The ever changing landscape of TV sports
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Just renewed my ESPN+ for the upcoming fall college sports, mainly soccer that I enjoy watching and would normally continue subscribing through the end of hoops season as quite a few Jayhawk games end up there.
Well it turns out the greedy SOB’s that run this streaming service have elevated major college sports, IE KU basketball will, if I’m reading it right, will cost 30 bucks a month. I think I’ll be watching much less KU basketball this year. I’ll have to pretend it’s 1990 and I wasn’t able to watch every game, but it seems as if our league adds more teams meaning there’s fewer slots available on the less costly ‘cable’ channels like ESPN.
Football this Saturday against Wagner lists ESPN+. Not sure that means the premier ESPN+ or just the pedestrian one that i’m subscribed to. No other games are listed right now for where they’ll be aired, but last season I think they were all on various cable or free channels.
TV sports is a problem in this ultra modern world. Weekends have always been for me until recent memory a day for MLB, NFL, NBA, and golf games, many on free over the air channels. Not any more. NFL of course will still be on TV because the NFL gets the concept of getting your games onto as many eyeballs as possible. But the others? Golf seems to have a stranglehold on CBS and some NBC afternoons. But increasingly there’s stupid gimmicky sports like 3 on 3, nba summer league, wnba on free tv! Meanwhile my struggle to watch my favorite team of all, the White Sox is fruitless. Ignorantly I signed up for MLB TV and get a blackout message so I can’t watch MLB games on MLB TV in Chicago, even though I want to pay for it. Meanwhile, I can watch 3 on 3 basketball or sorry, but dull WNBA on free TV. This whole thing is frustrating as heck and it seems to get more frustrating with each passing season.
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Is that the all ESPN package? That includes Plus, ESPN2, ESPNU, and big ESPN if memory serves. I think there’s still a Plus only option.
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I read the announcement. It appears that ESPN plus is going to go away at some point and those programs will now be on the next level of subscription so that while those who had ESPN plus that cancel their subscription is projected to be a downfall, in the end the SOBs are charging more and we are getting less. I don’t want Disney plus or HULU so I fell into the Unlimited level, which includes all ESPN as well as ESPN plus as long as it’s around and golf and some other sports. They are pushing the new ESPN App as the way to get access. I have to turn off my VPN in order to watch anything on ESPN Watch, including ESPN plus, on my laptop. I come up for renewal in November so time to see how this plays out.
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@FarmerJayhawk RockChalkinTexas seemed to summarize it well… I think, but I kind of don’t understand what they wrote either :).
It’s the constant revolving door of what do I need this year to watch my teams that perplexes and frustrates me, and I can’t imagine in 15-20 years when I reach 80 or so that i’ll never be able to figure out how to watch anything!
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$30 a month??? Holy crap. That’s up from $11.99? Holy smokes.
I knew ESPN had some big changes coming, but that’s nutso.
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Todays admirals are tomorrows pirates…
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In other news , the combination of my vpn and my browser autocomplete has made espn.in my default espn. I am amazed at either the popularity of chess and badminton in india, or how much espn is pumping it. https://www.espn.in/badminton/story/_/id/46056517/stopping-slide-indian-badminton-crossroads-future-going-look-like
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Ok, I was trying to make sense of this as @wissox was. It’s pretty confusing. Not user friendly at all.
At first I thought ESPN select for 11.99 a month would be fine, then saw this note about the 29.99 a month Unlimited:
ESPN Unlimited plan subscribers have access to all ESPN networks and ESPN+, with sports like NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, tennis and golf majors, WWE, SEC, ACC, and Big 12 football and basketball.
It seems intentionally vague so you buy the pricier option. I’m confused for sure!
Is it possible that the TNT and TBS agreement will cover those games not on Select?
Effers!
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I have seen now $39.99 per month for the ‘new’ streaming service. We looked at ESPN schedule in our DirecTV and saw where ESPN was showing the Fresno State game that originally aired on Fox, so their content is being shared between the 2 now?
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If we get the same content but on delay on espn+ i might suggest tape delayed watch parties.
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Never cancelled, so the package is still $14.99. If they offer up an option to get ESPN without having to get sling that is awesome.
For those that don’t want to pay as much you can use
it will have every game for every team you care about not to mention all the teams you don’t care about. $130 per year - now can we complain about the team instead of the price of tv? For comparison the least expensive single season ticket is around $1,500 and the seats are in the rafters. No way college basketball is worth that in the NIL/pirate free agency era, so I will pay as little as possible into the machine - thus Uzzu
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@wissox FM Radio. Until they start charging for that too.
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@nuleafjhawk said in The ever changing landscape of TV sports:
@wissox FM Radio. Until they start charging for that too.
If it was Max Falkenstein or Bob Davis I’d even consider paying for radio!
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@dylans I really do miss both of those guys. Very intelligent, tactful and sports savvy gentlemen.
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This didn’t help my mood today to get a text as a youtubeTV subscriber that they are negotiating with FOX and at an impasse and just in time for college football all Fox sports streamed on our platform will not work including Big Ten Network. I think I’ll just quit all sports and take up reading or gardening.
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So…. I’ve learned patience. I don’t have to watch games live. I’ve trained all the people around me to stop with spoiler alerts. I’m thinking I watch games after on YouTube. Even when I have live games I usually delay to cut commercials. Will I be impacted by all this gouging?
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The YTTV email about FOX should resolve itself pretty quickly. We get these standstills in negotiations at least once a year it seems. I don’t recall any of them lingering. Bad PR for both if it does.
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@wissox as always, pretty sure this group could talk about anything. Lets get to the pointsettas! Im warming up with other peoples flower puns: https://www.1800flowers.com/articles/flower-facts/flower-puns
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@approxinfinity We could talk about Pop music. Everybody’s talkin 'bout Pop music.
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@approxinfinity Iris watching sports wasn’t so complicated these days.
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Has my one tried the SuperBox or similar devices?
