The most boring sport to watch. I would rather watch grass grow…
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Friday Night Baseball Coming to Apple TV+ on April 8
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Didn’t CODA win Best Picture at the Oscars? I wouldn’t go as far as saying they are offering mediocre content.
I imagine that MLB contracts do not allow you to see the stadium/warm up in between innings on TV. The reason there is so much time between innings is to allow for ad time on TV/radio, and if you're not watching ads they'd rather punish you with boring screensavers.
Baseball isn’t like football. Fans don’t generally watch a few different teams a week. With 162 games, fans generally watch their own teams and only watch other teams if it’s a really good match-up. I don’t think that these Friday night games will really get the viewership that Apple hopes it will.
MLB.TV can be a great option — if you don’t live in a blackout area. Since MLB.TV blacks out my local team, I can’t watch them live, only on replay. If Apple or MLB can make it so I can watch my local team live on streaming, I’d be all in on that. I only keep cable for sports, anyway, and this would be one nail in the coffin of keeping a my cable subscription.
But I’m not holding my breath…
MLB.TV can be a great option — if you don’t live in a blackout area. Since MLB.TV blacks out my local team, I can’t watch them live, only on replay. If Apple or MLB can make it so I can watch my local team live on streaming, I’d be all in on that. I only keep cable for sports, anyway, and this would be one nail in the coffin of keeping a my cable subscription.
But I’m not holding my breath…
Obviously an experiment to see if adding a little sports to Apple TV+ will increase subscriptions…
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Amazing what $25,000,000 will buy.
I guess ATV+ is a worthwhile project so long as they keep shelling out big money for award winning products.
Sports are the last big hurdle for streaming. MLB teams rely on local cable contracts for large part of their income. It’s the reason small market teams have trouble: they can’t get the viewer numbers of a New York or Chicago. MLB can do very little to put local games on streaming. As you said, this is low hanging fruit. For an individual team 1 or 2 Friday night games on Apple TV+ is meaningless. But if it works, AND Apple is willing to pony up the money, it could be a viable streaming choice for MLB teams, or other sports, in the future.
I generally feel that the Apple TV+ experiment has been…less than impressive. However, they absolutely do not offer mediocre content. They just offer content that’s more for a “high brow” crowd than a general audience. All of their shows and movies are impressive and very well made, but none of their content really grabs you and makes you feel like you MUST subscribe. They really need a “Stranger Things” or a “Game of Thrones”, something that is a “must-see” hit rather than always going with high-brow content. I’m not saying they need to show wrestling or “Locked Up and In Love” or some such nonsense, but something that appeals more to a general audience. (I’ll always maintain that they should have purchased Sony or MGM when they began. They would have had an instant library and popular properties that could easily be given sequels and reboots)
Is Friday Night Baseball another Apple Original, or is it a totally new part of Apple TV+? So Apple TV+ now offers Apple Originals + Friday Night Baseball.
Uh, Ted Lasso is “high brow”? Not only is it not high brow, it’s a huge hit, a multi-award winner, and definitely gets an emotional response from people.
Perhaps we just differ in our opinion of ads. I consider the ads to be punishment. The boring screensavers do not offend me in any way.
The old mlb.tv app on ATV used to also allow watching two games at once, or quickly/easily switching between two games. During those "boring screensaver" moments I would just switch into dual game view and watch a second game in split-screen with the first (on commercial break showing the screensaver). As soon as the boring screensaver ended, I would switch back to only watching that game. First, the new app no longer had this feature as of last season which sucks. But moreover, with ads, it was less easy to tell when the primary game resumed as the visual change from ad to game is not as drastic as screensaver to game. Thus, the boring screensaver is better for the utilitarian use of distinguishing games from ad-breaks.
Sony? Or do you mean Columbia Pictures? They just lost out on MGM, as that was purchased by Amazon.
Now if Apple TV+ were to acquire the Turner Classic Movies library from AT&T, I am so all in.
Streaming is a mess, as it is terribly fragmented. Everyone does want to be a part of sports.
As for TV shows and movies, ABC = Hulu. NBC Universal = Peacock. CBS = Paramount+.
When it comes to sports, there are already a bunch of big dogs on the porch.
Disney (ESPN/ABC). Comcast (NBC) and Fox. CBS Sports.
I'm all in favor of sports not being on broadcast TV. I miss out on news too many times, and broadcast TV is suppose to be a Public Trustee.
So Tim Cook needs to convince the FCC to outlaw sports on over-the-air television, and he has a fighting chance.
Apple should look into buying a skinny bundle service, or making their own. Something like Philo or Frndly.
It's my understanding Ted Lasso uses occasional profanity (F bombs), which is a surprise to me.
I thought Apple TV+ would be a more family friendly service.
Yeah, there are things I don't want on my TV! Turner Classic Movies is mostly predictable. Not exempt, but predictable.
My final thought, if you don't own it, you have to lease it, and that is either costly or not possible.
Obviously I‘m generalizing (which is always dangerous), and, yes, Ted Lasso is the least high brow thing that Apple TV+ has. But its second season definitely changed directions from a sports farce to a more high concept tragicomedic show, leaning into being a bit Less accessible for a general audience, IMO. Otherwise Apple has concentrated on big name celebrities, high concept dramas, and high production values leaning into ”high brow” entertainment more so than any other streaming service.
Blackouts make no sense in 2022 because you can't assume people have cable - which is often necessary to get local channels in some parts of the US.
That BAL BOS game will be good. You could have been playing the Nationals.That sounds pretty reasonable. Which means that if the Orioles are on Apple TV and they have the home team feed, I need to listen to the visitor's team feed - announcers are so bad.
But then, why WOULD the Orioles ever be on a Game of the Week!
Update - I see the Orioles are on a GOTW. Well, wow!
This is good to hear. As an MLB TV subscriber, I find myself watching the games a lot less often than when I was dependent upon local broadcasts. Even though I don't root for my local team that's the series I am most interested in since my friends watch them.
This. I think there are also so cultural differences as you move about the country. I feel like casual fans of BOS, NYY, LAD, and Cubs fans know more about their current teams than other parts of the country. That changes if teams are in contention come September.
The blackout maps drive me insane. The poor souls in Iowa... For people that don't watch baseball, these lines are drawn by each team, not MLB, prior to selling broadcast rights of games. So, it's in the team's best interest to claim the largest possible area of the population where they have 'fans'. Since Iowa doesn't have a team all the teams surrounding Iowa claim they are Iowa's local team.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I'm certainly not pro-blackouts... that's simply reality. Priority is generally selling tickets to the event. If sold out- a pretty challenging thing in regular season Baseball lately- owners are likely much more amenable to "giving away" another way to see the game on TV. If butts are not in seats, they want to keep it locked down to try to sell every possible ticket... and then $20 hotdogs at the game, etc.
People who have fully "cut the cord" and have no antenna option or streaming-replacement option are probably towards the bottom of who the advertisers want to reach. Some of that type may- in fact- be very desirable selling opportunities but many worried about up to $100+ per month are probably not going to be great eyeballs for Mercedes & Lexus commercials, etc during the game.
I can fully appreciate the idea that sports blackouts is an antiquated concept but if you make your money on butts in seats or selling advertising during the game, you probably feel very different about that. Those things generate the money that pays for the whole show. Baseball without big money flows is amateurs getting together to play at the local playground. Even college teams or triple AAA can be lucky to have 10-15% of seating capacity filled at their games and they are on the cusp of the majors.
MLB blackouts are based on regional television broadcasting rights, not ticket sales.
As for cutting the cord, they typically represent the most lucrative demographics, so that doesn't make sense.
Some places simply can't receive broadcast TV. Often they are some of the wealthiest viewers. Combine with the point that the advertiser's target demographics have often already cut the cord, those viewers aren't likely to signup.
But the most important thing to remember is that MLB blackouts are not based on ticket sales.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I looked this up and you are right. I was assuming based on a sport I follow with more interest than MLB. It appears the RSN revenue pretty much rules this situation entirely... even in a situation where there is not one butt in a seat in the stadium. I'm surprised... but then I see they are paying a huge amount of money to "control" this... so the owners have simply gone with the (most) money. Can't blame them.
The audio-only package through the MLB app is only $20 for the entire season. MLB.TV is $130 per season, which is a steal, despite the blackouts.
We agree about preferring a silent screensaver to ads. My point was that MLB doesn't want the viewer to watch the stadium life in between innings, because that's paid advertising time. From MLB perspective, you get ads or you get nothing (screensaver).
What I really wish is that MLB would cut the breaks between innings in half to speed up games. But again, that's ad time; and if they cut the ads there, they'd just show up somewhere else (like on jerseys, which is obviously disgusting).
No, it's what you call a "nothing burger." Tens of millions of us adore baseball.