Serious question: is interest in MLB increasing or decreasing these days? I know so few people that actually care about baseball.
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Apple Reportedly Looking to Broadcast Major League Baseball Games Next Season
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World Series ratings consistently decreasing since the 94 lockout. Down from 20mil a game average to under 7.
More fun sports cost a lot more... this way they can dip their toe in, hopefully get a following and then start making big deals. Will be interesting to see how sports broadcasting/streaming changes over the next few years. It's gotten real messy with little one-off deals here and there.
Decreasing. (Detroit) The NFL and NBA is huge, and produces a lot of money. Heck, even Hockey is more relevant than baseball in this city.
The problem is, baseball is so mellow dramatic and generally varies in popularity from city to city. Obviously, in Boston and N.Y., it’s a totally different vibe where it’s like culture in those parts.
I like MLB games, but not enough to raise what I'm willing to pay for AppleTV+.
If I wanted MLB.tv, I'd buy it. (With that said, I'm fortunate enough to live in a city where "only" two teams are blacked out, and I couldn't care less about either of those two.)
But really, I don't have time to watch more than maybe a dozen games per season - probably less - including the playoffs.
If I wanted MLB.tv, I'd buy it. (With that said, I'm fortunate enough to live in a city where "only" two teams are blacked out, and I couldn't care less about either of those two.)
But really, I don't have time to watch more than maybe a dozen games per season - probably less - including the playoffs.
We have had MLB-TV for years and it's great to be able to watch Tigers games (my wife is from Detroit) every day when we are in Nevada, Prague or Dubai. I'd be interested in something via AppleTV as it may well integrate better.
As someone who works in national sports media: NFL is #1, NBA is #2 and the public doesn't care about the rest. But it's MLB then NHL. Obviously varies by market which is why if you're going to get into streaming MLB/NHL games, you want every team, not select teams. That way you have the entire pie, you're not just taking what you may or may not get in terms of viewership.
This could be a great stepping stone into Apple's future of sports content, but they have to do it right. Even one national game a week is good, but they also need to cover the league outside of game hours whether it's on digital or linear or both. Will be interesting to see what happens here. Negotiations are always a joy.
MLB should be allowed to stream all the games and get rid of the blackouts imposed by the regional sports networks.
Yes, please IF we don’t have to deal with the local blackout nonsense. Will gladly pay Apple extra for this. Much better than the single lousy streaming option I have now — AT&T.
This is what is really going on and most people will miss it...so here goes.
MLB lost their Sugar Daddy (Fox) when Rupert sold the RSN's to Disney, but the Trump DOJ made them spin them off to push the deal through. Disney sold them to the highest bidder (Sinclair Broadcasting and private equity and then auctioned off the name to Bally Sports.)
Sinclair's Diamond Sports group is loaded with debt and is going under. They have 14 of the 30 MLB RSN's, with the rest spread out among AT&T, Comcast and others.
Sinclair's problem is they don't have streaming rights to offer an OTT product and the RSN model is dead as people cut the cord.
So MLB needs another Sugar Daddy with deep pockets like Apple, or Netflix or Amazon.
Will Tim save baseball? He could. Because when (not if) the RSN's go bust, the teams will need to replace that revenue.
MLB lost their Sugar Daddy (Fox) when Rupert sold the RSN's to Disney, but the Trump DOJ made them spin them off to push the deal through. Disney sold them to the highest bidder (Sinclair Broadcasting and private equity and then auctioned off the name to Bally Sports.)
Sinclair's Diamond Sports group is loaded with debt and is going under. They have 14 of the 30 MLB RSN's, with the rest spread out among AT&T, Comcast and others.
Sinclair's problem is they don't have streaming rights to offer an OTT product and the RSN model is dead as people cut the cord.
So MLB needs another Sugar Daddy with deep pockets like Apple, or Netflix or Amazon.
Will Tim save baseball? He could. Because when (not if) the RSN's go bust, the teams will need to replace that revenue.
AT&T is a garbage service.
Try switching to -YouTube TV-. Pure bliss, they’ve never had a ‘black out’ for an over-extended amount of time, most times they renegotiate contracts with short term loss for channels, but the only outage I’ve ever encountered, was like less than 48 hours. And they’ve added channels continuously over the last 18 months with additions of sports and movie channels.
They dropped Bally permanently and are regularly fighting with content providers. They’re basically Dish now.
As a huge baseball fan, this does nothing for me. Who wants to hear some network announcers instead of their home team announcers. Ugh. Every time a game is on espn or fox or facebook or what not it just passes me off.
It depends who is in it. Red Sox vs Mets, Dodgers vs Yankees, etc would get huge ratings
reminds me of the jumbo-tron outside the nbc bar in citywalk at universal orlando. massive screen. always footdull on it. nobody watching that screen. a peer pressure sport if there ever was one.
Absolutely. Nothing better than watching Gary and Ron picking on Keith.
And the World Series this year was broadcast in 4K.
It must have been a decade ago that there was some documentary on the ESPN facilities, and even at that time they mentioned they were 4K-ready and 8K-capable. So I guess what I'm getting at stating that is it isn't the nationals you need to worry about for 4K, but rather the RSNs who need the recording and broadcast abilities to offer it.