News came out earlier today...

Disney is pulling movies from Netflix and an ESPN streaming service will launch in 2018

I've been interested to see if they would make this move.

I've argued that Disney could really corner the streaming market if they bundled ESPN with all their entertainment offerings(children's programming, Marvel, Lucasfilm, etc). It doesn't look like they're quite going to go that route as they are creating 2 different services, but they did announce ESPN will have its own streaming service starting in 2018.

Things are getting interesting folks!

It's not a streaming version of ESPN.

(08-08-2017 10:20 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  It's not a streaming version of ESPN.

Shhh. Let the cord cutters dream some more.

(08-08-2017 10:20 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  It's not a streaming version of ESPN.

I know, but it's a forerunner for the new market dynamics.

Right now, ESPN can't offer the same content OTT that they would offer through cable distributors because the cable companies would pitch a fit and it would ultimately hurt business. They're getting ready for the new environment though.

They wouldn't make this move if they believed everyone was just going to rely on cable to provide sporting content. No reason for Disney to invest in BAMtech if anything else.

(08-08-2017 10:31 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  

(08-08-2017 10:20 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  It's not a streaming version of ESPN.

I know, but it's a forerunner for the new market dynamics.

Right now, ESPN can't offer the same content OTT that they would offer through cable distributors because the cable companies would pitch a fit and it would ultimately hurt business. They're getting ready for the new environment though.

They wouldn't make this move if they believed everyone was just going to rely on cable to provide sporting content. No reason for Disney to invest in BAMtech if anything else.

They'll launch a version of ESPN through streaming in 2019 including college sports.

(08-08-2017 10:31 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  They wouldn't make this move if they believed everyone was just going to rely on cable to provide sporting content. No reason for Disney to invest in BAMtech if anything else.

Or maybe they're going to offer something similar to Sunday Ticket and/or RedZone, for college football, using streaming as the distribution platform?

Fine to speculate, not suggesting otherwise. But way too premature to declare anything yet ...

(08-08-2017 10:41 PM)JRsec Wrote:  They'll launch a version of ESPN through streaming in 2019 including college sports.

There already is a streaming version of ESPN. You can watch it right now .... if you have a channel bundle subscription. You just download the WatchESPN app for whatever device you have, and put in your credentials proving you have a subscription.

If you're speculating that such a stream will become available to the general public with internet access, that is your speculation and has not been officially announced AFAIK.

The Disney CEO said this new streaming version of ESPN would include "college sports"... he never actually said college football (or basketball).

I am looking forward to a streaming option that will include college football games with no commercial interuptuons. That would be worth paying fir.

There already is that, if you're willing to wait months after the games happen, goof. Just go on youtube. A lot of people upload condensed versions of games (just the plays, back to back to back), I recently found out. I guess that meets the standard of substantially different than the original broadcast, so as not to violate the terms of youtube.

(08-09-2017 12:02 PM)goofus Wrote:  I am looking forward to a streaming option that will include college football games with no commercial interuptuons. That would be worth paying fir.

I doubt we will ever reach the point of commercial-free CFB broadcasts, because subscriptions are unlikely to compensate for the loss of TV revenue.

This article estimates that a 30-second ad on a broadcast network CFB regular season game cost an average of just under $100,000 in 2011. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241...3744436554
The price has probably gone up since then, and the price per spot is probably less on ESPN and a helluva lot less on FS1.

For an ESPN game this year, let's use $100,000 per 30-seconds as a guesstimate and also because math is hard and using round numbers is easier.

Others have guesstimated that a CFB broadcast includes about 38 minutes of commercial time, not including halftime. Let's guess that 5 of those minutes are things like network promotion of their own programming or other things that they don't charge for. That leaves 66 30-second blocks at $100,000 per, or a gross to ESPN of $6.6 million/game -- again, not including halftime or pregame or postgame ads.

So if ESPN ran no ads between the start of the 1st quarter and the end of the 2nd quarter and again between the start of the 3rd quarter and the end of the game, they'd want to make up that $6.6 million/game, at least, with money from subscriptions or pay-per-game charges. An above-average but not outstanding audience for an ESPN CFB game (per Sports Media Watch) is about 2 million viewers. If half of that audience would choose not watching over paying (and it might be more than half), then those 1 million paying customers would have to pay $6.60 each to watch that one game. Or maybe it would work if an annual all-you-can-eat subscription to watch ESPN's CFB games cost about $200, but even that would not work for them unless the subscriber numbers were huge, and I doubt they would be at that price.

If all the ESPN channels were sold as a subscription package like the HBO channels, ESPN could probably get as many subscribers as HBO (about 50 million) at the same price point (about $15/month) -- but that's for everything on ESPN channels and it's still a lower annual cost than $200.

So I don't see how the TV guys could give up in-game advertising without losing money. If someday sports TV is on a subscription basis like HBO or on a pay-per-game basis, the commercials will still be there.

Unless they simply don't create/don't pay for as much content as they do now.

If there are no "linear channels" anymore (which would be a shame), then it's not like you have X number of hours to fill per day, anymore.