ticket?

The presumption is that those who don't live in the market aren't on the fence about buying tickets to the game.

 

[James Long]

What I was referring to was the old blackout rule that prevented carrying a game in market if it was not sold out. So (for example) if Texas was playing in Detroit people in the Detroit TV market would not be able to see that game on OTA TV unless it was sold out. If the game was sold out it would be on TV in Detroit and the other channel would not be able to air a game at the same time (protecting the in market broadcast).

NFL ST does not protect the locally broadcast game. They can air as many out of market games as there are available while a local OTA broadcaster is airing an in market game.

My question ("back in the day") was if a game was blacked out from local TV due to not being sold out would it air on NFL ST in that market? I think not.

 

[the2130]

My question ("back in the day") was if a game was blacked out from local TV due to not being sold out would it air on NFL ST in that market? I think not.

If a game was blacked out on local TV due to not being sold out, it was also blacked out on NFLST.

 

[harsh]

My question ("back in the day") was if a game was blacked out from local TV due to not being sold out would it air on NFL ST in that market?

NFLST was, and will probably remain for the foreseeable future, an out-of-market product. It doesn't seem reasonable to speculate that it might carry a local game under any circumstances, much less one that was blacked out.