People who love sports and hate technology might want to sit down for this one.
MLB and NFL games will only be available via streaming in the future.
To keep tabs on your top squad, you need to give Apple and Amazon subscription dollars, own a device that is compatible with their streaming services, and pray that your home internet connection holds up for three and a half hours.
We understand if that sounds scary to you. The days of wiggling the bunny ears on top of the TV to get a clearer picture are over. You will be prepared for this new streaming world order if you just let us walk you through what is happening in live sports and why.
Thursday Night Football isn't going to be on NFL Network anymore. Credit: Ian Johnson/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
For now, your viewing habits will not have to change. You can still watch sports on cable. Baseball and football seasons start in April and September, respectively, so it won't work for every game.
Thursday Night Football games will only be aired on Amazon's Prime Video app in the fall of 2022. Amazon will pay $1 billion a year for the privilege of streaming just 15 regular season games a season in an 11-year agreement with the National Football League. The infrastructure is there for Thursday Night Football to be broadcasted across Fox, NFL Network, and Prime Video. It is now an Amazon exclusive.
Ted Lasso is the streaming home of baseball. Apple TV+ will show two MLB games every Friday night. Apple paid $85 million for the rights to only two games per week. All Apple has to do is make sure the stream works because the MLB will produce the broadcasts. It remains to be seen how the streaming quality and performance will compare to regular TV, since Apple TV+ hasn't yet been used to stream live events of this scale.
According to the Sports Business Journal, Apple and Amazon are in the running for the rights to the Sunday Ticket. If you live in a market that doesn't have a lot of football, you can get a nifty little package from DirecTV that will let you stream any game on Sundays. It is very convenient for a Kansas City Chiefs fan living in New York City, but it also costs $300 a year if you live in an area with no satellite service. Hopefully, Apple or Amazon can come up with a way to bring that number down.
Apple wants this to be more than just a 'Ted Lasso' box. Credit: Neil Godwin/Edge Magazine/Future via Getty Images)
It is a sign of the times. The percentage of Americans who watched network TV over cable or satellite fell from 76 percent in 2015 to 56 percent in 2021. Streaming is cheaper and more convenient. The most basic cable package is more expensive than the most expensive tier, and only 39 percent of Americans prefer live TV over on-demand content, according to a study. Sports can't be consumed the same way as Stranger Things. Watching a game on demand hours or even days after the outcome has been decided isn't much juice.
According to an analyst with a market research firm, Apple and Amazon are going all in on sports because it is the biggest thing in media they don't yet control.
The ability to bid for live sports content gives Apple and Amazon a unique position.
“Sports really is the golden goose.”
According to The Information, Apple TV+ had only 20 million paid subscribers last year, which is less than the 222 million people that watched on Netflix. Adding baseball and football would push that figure upward. The same could be said for Amazon's Prime subscription, which reached 200 million members last year. Amazon will always want more people to pay for Prime.
It is reasonable for these companies to think live sports will drive new subscribers. Thursday Night Football is considered by fans to be one of the lesser games each week, as teams are playing on just a few days of rest, but it still draws a big audience. The World Series last year averaged over 11 million viewers across all six games, but because most games aren't broadcast nationally and there isn't a pre-existing Friday night national double-header, it's hard to chart.
Improving rural internet access has been a talking point for the Biden administration, and it would greatly help rural sports fans going forward. Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Don't worry, if any of this sounds worrying. The way the sports leagues negotiate TV rights deals is going to work for several more years. The current arrangement of the NFL runs through 2033
There are opportunities for watching sports that arestreamified, according to Eric Schmitt, an analyst at market research firm. There is a lack of reliable home internet in rural areas. 30 million Americans lived in places with unacceptable broadband infrastructure last year, according to the Biden administration.
It seems to me that this could further disenfranchise those of us who don't have reliable high speed access because of where we live or our economic status.
Many of our beloved senior citizens can work their way around modern tech, but older people tend to acclimate poorly to these sorts of changes. Apple getting in bed with baseball to start its streaming journey is fascinating because that sport has the oldest audience of the big team sports. The median baseball viewer was 57 in 2016 according to the Sports Business Journal. Six years have passed since then, so baseball's audience isn't getting any younger.
friendlier pricing is the biggest benefit to the streamification of sports. Apple TV+ probably won't cost as much as a premium cable subscription, but it probably won't cost as much.
The gradual shift of live sports from traditional TV to streaming is a prime example of how the march of technological progress isn't always a good thing. Fans will not be able to watch sports because they are locked behind streaming platforms. It presents an opportunity for new fans to be made out of people scrolling through Prime Video on a Thursday night.
We can all agree that the streams better work, even if this move makes our favorite teams more accessible.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
