Apple Has 'Expressed Interest' in NBA Streaming Rights

steve09090 said:
It seems crazy that most games are sellouts or close to it and they still do this. It seems like they are penalising the fans.

Having games available means more fans are watching, getting invested and ultimately that means more revenue.
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Absolutely correct. It really makes one wonder, because allowing/encouraging folks to watch games seems like such a no-brainer to anyone with even a tiny bit of business acumen.
 
What are ‘blackouts’ in this context?

I used a special offer from Sky (UK) a year or so ago for a free NBA pass and it was really cool being able to watch live basketball 🏀 games on my iPhone - their app seemed pretty nice.

I’d just prefer if the advertising deals would give viewers an option to watch the USA ad breaks instead of having inserted filler ‘content’ or images & Muzak.
 
steve09090 said:
It seems crazy that most games are sellouts or close to it and they still do this. It seems like they are penalising the fans.

Having games available means more fans are watching, getting invested and ultimately that means more revenue.
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It’s not about getting fans into the arena, it’s about getting fans watching TV where they can sell ad space.
 
I know basketball is immensely popular but to me it just seems like 'guy gets ball, runs to the other end, scores. Opposing guy gets ball, runs to the original end and scores. Repeat until everyone has earned a million and then go home.'
Not my thing I guess but why is it so 'exciting'?
 
steve09090 said:
Thank you. So, to encourage locals to go to the games. That’s a shame. In Australia, AFL local games are always televised on free to air channels but often delayed by an hour or so. And to watch any game at all, live, you just pay for Fox Sports.

So that seems the agreement or licence is a condition from the teams/franchise themselves, and not the TV distributor.

So if Apple get a licence, the teams may not get a choice, because Apple rarely restrict regions, rather than entire countries. That could be a big sticking point for an Apple licence.
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That's not it. All local games are translated on TV. In most cases they are shown by local stations except when the game is on the national TV. So, NBA League Pass blackouts are a result of the way NBA sells translation rights. Most people watch their teams on local TV, people, who live outside the area of their favored team, buy the League Pass. NBA gets way more money from conventional TV broadcasts hence the priorities are what they are.
 
Allen_Wentz said:
You (and the NBA) miss the point. The local team is the primary team folks want to watch, duh, making NBA League Pass blacking out local teams a cruel joke. NBA's gross incompetence at delivering their product (games) is horrific.

E.g. more than 7 million people live in the SF Bay Area, but NBA management blacks out Warriors games. Why? Because they expect 7M folks to show up live? WTF are the morons thinking? Wannabe fans like me find other entertainment because the fools running the NBA intentionally keep us from watching.

And please do not insult us by telling us we can watch a blacked-out game later. Two days later the game is just a statistic.

It truly is nuts. The NBA badly needs to hire some MBAs. Or just give Apple a shot at it. Apple's track record (Music, App Store, Apple Pay, etc.) is excellent.
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You don’t get it. All 7 million of Bay Area residents can easily watch GSWs by turning on their TVs. There is no blackouts there. As long as conventional TV broadcasts (with their TV subscrioptions) pay more than streaming, the blackouts make perfect economic sense for NBA. Also, all those TV broadcasts are also streamed by the TV companies. One can subscribe on ESPN+ etc. But if, in addition to GSWs one is a fan of, say, San Francisco 49ers (often the case) then to stick with streaming one may have to subscribe to different stuff. The easiest way to watch local teams usually is just to have a regular TV subscription (or, say, YouTube TV and other IPTV options).
 
What Apple can do to attract customers to AppleTV+ is acquire the rights and stream it for free so many millions of people would enter into the app and discover all Apple has to offer.
 
nikaru said:
What Apple can do to attract customers to AppleTV+ is acquire the rights and stream it for free so many millions of people would enter into the app and discover all Apple has to offer.
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Although Apple has deep pockets I believe that we are past the throwing money down the drain phase in the streaming services era.
At this point Apple can probably just way it out for one or two competitor to drop dead.
 
nikaru said:
What Apple can do to attract customers to AppleTV+ is acquire the rights and stream it for free so many millions of people would enter into the app and discover all Apple has to offer.
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TV accounts for most of the NBA’s revenue. For the 2016-2017 season, TNT and ESPN re-upped their contracts to an estimated $24 billion in total. If Apple really want to attract the viewers, they can pay that much to NBA (and then some to NFL, MLB, NHL etc.) and offer it to us for free but we all know that this is not happening. They just had a chance to do it with NFL and they passed.
 
NBC Sports is going to put their RSN's on Peacock next year. If a market with NBCS has an NBA team on it (ie. Philadelphia), you won't need this at all. That's my team and what I am hoping for. I don't need to watch every single NBA game, just my team.
 
As long as they keep it separate from the regular subscription, I don’t care. I just don’t want the price to go up because of adding something that expensive for something I have zero interest in.
 
chublet said:
I know basketball is immensely popular but to me it just seems like 'guy gets ball, runs to the other end, scores. Opposing guy gets ball, runs to the original end and scores. Repeat until everyone has earned a million and then go home.'
Not my thing I guess but why is it so 'exciting'?
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Don’t forget about “guy stops 25 feet from basket and shoots.”
If they’re not heaving 50 3 pointers a game they’re just not trying. 😊
 
chublet said:
I know basketball is immensely popular but to me it just seems like 'guy gets ball, runs to the other end, scores. Opposing guy gets ball, runs to the original end and scores. Repeat until everyone has earned a million and then go home.'
Not my thing I guess but why is it so 'exciting'?
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Jumping around. There is also a LOT of jumping around. No thanks!
 
Allen_Wentz said:
Exactly this. Currently the NBA streaming deals are incessantly blacked out; it sucks.

I too will pay whatever they want to charge if there are no blackouts. Currently streaming with blackouts is more trouble than it is worth.
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What does blackouts mean in that context?

Edit: nevermind, someone already answered it on the previous page
 
timber said:
So why do people even pay for this?
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One of life’s great mysteries. I don’t pay extra for things like this. I’m pretty content watching what’s included with my streaming service.(Apple TV+,Peacock and Tubi.) Plus I’m not the intense sports fan I was years ago.
 
Baseball would work for me if they can combine Baseball with Golf and Bowling. Separately, those sports are not interesting to me. But combining elements of these games into a single game would be incredible. I would watch it.

Not a fan of watching soccer and basketball. But if you can have the field of soccer with basketball and let the players dribble or kick the ball and goals were done by putting it into a basket. I would like it.
 
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