Once again, no one in power gives a **** about rural Americans. "Good" internet will exist where a capital return can be made on it. That is to say, exactly where it is today. Absent a massive government subsidy, that is it. And, IMHO, no political group of any stripe really cares about rural America.
Actually some do think there is money to be made with the underserved, Star Link is one example.
These people are called "people that don't like sports'. Out of date technology, but still true quote. "Why are sports important to TV? Because nobody can go to Blockbuster and rent tonight's game." Still true. Sports are only valuable LIVE. People that like live sports, have LIVE TV. Really that simple.
ok, one more time, Sports are streaming, MLB, NBA, NHL all stream, all live, it may not be in the format you wish, but they all do it.
And the picture quality is so much better, watch the Tigers the other day, in real 1080P.
As far as streaming the rest, Local games, majority of College Football / Basketball ( very underserved ), etc will all be streaming in 3-5 years, no way are they going to leave money out there, specially since Traditional Providers are losing so many customers ( per sub fee).
So people that don't like sports, now don't have to pay for them. Good for them.
And I do not have to pay for programming that I do not want with a Traditional Provider, for example, the local RSN, no interest in Florida’s teams, so I get to avoid that $10 RSN Charge or that Local Broadcast fee, I have a Antenna but barely use it since everything on the Networks is on streaming services.
The number of people who have ST (and ESPN, and FS1, and Golf Channel, and their local RSN, etc.) is a known number. Those that currently do so.
And a number that is decreasing, Traditional Providers have gone from 100 subs to 66 million subs since 2013, just 9 years, that is why everyone is looking at streaming to make up the loss of per sub fees.
Plus a literal handful of people that wish oh wish streaming was something other than it is, and always will be. For 95% of people, its just the modern version of HBO, a supplement to linear TV.
So much more then that, when I can pick up the remote and watch mostly anything at whenever I want to is incredible, I am 55 so I remember the old days of TV, waiting for something of interest to be on Live TV, no way do I want to go back to that.
And offer to solve two huge problems the "winner" has. As the "winner" will L O S E money by the bucketsfull on this deal, they need to lose as little as possible. So, on the commercial side, DirecTV offers almost metaphysically 100% of all the commercial establishments who want the service, and can easily simply pass it through to them on a no profit basis (or even make a modest profit from the service) and avoid the tens of thousands of such establishments that would drop the package otherwise, thus cutting the "winner's" losses substantially. Likewise, as 99.9999999% of people who currently want ST, have ST, DirecTV offers to supply those customers, a significant %age of which would otherwise be unserved because of broadband issues.
There is roughly 120 Million Households that do not have DirecTV in the US, you cannot say that out of all of those that some will not want NFLST.
There has been even some here in this thread that has said something different.
I want ST but do not want anything to do with DirecTV, way overpriced, old equipment, they have no plan for the future except for hoping that streaming Live TV works out for them.
Meanwhile the "winner" can try to sell out of town NFL games, on against "free" games on OTA TV, to people who would rather watch The Handmaid's Tale or Ozark.
And you just pointed out what is great about streaming services, you those great shows ( and tons other) plus you get the majority of programming from Traditional Broadcasters all at a much less price.
Also noticed you are streaming, see you in the Star Trek Strange New Worlds thread, cannot get that on DirecTV, but on Paramount+ you get all the content from Viacom Channels, even get sports, NFL, March Madness, Golf, etc.
Also get the other shows you cannot get via Traditional, just watched The Offer, great, but no way it would be on regular CBS.