More Changes Coming In TV Broadcasting Of NFL Games

[Torc]

How does it save money?

When games were on ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, you just need basic cable or YouTube TV subscription to get all the games. Now you need that plus a subscription to Peacock, Amazon, Netflix, and Paramount.

Well, if you're an NFL fan trying to get all the games it doesn't save you money. If you were a cable viewer paying $100 or more a month for your cable service, and now you just subscribe to one or two streaming services, you're paying less.

 

[RiverDog]

How does it save money?

When games were on ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox, you just need basic cable or YouTube TV subscription to get all the games. Now you need that plus a subscription to Peacock, Amazon, Netflix, and Paramount.

Up until 2023, I had my cable subscription through Charter Spectrum, which included internet and a TV package that included the Red Zone. It cost me north of $180/month. I'm still paying Charter $80/month for their internet service. Fubo costs me $80/month, and in the football season, an extra $20/month to include the Red Zone, so basically it was a push.

But the big difference is that I can share my subscription with my daughter and brother. That's $200/month that the two of them don't have to pay, $160 when I take out the Red Zone. When I take that into consideration, I could pay for 10 other streaming services, ie Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, et al, and still be money ahead.

I was already an Amazon Prime customer long before they started televising NFL games, so I don't consider the cost associated with Prime Video to be a factor in what it costs me to get my football fix.

 

[ronnieboycefanclub]

I get Gamepass for £160 a season. Two games that are on Sky TV, are blacked out. With Netflix, their games were available. There is not a large audience in Europe and it is not Prime Time. Especially at 01.30 on Monday morning.

 

[RiverDog]

About 10+ years ago, my TV provider at the time, Dish Network, got into a contract dispute with one of the local network broadcast stations, CBS I think, right during the playoffs. I bought an over the air TV antenna and mounted it on the high point of my house and was able to watch the games. I've since purchased a Tablo, a DVR that can record over-the-air signals. Along with all 4 network stations, I'm getting PBS and 8-10 other channels.

I mention this as you might want to consider an over-the-air option if you live in an area that has decent reception. It's quite possible that your current provider could get into a contract spat. As a matter of fact, Disney, the company that owns ESPN and ABC, got into a dispute with DirectTV this past fall. It would give you an option should something like that happen to you.

 

[Seahawks Guy]

But the big difference is that I can share my subscription with my daughter and brother. That's $200/month that the two of them don't have to pay, $160 when I take out the Red Zone. When I take that into consideration, I could pay for 10 other streaming services, ie Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, et al, and still be money ahead.

Point taken but I'm saying you'd pay less if you didn't need any of those extra services to see all the games. I am not comparing the current state to cable, I am just looking at what it would be like if so many networks weren't involved and we didn't need as many subscriptions.

 

[chris98251]

Here, Problem solved.

 

[flv2]

Again, all the games on FOX are effectively free worldwide. All you need is a VPN IP address for where the game is being broadcast.

FOX put their Super Bowl broadcast on Tubi which was annoying, but at least Tubi is currently free to all US IP addresses.

 

[Hawkstorian]

All the article is saying is that Netflix would like to have more games. Hardly earth-shattering news.

 

[NoGain]

It's all a greed-fest. Greed has never been so prevalent everywhere throughout our economy. It's sickening. They want to squeeze every last dollar out of the rock of the American consumer who now is the most in debt it's been since the great recession.

I wish people weren't so stupid and would actually listen to people who aren't speaking BS to them.

I'm in the Bill Hicks camp now...if you're in marketing...kill yourself...you're Satan's spawn.

 

[RiverDog]

It's all a greed-fest. Greed has never been so prevalent everywhere throughout our economy. It's sickening. They want to squeeze every last dollar out of the rock of the American consumer who now is the most in debt it's been since the great recession.

I wish people weren't so stupid and would actually listen to people who aren't speaking BS to them.

I'm in the Bill Hicks camp now...if you're in marketing...kill yourself...you're Satan's spawn.

Of course, it's greed. It also goes by the name of a free market economy. The desire to make money is what drives quality and price. If they try to "squeeze every last dollar out of the rock", they'll make their product too expensive, lose customers while someone else steps in and makes a better, cheaper product.

Internet streaming is making it possible for more companies to get into the TV broadcast game without having to make a huge capital investment in equipment and infrastructure, ie satellites, stringing cables, a fleet of vans, thousands of employees. They don't need as big of a profit margin to pay for all that overhead, so they can offer the same services for less than conventional broadcasters.

The more companies that enter the field, the more competition there will be to make a better, more affordable product that out-sells their competition. The ones that don't will lose subscribers and go out of business or forced to change their business model to go after a different customer.

It's an evolution, from radio to television to the internet. Times are changing.

 

[Hawkinaz]

There’s more to the story, Netflix could become the tv middleman for the NFL

 

[NoGain]

The more companies that enter the field, the more competition there will be to make a better, more affordable product that out-sells their competition. The ones that don't will lose subscribers and go out of business or forced to change their business model to go after a different customer.

You're dreaming. Yeah, it's all going to get better and be more affordable.

 

[RiverDog]

You're dreaming. Yeah, it's all going to get better and be more affordable.

It already is more affordable, at least for me.

 

[NoGain]

It already is more affordable, at least for me.

When I was growing up, I watched NFL games all day on Sunday on two different channels, Monday Night Football, the Thanksgiving Day games, and all the playoff games for free. I was never in want for more. The only thing that really got better for me since was the quality of the TV sets. It was easy, uncomplicated, and, again, it was free. Even the action on the field was more intense.

Every so-called improvement since the cable and then steaming era has been only very marginally so better for me, and has cost me more money and become more complicated. Yeah, what I see on the screen is a lot nicer in quality, those big HD TV's a big improvement, but that's about it.

 

[pmedic920]

Oh great, more games I can't watch.

Netflix is cheap.

Not to assume I understand your financial position but it really isn’t much, and there is other good content as well.

 

[RiverDog]

When I was growing up, I watched NFL games all day on Sunday on two different channels, Monday Night Football, the Thanksgiving Day games, and all the playoff games for free. I was never in want for more. The only thing that really got better for me since was the quality of the TV sets. It was easy, uncomplicated, and, again, it was free. Even the action on the field was more intense.

Every so-called improvement since the cable and then steaming era has been only very marginally so better for me, and has cost me more money and become more complicated. Yeah, what I see on the screen is a lot nicer in quality, those big HD TV's a big improvement, but that's about it.

Let's put a pencil to this. When I was growing up in the 60's, we got to see two games a week for free. Well, it really wasn't free as I lived in Walla Walla and the OTA TV signal wasn't very strong, so my parents bought a cable subscription for $5 a month to get just 3 network stations. We got to see two professional football games each week, the NFL on Sunday mornings the AFL on Sunday afternoons. There was no MNF, SNF, or TNF. It was a 12-game season for both the NFL and the AFL, so that's 24 regular season games we got for free. Each league had 2 playoff games and in 1967, they added the Super Bowl. That's 5 playoff games. Add it all together and that's 29 games we got for free if we ignore the cost of the cable subscription.

There are still at least three and most of the time 4 NFL games on network TV that you can get for free if you have decent OTA reception. We have a 17-game season, including the byes makes it 18 weeks of football. That's well over 60 games, over twice the number of free games we got when I was a kid, and that's just in the regular season before we start counting playoff games and ignoring the $5 cable subscription, about $50 in today's money.

I can piss and moan about a lot of changes that has happened over the course of my 70 laps around the sun, but the entertainment value we're getting out of televised football isn't one of them.

 

[RiverDog]

Netflix is cheap.

Not to assume I understand your financial position but it really isn’t much, and there is other good content as well.

I just canceled Netflix subscription yesterday. With tax, it was $7.60/month for the subscription that includes ads.

Meanwhile, a dozen eggs is pushing $5, gas went up 30 cents a gallon since the last time I filled up a couple weeks ago, and it's 3 months before the vacation season starts. My property tax increased by 95% in one year. Thank God I have my house paid off.

There's a lot of stuff that I can bitch about, but the cost of getting my football fix isn't one of them.

 

[NoGain]

Let's put a pencil to this. When I was growing up in the 60's, we got to see two games a week for free. Well, it really wasn't free as I lived in Walla Walla and the OTA TV signal wasn't very strong, so my parents bought a cable subscription for $5 a month to get just 3 network stations. We got to see two professional football games each week, the NFL on Sunday mornings the AFL on Sunday afternoons. There was no MNF, SNF, or TNF. It was a 12-game season for both the NFL and the AFL, so that's 24 regular season games we got for free. Each league had 2 playoff games and in 1967, they added the Super Bowl. That's 5 playoff games. Add it all together and that's 29 games we got for free if we ignore the cost of the cable subscription.

There are still at least three and most of the time 4 NFL games on network TV that you can get for free if you have decent OTA reception. We have a 17-game season, including the byes makes it 18 weeks of football. That's well over 60 games, over twice the number of free games we got when I was a kid, and that's just in the regular season before we start counting playoff games and ignoring the $5 cable subscription, about $50 in today's money.

I can piss and moan about a lot of changes that has happened over the course of my 70 laps around the sun, but the entertainment value we're getting out of televised football isn't one of them.

For me, it's not really gotten any better, except for the TV's. It's gotten more expensive, more complicated, more greedy. That's my experience. I think it's important to put things in an historical context. Things aren't always getting better and cheaper. Should we talk about how much better and cheaper the experience has gotten for the consumer in flight and travel industry?

 

[RiverDog]

For me, it's not really gotten any better, except for the TV's. It's gotten more expensive, more complicated, more greedy. That's my experience. I think it's important to put things in an historical context. Things aren't always getting better and cheaper. Should we talk about how much better and cheaper the experience has gotten for the consumer in flight and travel industry?

If you're trying to advance your position by using the flight and travel industry as an example, ie the recent incidents involving air travel, you're barking up the wrong tree. You run a much, much higher risk of dying or being seriously injured in a car accident on your way to or from the airport than you do in a commercial airliner.

I'm not trying to tell you what your experience with televised football has been like and whether or not it has been worth it. All I can say is that my perception is quite a bit different than yours. For me, the expense is trivial, and it's not because I'm rolling in dough. It's because I compare that cost with other living expenses. If I have to pay $7.50 for a month's Netflix subscription so I can watch Russell Wilson get sacked 5 times on Christmas Day, I'll gladly take that deal.

 

[NoGain]

If you're trying to advance your position by using the flight and travel industry as an example, ie the recent incidents involving air travel, you're barking up the wrong tree. You run a much, much higher risk of dying or being seriously injured in a car accident on your way to or from the airport than you do in a commercial airliner.

I'm not trying to tell you what your experience with televised football has been like and whether or not it has been worth it. All I can say is that my perception is quite a bit different than yours. For me, the expense is trivial, and it's not because I'm rolling in dough. It's because I compare that cost with other living expenses. If I have to pay $7.50 for a month's Netflix subscription so I can watch Russell Wilson get sacked 5 times on Christmas Day, I'll gladly take that deal.

No, I'm talking about the air travel experience having gotten so much worse over the years. It used to be you bought a ticket and that included all bags checked in, a meal, soda pop, etc.., and to top it off, you could show up a half hour before your flight, breeze right to the gate and aboard. Nowadays they nickel and dime you to death for everything, the entire experience much much worse than when I was younger.