It was only a few weeks ago that we were discussing how, thanks to how fractured streaming has become, watching NFL games is becoming more and more an expensive and complicated process. It’s gotten so bad that ESPN has released an app designed specifically just to help viewers find where to watch the NFL game they’re interested in. But finding it alone doesn’t mean you can watch it, what with the labyrinthian landscape of different cable and streaming providers the NFL has negotiated to show its games. The point is not only that this is getting far too expensive for fans, but that there is a mental transactional cost associated with all of this as well.
but that there is a mental transactional cost associated with all of this as well.
Repeat it with me:
Piracy is a service problem
Louder for the folks in the back!
It won’t get any bigger
I live in the US and I’m ready to sign an open letter to Congress to officially legalize format shifting media even if it is “DRM protected media.” (Bluray and DVD)
I paid for MLB.tv, and couldn’t watch my team. So I paid for a VPN and could watch my team for a few weeks, then that stopped working too. Even when it was working, some games wouldn’t be available, or they’d be on Apple TV that day, or ESPN Pro, or some other paid service. So despite paying several hundred dollars per year to watch one baseball team, I ended up watching the rest of the season on “illicit streaming”. The MLB keeps changing rules, saying they’re doing it to entice a younger audience, but refuses to make it actually possible to watch your local team. Stop fucking with the game, and just make viewing games accessible, and they’ll find new fans.
MLB.tv absolutely does this on purpose. Early in the season they let VPNs through so you don’t cancel immediately, then they start cracking down mid summer.
I pay for MLB TV, because I live in a different media market than my favorite team. So it works perfectly! Unless I’m visiting my parents. Or often when I’m traveling. Or is the game is on cable. Or the weird exclusive games like Apple TV. Or if it’s the playoffs. Or because the chemtrails are too thick that day so the lizard people are out. But works perfectly!
Seriously, though, MLB does work pretty well and I do like some features (syncing radio broadcast with the TV, condensed games if I missed one). But it’s very weird that most of my family who lives within 20 miles of the stadium can’t watch the team when I live hundreds of miles away and can.
It’s very fucked up. Do they actually think that I’m going to take time off work and go watch every game at the stadium which is 1.5 hours from my house just because they won’t let me see the team I want on a service I paid for? No! All it makes me do is like and watch baseball less. But I guess they don’t care, they already got their cable provider money.
The idea of fans a local teams is just a racket honestly. It is all arbitrary
“local” has a bizarre definition. Iowa is blacked out of Twins, Brewers, Royals, Cubs, White Sox and Cardinals games. None of which are carried locally.
I can’t speak for the NFL situation because I don’t care about football, but years ago I was into baseball and was following the local team. I thought about subscribing to the MLB app since I had cut the cable cord years before that. Of course then I found out, due to ridiculous blackout rules, there was no amount of money I could pay MLB to let me watch local games in realtime.
The first year I was able to use my VPN to get around the blackout but when they closed the loophole the next year, I threw my hands up and cancelled my account. I’m done giving money to companies that only use that money to find new ways to restrict and lockdown their content.
Amen. Sick of the current circle jerk they’ve set up punishing their fans. It’s like they want us to sail the seas.
MLB is the worst, and now they have the Department of Homeland Security doing their bidding, shutting down streaming sites. We had such a difficult time watching this season that by the time I finally got it working, we didn’t even care anymore. We watched maybe 5 games the entire season. People may be thinking “well so what? MLB wasn’t going to profit from your illicit streaming anyways”, but they’re wrong. Because we got out of the habit of watching games, we didn’t go to the stadium even once this year. We usually go 5-10 times per session. We also didn’t buy any overpriced hats or jerseys either, and I have only bought one pack of baseball cards the entire year, when I usually spend several hundred dollars per year. So by making it impossible to watch the games, they’ve essentially lost all of our business.
They keep saying they need to attract a younger audience, and making rule changes, but won’t even let people watch the fucking games! How about letting people watch the games? There’s a wild idea to attract new fans.
I still love baseball, but man do I hate the MLB executives in charge of their TV contracts.
If you have to read a spreadsheet or chart to figure out the price, that means it’s free somewhere else.
With Soccer, back when I followed more closely, to get all the matches for my team I used a vpn to watch an Egyptian sports channel as they had all the matches in (for the time) hd with an English language commentary, to get the same in the uk I’d have had to have spent £40+ a month and I’d still not have been able to watch the matches that aren’t televised in the uk, but this Egyptian channel had every single game. Doesn’t exactly encourage paying for the service when the paid service is more hassle and worse than the pirate one by miles.
EPL is just as bad. No peacock service fully covers all the games in the US. You need a TV subscription because USA has some games too. It’s like 200 a month to maybe watch Man U continue to flounder. Nty
see it is not really a sport. it is modern day slavery and games for the masses just representing brands. it sucks so bad, kids are advised not play tackle shit until they are teens because head injuries. why really keep that sport alive and do those stupid world tours? waste of time and resources. if a club represents nothing but its owner it has no value sportswise. or basketball. geez.
