DIRECTV unlikely to keep NFL Sunday Ticket

[Juan]

That will make them the last thing on traditional TV. Pretty fitting since sports were one of the first things on traditional TV.



We’ll, “cable” been dying a slow death for at the last three or four years with the subscriber losses.

Cord switching is happening, but something else is happening as well… Peacock and Paramount+ have linear channels available in their app. It’s only a matter of time before Disney/ABC/ESPN does the same. (I see Fox as ripe for takeover by Apple or Amazon if only just to get their NFL rights - it’s pretty much their only in-house content since the Disney deal). It’s looking more like streaming is becoming what a la carte was supposed to be. Linear channels with a VOD library.

It’s only a matter of time before the cord switchers drop the vMVPD in favor of the DTC product from each network.

Right now, Disney is the only one that breaks out sports separately in ESPN. But, Peacock and Paramount+ include sports as part of their service.



But who thinks TNF has been a failure? Does Amazon or the NFL see it as such? Ratings may be down, but was that unexpected? Even if they say something like the hoped rating were higher, what does that really mean? You could say that about any show. What did Amazon and the NFL envision happening during the contract? Sure, you see it as a failure, but that really doesn’t matter.

As for the NBA and NASCAR, I’d expect a money bump for the NBA, and streaming rights to someone. The NBA has been on Disney/ESPN and Warner/TNT (how does Paramount merger affect this?). I’d imagine both would like to retain the NBA and both have strong streaming platforms. Apple could come in offering an MLS style deal.

NASCAR is a bigger question mark for me. My recollection is their ratings aren’t as strong as they were. But, Formula One has a growing following. But, there is a different image there, too… European vs. good ol boy south. It may be a good play for NBC/Peacock since they currently hold some of the rights… again, strong streaming presence.

So, I’d expect both the NBA and NASCAR deals to have a strong streaming component. I wouldn’t read much into them also having a traditional TV component, too, to protect legacy access as traditional TV wanes.

You measure success by ratings because that is what drives advertising...advertising is where the profit is..not subscription fees

 

[Bruce]

You haven't proven anything about linear tv...only that it still exists on a different delivery platform...its still cable

It has been proven in every quarterly report, look it up.

All numbers are close, not accurate

YTTV has 5 Million subs
Hulu Live-4 Million
Sling-2 million
Fubo-1 million
DirecTV Stream estimated at 1.5

So, 13.5 million ( my numbers in previous post did not include Stream since it is not reported, 1.5 million is the only number I can find)

So since all of Live TV is at 68 million from a high of 100 million, that means only 54.5 million get Live TV via Traditional Providers and it still means 32 million left Live TV.

 

[meStevo]

From The Athletic, on Amazon ratings:

In reality, even with the declines, the Amazon TNF audience figures still dominate everything else on television on Thursdays, and win the key demographics that advertisers crave.​

​

And maybe just as important for the future of the NFL, the Amazon games have a median viewer age of 46, which it said is seven years younger than the average age of NFL viewers on the linear TV networks.​

​

For the season, Amazon’s TNF games are now averaging 10.3 million viewers per Nielsen Media Research data and 12.1 million with Amazon’s internal numbers baked into the total.​

​

Amazon has told advertisers to expect 12.5 million viewers per TNF game this season, and it could yet achieve or top that number. There are nine TNF games left this season, and several on paper suggest they’ll draw bigger audiences.​

​

And as for Linear distribution

The local linear TV, i.e. non-streaming, accounts for about 9 percent of the total viewership so far, Amazon said. Over the first five games, local TV has accounted for about 963,000 viewers per TNF game. That doesn’t include last week, which didn’t yet have local numbers available.​

​

The linear number is slightly lower than expected because the Dolphins-Bengals game on Sept. 29 occurred after swaths of South Florida were without power following Hurricane Ian. The Miami market’s over-the-air average for that game was just 166,000 viewers.​

​

The biggest local TV numbers so far this season came for the Oct. 13 Commanders-Bears game, which had 1.26 million linear viewership in the Chicago and Washington, D.C., markets. Chicago alone was 881,000 linear TV viewers — an upside to playing in the nation’s third-largest market.​

​

The entire Amazon-NFL deal is a function of the companies trying to navigate the rapidly changing live sports television landscape. For Amazon, it’s a toe-tip beyond its vast streaming video business into the most powerful domestic live sports property — a relatively safe bet for a company that had $470 billion in revenue last year. The online retailer is using TNF to lure new subscribers to its base of roughly 80 million U.S. Prime Video users and to market its various products and services.​

​

For the NFL, it’s a leap into what many across the industry hope is the future of live sports consumption in the near-term: a mix of linear and digital delivery of its inventory, catering to how various generations prefer to consume sports. The league debuted TNF in 2006, so it’s the safest of the NFL’s tentpole national primetime broadcasts with which to experiment with streaming near-exclusively.​

​

​

 

[SamCdbs]

This has been proven to you multiple times that you are incorrect with links and math, both here and DBSTalk.

Wrong. You, who didn’t know how the Nielsens worked relative to the NFL, just expressed an opinion. I expressed mine.

You are incorrect because you are extrapolating a new option as an inevitable trend. Let’s use an analogy to explain your mistake.

Joe has a hamburger stand. He has two flavors of milkshake, vanilla and chocolate. Then he adds strawberry. Guess what, strawberry sales are way up (from zero) and chocolate and vanilla sales are way down. Joe concludes that this trend will continue and thus, in a year all of his milkshakes will be strawberry.

Wrong. There was always a pent up demand for strawberry. Everyone who wants that, now has that. It is not a trend. It was everyone who wanted it, getting it.

You make the same mistake with streaming. You cast yourself as some sort of early adopter. And then you project that everyone will, if the trend continues, join you. It isn’t a trend, and most everybody that wants streaming only, has already gone streaming only. Basic economics. Really the difference between finding links that support the tale you want to tell, and understanding the figures there in, and opening one’s mind to the tale that the do tell.

…why pay for…

The phrase, or its partner “I saved…” found in every cord cutter argument.

I’m not out to save four cents, or four hundred dollars. I’m out to get EVERY form and type of TV there is. That includes linear TV, where all the good stuff is.

I get tons of sports…

Just not the big events. I get all the sports, except for the Pac 12, which should be fixed, but the Pac 12 is dying anyway. All.

Enjoy the MAC. BTW, looking for MNF on ESPN+, seems to be hit and miss. Not every week, like on ESPN.

Broadband is getting better for rural folks every day, was at 80% a few years ago for the whole of the United States, now at 85%.

The sun will come out, tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow, you’re always a day away.

Anyone who believes that quality internet is coming without government spending millions doesn’t ever drive across the country. Anyone who believes the government is going to spend to belt rural Americans doesn’t understand how DC works.

As far as DBS keep going as a viable business, better start a Go Fund me to build new Satellites because DirecTV/Dish are not doing it.

Wait and see. The entire system was developed just for rural America, and can be profitable just from it. But they are not going to launch new sats for a thing that works, but they are going to for an internet system that doesn’t. Got it.

Streaming will overpay, look at the Big Ten deal for a example, their goal is to destroy Traditional Service, I can see Amazon or Apple making a run at the NBA since they both have so much cash.

Umm, you do understand that the Big 10 rights selling agent was Fox. The least sold out to the streaming bubble of all the major providers. So they did a deal to get themselves “destroyed”. Got it.

Amazon and Apple’s streaming profits are currently zero. Amazon’s TNF is failing, as did Apple’s baseball deal.

But, I’m confused. You don’t like basketball. But are excited to pay for it.

Welcome to the new bundle. Rather than one cable or dish bill, you get 10 or 12 to get the same (actually less) material, and have to pay for things you don’t want, like the NBA, just like with cable.

As predicted.

 

[Yespage]

Wrong.

You...

...who didn’t know how the Nielsens worked

relative to the NFL

just expressed an opinion. I expressed mine.

Can we just end this...

 

[SamCdbs]

​

​

And maybe just as important for the future of the NFL, the Amazon games have a median viewer age of 46, which it said is seven years younger than the average age of NFL viewers on the linear TV networks.​

And? There are, asI pointed out, LESS viewers in the “key demographic” than before, the decline is just less, thus lowering the average age.

If NEW “key demographic” viewers were joining, that would be good news. They aren’t. Rather the package is losing all ages, just losing the 18-59s to a lower degree.

​

Amazon has told advertisers to expect 12.5 million viewers per TNF game this season, and it could yet achieve or top that number. There are nine TNF games left this season, and several on paper suggest they’ll draw bigger audiences.​

Name them. The season was front loaded. They will owe make goods.

​

And as for Linear distribution

The local linear TV, i.e. non-streaming, accounts for about 9 percent of the total viewership so far, Amazon said. Over the first five games, local TV has accounted for about 963,000 viewers per TNF game.​

THAT is the shocking number. They are getting 9% from just two markets. The remaining 208 TV markets get the rest!!

And remember, there is nothing stopping Amazon customers from watching in market on Amazon. The number of people who choose to, or can only, watch on traditional TV is shocking.

 

[Don in CT]

Over the life of TNF, how have the ratings averaged out. It's not the strongest games the NFL has to offer.

 

[Juan]

It has been proven in every quarterly report, look it up.

All numbers are close, not accurate

YTTV has 5 Million subs
Hulu Live-4 Million
Sling-2 million
Fubo-1 million
DirecTV Stream estimated at 1.5

So, 13.5 million ( my numbers in previous post did not include Stream since it is not reported, 1.5 million is the only number I can find)

So since all of Live TV is at 68 million from a high of 100 million, that means only 54.5 million get Live TV via Traditional Providers and it still means 32 million left Live TV.

You forgot the most important

TNF is down almost 50%

 

[Don in CT]

You forgot the most important

TNF is down almost 50%

Put marquee games on TNF and the ratings would be good.

 

[Juan]

Put marquee games on TNF and the ratings would be good.

Thursday isn't a marquee kind of night

 

[meStevo]

It's not the strongest games the NFL has to offer.

This is largely a red herring. Any given Sunday any two teams can have an amazing or bad game, and there are some big games coming up.

Can make a case that every game but the Falcons/Panthers are pretty significant for one reason or another, significant for an entire game (Eagles go up big early on the Texans, same w/ Titans if GB still sucking, etc?) That remains to be seen, but that's applicable to every game regardless of time slot.

 

[Don in CT]

Thursday isn't a marquee kind of night

So the ratings will always suffer. It doesn’t matter where the games are.

 

[Don in CT]

This is largely a red herring. Any given Sunday any two teams can have an amazing or bad game, and there are some big games coming up.

Can make a case that every game but the Falcons/Panthers are pretty significant for one reason or another, significant for an entire game (Eagles go up big early on the Texans, same w/ Titans if GB still sucking, etc?) That remains to be seen, but that's applicable to every game regardless of time slot.

View attachment 159104

Niners Seahawks might be the only good game there.

 

[Bruce]

You make the same mistake with streaming. You cast yourself as some sort of early adopter. And then you project that everyone will, if the trend continues, join you. It isn’t a trend, and most everybody that wants streaming only, has already gone streaming only. Basic economics. Really the difference between finding links that support the tale you want to tell, and understanding the figures there in, and opening one’s mind to the tale that the do tell.

Traditional Providers lose subscribers every quarter, the number of losses increase every quarter, streaming picks up more subscribers, see the trend.

Just this year in the first 2 quarters, 4 million gone, where did they go, Hulu Live, Fubo, Sling all lost subs, YTTV is the only one who gained, how much, 500,000 this year, that is 3.5 million missing, where did they go, one guess, on demand streaming services only( some OTA).

See the Trend.

The phrase, or its partner “I saved…” found in every cord cutter argument.

I’m not out to save four cents, or four hundred dollars. I’m out to get EVERY form and type of TV there is. That includes linear TV, where all the good stuff is.

Sorry you feel that way, when my wife and I were both working, we always put 20% of what we earned into our investment account, when she quit working for Health reasons, it was tough, but we still put at least 15% away because we avoided those extra expenses, for one example, back then, we would switch TV services every 2 years for the best discounts, when Playstation Vue became available for $35, we switched to that.

By watching those four cents as you put it, allowed me to retire at 52, now I have too much time to watch TV ( and still cannot catch up, too much content).

Just not the big events.

Name one big event I cannot get, World Series on Fox via OTA, same for the upcoming Super Bowl, if I wanted to watch it ( i do not) March Madness is on Paramount+, NHL Playoffs are on ESPN+ and ABC.

All that is left is some Bowl Games on ESPN which are rumored to be on ESPN+ also and the NBA which I care nothing about.

Enjoy the MAC. BTW, looking for MNF on ESPN+, seems to be hit and miss. Not every week, like on ESPN.

2-3 more year, then you will see ESPN available as a streaming service.

Anyone who believes that quality internet is coming without government spending millions doesn’t ever drive across the country. Anyone who believes the government is going to spend to belt rural Americans doesn’t understand how DC works.

I know a lot of the expansion of broadband to rural areas is due to Government funding, as I said before, I live in a rural area now, which did not get broadband until 2018, that was probably because of the funding since there are not enough Houses here to support the build out.

But for those that will not get it, that is what Star Link is for.

Wait and see. The entire system was developed just for rural America, and can be profitable just from it. But they are not going to launch new sats for a thing that works, but they are going to for an internet system that doesn’t. Got it.

A lot of folks in Rural Areas do not get Sat. TV, there are 46 Million households in those areas,, yet only, roughly, 18 Million Sat. TV Subs, of course the majority of those are in non rural areas.

Umm, you do understand that the Big 10 rights selling agent was Fox. The least sold out to the streaming bubble of all the major providers. So they did a deal to get themselves “destroyed”. Got it.

ESPN/ABC lost their share of the Big Ten rights, which was spilt with Fox/BTN/Fox Sports.

Now it will be on Fox, BTN, NBC, Peacock, CBS, Paramount+.

Will a miss a couple of Michigan games next year, maybe, I can handle it.

Amazon and Apple’s streaming profits are currently zero. Amazon’s TNF is failing, as did Apple’s baseball deal.

Both of them use their Video Services to bring customers in for other products/Services ( like Prime yearly subscription), both companies are incredibly profitable.

But, I’m confused. You don’t like basketball. But are excited to pay for it.

I never said that.

Welcome to the new bundle. Rather than one cable or dish bill, you get 10 or 12 to get the same (actually less) material, and have to pay for things you don’t want, like the NBA, just like with cable.

I get tons more content then just a Live TV service ( specially since most content is reruns) and I am not forced to pay for channels I do not want, like the suite of channels from Discovery ( Food Network for example), no one is making me get Discovery+, but if I had a Live TV service, I would be paying for it in per sub fees.

 

[Juan]

Traditional Providers lose subscribers every quarter, the number of losses increase every quarter, streaming picks up more subscribers, see the trend.

Just this year in the first 2 quarters, 4 million gone, where did they go, Hulu Live, Fubo, Sling all lost subs, YTTV is the only one who gained, how much, 500,000 this year, that is 3.5 million missing, where did they go, one guess, on demand streaming services only( some OTA).

See the Trend.

Sorry you feel that way, when my wife and I were both working, we always put 20% of what we earned into our investment account, when she quit working for Health reasons, it was tough, but we still put at least 15% away because we avoided those extra expenses, for one example, back then, we would switch TV services every 2 years for the best discounts, when Playstation Vue became available for $35, we switched to that.

By watching those four cents as you put it, allowed me to retire at 52, now I have too much time to watch TV ( and still cannot catch up, too much content).

Name one big event I cannot get, World Series on Fox via OTA, same for the upcoming Super Bowl, if I wanted to watch it ( i do not) March Madness is on Paramount+, NHL Playoffs are on ESPN+ and ABC.

All that is left is some Bowl Games on ESPN which are rumored to be on ESPN+ also and the NBA which I care nothing about.

2-3 more year, then you will see ESPN available as a streaming service.

I know a lot of the expansion of broadband to rural areas is due to Government funding, as I said before, I live in a rural area now, which did not get broadband until 2018, that was probably because of the funding since there are not enough Houses here to support the build out.

But for those that will not get it, that is what Star Link is for.

A lot of folks in Rural Areas do not get Sat. TV, there are 46 Million households in those areas,, yet only, roughly, 18 Million Sat. TV Subs, of course the majority of those are in non rural areas.

ESPN/ABC lost their share of the Big Ten rights, which was spilt with Fox/BTN/Fox Sports.

Now it will be on Fox, BTN, NBC, Peacock, CBS, Paramount+.

Will a miss a couple of Michigan games next year, maybe, I can handle it.

Both of them use their Video Services to bring customers in for other products/Services ( like Prime yearly subscription), both companies are incredibly profitable.

I never said that.

I get tons more content then just a Live TV service ( specially since most content is reruns) and I am not forced to pay for channels I do not want, like the suite of channels from Discovery ( Food Network for example), no one is making me get Discovery+, but if I had a Live TV service, I would be paying for it in per sub fees.

So your solution is to move every thing to streaming and lose even more viewers..brilliant..lets use TNF as an examplr

 

[SamCdbs]

I love the argument, in the face of simple math, that someday, oh someday ESPN, or whatever, will be sold a la carte.

First, no it won’t. I have explained the math. I won’t bother repeating it. But second, so what if it was mathematically possible to someday, oh someday to sell ESPN, et al, a la carte. What about right now. Life is too short. I’m not buying a house in a town that, someday, oh someday, will get a grocery store, either. Life is too short.

The rest is typical cord cutter “I don’t miss” and “I saved” and on and on.

I’m convince if all streaming consisted of a single video of a dog chasing its tail, there is a cadre of cord cutters who would argue that that is all they ever wanted, and tell me how much money they save.

 

[slice1900]

Streaming will overpay, look at the Big Ten deal for a example, their goal is to destroy Traditional Service, I can see Amazon or Apple making a run at the NBA since they both have so much cash.

Amazon TRIED to overpay the Big Ten (rumored to offer $500 million/yr for one piece of the contract that NBC ended up with for a rumored $350 million/yr) but they were turned down.

We aren't at the stage yet where big time sports are going to trust their crown jewels to streaming only. They will dip their toes in the water (i.e. the 8 Big Ten football games a year going on Peacock, with a similar number of SEC games going on ESPN+ in the future) like the NFL is going with TNF.

Next contract cycle for the Big Ten is for the 2030 season, I could see a high value piece of the contract going streaming then (i.e. sometimes getting the best game of the week) but I expect we'll still see the bulk of it on traditional linear TV. It is probably mid 2030s before any major sport considers going all-in with streaming exclusives and cutting the traditional players out of the mix.

Amazon's attempted overpayment was probably more because they know they would have to overpay to get the Big Ten to put some of their best games on streaming only and piss off fans. Once streaming because more "normalized" for live sports viewing streamers won't have to offer a premium. Just because Amazon and Apple have far deeper pockets than ESPN and Fox doesn't mean they will always be willing to overpay.

 

[slice1900]

So since all of Live TV is at 68 million from a high of 100 million, that means only 54.5 million get Live TV via Traditional Providers and it still means 32 million left Live TV.

I wonder how many of them died?

I'm being serious here - hardly anyone under 30 gets cable/satellite, but the older you go the higher the market penetration. People who have had traditional TV since the 50s and 60s are by far the least likely to cut the cord - and if they do it may be to not have TV at all rather than to go streaming.

So if you look at numbers today and compare to numbers a decade ago, you have to account for how many households ended their subscription to cable/satellite because the people who made it up are no longer with us, versus how many new households have been created with people who are now in the 20s or early 30s and didn't "cut the cord" because they never have personally subscribed to cable/satellite and never will.

 

[Bruce]

We aren't at the stage yet where big time sports are going to trust their crown jewels to streaming only.

I have never said all sports were switching to streaming, I wrote Apple/Amazon will continue to over offer to get rights fees because of their deep pockets.

I have wrote that ESPN will offer all of their content via a streaming service along side having a Traditional Channel, both, because they have lost too many per sub fees and need to start making some of that back because getting the rights to sports is not getting cheaper and they already have committed to big contracts for the next few years.

30 million have left Live TV, that is roughly ( saying $9 a month per sub fees, might be more) $270 million a month, $3.24 Billion a year they are no longer getting.

Now with 2 million leaving Live TV every quarter, 8 million a year, every year at least another $864 million is gone in per sub fees.

Cannot raise the per sub fees too high because that will make customer’s monthly bill too much and even more will leave, self defeating, raise ad fees too much, you will lose advertisers and will not work too well with the declining ratings they have.

 

[NashGuy]

Next contract cycle for the Big Ten is for the 2030 season, I could see a high value piece of the contract going streaming then (i.e. sometimes getting the best game of the week) but I expect we'll still see the bulk of it on traditional linear TV. It is probably mid 2030s before any major sport considers going all-in with streaming exclusives and cutting the traditional players out of the mix.

The biggest traditional players are already direct-to-consumer streamers too: Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal, Paramount, Fox. Well before 2030, those companies will have ceased trying to divide up their content into two different packages, cable vs. streaming. They'll collapse the two together in order to reduce overall content spending and sell one product that has *everything* they offer in order to better compete with Netflix and others. (Disney may be the exception to this by selling two DTC services, Disney+ and ESPN, as the cost to put all that together in one bundle would be too high for lots of consumers who aren't huge sports fans.) Buy their DTC app, get their linear channels right inside the app. Buy their linear channels, get their DTC app. Think how it works now with the HBO cable channels and the HBO Max app. Now apply that model across all the channel groups.

Instead of MVPDs having one big entry-level channel package, the channels will be broken out into smaller groups: the Disney group, the NBCUniversal group, etc. And each group of channels will come with its related DTC subscription app(s). When that happens, that's essentially the end of the cable bundle as we've known it.

This is why I say that by the 2030s, new sports contracts will be streaming-only. It's not that various sports won't be embedded within linear channels, it's just that whatever linear channels still exist will essentially just be a feature of DTC apps.