NFL Solicits Apple to Stream 'Thursday Night Football' Next Season

[Chupa Chupa]

You clearly understand the exact problem he had - you're detailing it perfectly - you're just not connecting it back.

They paid the 300 bucks for the online version of Sunday Ticket. All but 1 of the games he was interested in was otherwise available to him for free as part of the national broadcast (Thursday, Sunday or Monday Night) or perhaps even the "top" game that week outside of his local team (how Fox and CBS alternate the double-header every week). So, in the end, they spent 300 dollars to watch 1 game on TV.

Right, but that is due to OP's ignorance. The Thursday, Sunday, and Monday night games more most of the coming season are known when teams release their schedule around the time of the draft which is months before the first kickoff of the season. The only "wild card" is if a game is flexed after Week 10. But that is a "risk" one takes when subscribing to Sunday Ticket. If OP was dissatisfied it's due to his own laziness not to check the schedule before subscribing. His team happened to be playing great.

Honestly, I'd rather be in OP's position and spend $ on Sunday Ticket only to have my great team get consistent free national air time than spend the money as I do on ST and end up not watching the last 4 games because my team is eliminated and too painful to watch.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Right, but that is due to OP's ignorance. The Thursday, Sunday, and Monday night games more most of the coming season are known when teams release their schedule around the time of the draft which is months before the first kickoff of the season. The only "wild card" is if a game is flexed after Week 10. But that is a "risk" one takes when subscribing to Sunday Ticket. If OP was dissatisfied it's due to his own laziness not to check the schedule before subscribing. His team happened to be playing great.

Honestly, I'd rather be in OP's position and spend $ on Sunday Ticket only to have my great team get consistent free national air time than spend the money as I do on ST and end up not watching the last 4 games because my team is eliminated and too painful to watch.

You often get renewal deals when you do so quickly after the prior season ends, and the schedule doesn't come out til the end of April... add in the flex schedule and you may find a lot of people in this situation.

What needs to come has been mentioned previously, a single-team season pass. For all sports. Though I would imagine that the NFL would be dead last to do that. But in general, Sunday Ticket is the worst league pass on the planet. There's so few games as it is, and there's plenty on nationally. And then it's the most expensive one...

 

[Chupa Chupa]

You often get renewal deals when you do so quickly after the prior season ends, and the schedule doesn't come out til the end of April... add in the flex schedule and you may find a lot of people in this situation.

What needs to come has been mentioned previously, a single-team season pass. For all sports. Though I would imagine that the NFL would be dead last to do that. But in general, Sunday Ticket is the worst league pass on the planet. There's so few games as it is, and there's plenty on nationally. And then it's the most expensive one...

Not true. There are no renewal deals. Sunday Ticket automatically renews at a set price for all subscribers. The subscriber has to actively call to cancel or it renews. And the renewal price isn't even posted to ones DirecTV statement until August, usually as a 6 payment plan. Subscribers have until the start of the NFL season to cancel.

In fact it's quite the normal and ritual for subscribers to have to call and request cancellation in order to get a better deal. Depending on ones account discounts can range anywhere from $5/mo off to completely free. Personally I've never done better than 1/2 off. I never call until the first Sunday Ticket billing starts around training camp time and that is way after April.

 

[BuffaloTF]

Not true. There are no renewal deals. Sunday Ticket automatically renews at a set price for all subscribers. The subscriber has to actively call to cancel or it renews. And the renewal price isn't even posted to ones DirecTV statement until August, usually as a 6 payment plan. Subscribers have until the start of the NFL season to cancel.

In fact it's quite the normal and ritual for subscribers to have to call and request cancellation in order to get a better deal. Depending on ones account discounts can range anywhere from $5/mo off to completely free. Personally I've never done better than 1/2 off. I never call until the first Sunday Ticket billing starts around training camp time and that is way after April.

There's definitely renewal deals. Call and say you want to cancel and watch it come down 100 dollars.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

There's definitely renewal deals. Call and say you want to cancel and watch it come down 100 dollars.

Right. I said exactly that. Re-read your post then mine. You initially said you had to renew early or you'd miss out on any deals. That is absolutely NOT true. All subscribers are automatically renewed. The deals come into play when you threatened to cancel and you only need to do that before the season starts and the subscription is non-refundable.

 

[kbsbeme]

The NFL has solicited Apple and other digital companies, including Amazon, Google and Yahoo, about streaming the full "Thursday Night Football" schedule online on a non-exclusive basis next season, according to SportsBusiness Daily.

The league also sent bidding proposals to CBS, ESPN, Fox, NBC and Turner Sports for traditional TV rights to the "Thursday Night Football" package, which is currently split between CBS and the NFL Network for the ongoing 2015 season.While there is no certainty that Apple is interested in the NFL's digital rights, online streaming is inevitably the future of sports broadcasting as more cable subscribers cut the cord. NFL offers a live streaming app Game Pass, but it does not include "Thursday Night Football" and its selection of games is limited compared to rival platforms such as MLB At Bat, NBA League Pass and NHL GameCenter.

Yahoo could be a frontrunner to secure the digital rights, having paid an estimated $15 million to exclusively live stream a 2015 regular season game between the Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars at London's Wembley Stadium. Yahoo said it saw 33.6M streams of the game and up to 15.2M unique viewers tuned in to the live stream on the web, tablets and smartphones.

CBS currently produces all sixteen "Thursday Night Football" games, anchored by sportscasters Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, as part of its estimated $300 million NFL deal. NFL Network simulcasts the games and carries eight games exclusively as part of its current partnership with CBS, which began in the 2014 season. Most games kick off at 8:25 p.m. Eastern Time.

Article Link: NFL Solicits Apple to Stream 'Thursday Night Football' Next Season

I think Thursday Night Football is over saturation of the brand. Get rid of it. The NFL should offer a way for out-of-market fans to buy live streams of their favorite teams á la carte. I don't need EVERY GAME, I just need my team's games. I'd pay up to $5 per game.

 

[s2mikey]

Thursday evening is a terrible night for football and on top of that most of the scheduled games for Thursday nights are unwatchable crap. Football is for Sunday. Maybe Monday nights are OK but that's it.

Coming soon.... Tuesday afternoon games, Wednesday midnight kickoff, blah, blah. The NFL is so overexposed. Why don't they fix the game? Like reduce the number of teams since the talent pool is so watered down, let defensive players hit people, stop with the reviews and game stoppages, too many commercials, less parity than ever before even though the salary cap was supposed to fix that, limit free agency to make it rewarding to keep players on their current teams, etc, etc.

It's too bad younger folks don't remember the glory years of the 80s and 90s.

 

[macfoxpro]

thursday Thursday THURSDAY!!!!

 

[4jasontv]

It might be that I am slow, but I am still not getting this.

Maybe you are not understanding my point. If the NFL builds an App for the Apple TV, Amazon Fire, Google Chromecast that allows them to stream their own games, then who the hell are they negotiating with? To my knowledge they put their apps out there for free with in-app purchases for a game or a season and make money. Oh and what they stream is full of commercials so they make money again. No negotiations. Pure profits.

What is this negotiation power business you speak of? This sounds like the old business model where you give away distribution to someone else. I am advocating something simpler that benefits the content creator (in this case the NFL) and the content consumer (in this case you and me). The being taken out is the middleman, the distributor. How do you lose revenue? My business 101 smarts says eliminate the middleman and increase profits/revenue.

Most people are not cord cutters, so the majority of people that take advantage of this proposed service will be less then 100%. So let's say 10% of people decide to use it the first year. (That number is probably high.) That 10% would probably not use the old model as well, and so the decrease in people consuming the content via a network would lower the value of the content to the network. That decrease in viewership translates to lower negotiation power. So, 10% leaves the old model to the new model, but the revenue from the remaining 90% is less then the the revenue from 90% of the original 100%. That means you have to make more from the 10% on the new model plus extra to justify the investment. Add into that the risk associated with alienating your partners and customers if the service fails to operate as planned. My business 102 smarts says that the middle man is the customer when the middle mans customers are your products.

 

[4jasontv]

But what I don't understand about OP's remark is that he is referring to non-Sunday day games which Sunday Ticket never covers. So the games he's talking about were not blacked out, they just were not available with the cable/local channels his HOA subscribed too. Odd though because Sunday is NBC, and a national broadcast. Monday is ESPN, which is on almost everyone's cable lineup. Thursdays is on CBS and NFL channel for first half of season. Second half just NFL channel.

Having local channels cover the game isn't a solution for me. My OTA reception is significantly degraded. The formatting is bad, there is frequent signal interruptions, and the broadcast quality is less than SD. Watching the local network means having an suboptimal experience. That's fine if it's free, but if I am paying for Sunday Ticket, I expect the same quality feed for all games. The local blackout therefore disrupts my paid service.

ESPN is not on my cable lineup because I don't have cable. As in I don't have cable Comcast or anyone. I can get Dish, but it requires a contract, hardware fees, and offers me no other benefits beyond 3 hours a week for a few months out of the year.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Having local channels cover the game isn't a solution for me. My OTA reception is significantly degraded. The formatting is bad, there is frequent signal interruptions, and the broadcast quality is less than SD. Watching the local network means having an suboptimal experience. That's fine if it's free, but if I am paying for Sunday Ticket, I expect the same quality feed for all games. The local blackout therefore disrupts my paid service.

ESPN is not on my cable lineup because I don't have cable. As in I don't have cable Comcast or anyone. I can get Dish, but it requires a contract, hardware fees, and offers me no other benefits beyond 3 hours a week for a few months out of the year.

Whether it's a solution for you or not, that is how the NFL sets up its broadcasts. If you want "free" football then OTA is your only choice. If you want to pay then there is Sunday Ticket on DTV or Red Zone on nearly every other cable outfit. NFL had made its decision through 2022. It can play around with the Thursday night game and early morning (U.S. eastern time) London games because the broadcast contracts for those games structured differently than the other games.

 

[GlenK]

Already have Sunday ticket and the app so I'm getting all Sunday games on TV and streamed anyway. As for Thursday, if this somehow screws CBS then I'm all for it!!

 

[4jasontv]

Whether it's a solution for you or not, that is how the NFL sets up its broadcasts. If you want "free" football then OTA is your only choice. If you want to pay then there is Sunday Ticket on DTV or Red Zone on nearly every other cable outfit. NFL had made its decision through 2022. It can play around with the Thursday night game and early morning (U.S. eastern time) London games because the broadcast contracts for those games structured differently than the other games.

You miss the point. I am willing to pay for football, but I can't. Since Sunday ticket blocks out local games, I have to watch the free OTA feed, which is low quality. Not everyone has HD local channels available. If I pay to get the games streamed to me the fact that it's a local team playing shouldn't mean I can't have access to the stream I paid for. This thread is discussing changes to how the NFL broadcasts, so saying "that's how it is" is an unnecessary comment. The issue I am addressing asks why customers who pay more for the content be forced to manage multiple delivery mechanisms?

 

[Chupa Chupa]

You miss the point. I am willing to pay for football, but I can't. Since Sunday ticket blocks out local games, I have to watch the free OTA feed, which is low quality. Not everyone has HD local channels available. If I pay to get the games streamed to me the fact that it's a local team playing shouldn't mean I can't have access to the stream I paid for. This thread is discussing changes to how the NFL broadcasts, so saying "that's how it is" is an unnecessary comment. The issue I am addressing asks why customers who pay more for the content be forced to manage multiple delivery mechanisms?

I don't think I'm missing your point. I understand what you are wishing for, but it's still a wish that is unlikely to be unfulfilled for many years since the NFL's obligations are locked up, especially on the sunday day game streaming side w/ DTV.

 

[4jasontv]

I don't think I'm missing your point. I understand what you are wishing for, but it's still a wish that is unlikely to be unfulfilled for many years since the NFL's obligations are locked up, especially on the sunday day game streaming side w/ DTV.

I think you are, since you still seem to think that a thread wish list is somehow bound by contractual obligations, though I have to wonder how DirecTV having exclusivity stop the nfl from letting DirecTV broadcast games.

 

[4jasontv]

I think you are, since you still seem to think that a thread wish list is somehow bound by contractual obligations, though I have to wonder how DirecTV having exclusivity stop the nfl from letting DirecTV broadcast games.

Seriously, address the issue I proposed. I pay to get games, except I can't watch the game that has my local team because it is assumed I can get said game even though I can't.

Blackouts interfere with fan viewership because fans are products for the NFL, not customers.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Seriously, address the issue I proposed. I pay to get games, except I can't watch the game that has my local team because it is assumed I can get said game even though I can't.

Blackouts interfere with fan viewership because fans are products for the NFL, not customers.

What is to address there. That is the NFL's broadcast rule. It's purpose is not random or an attempt to annoy fans, but is to preserve the advertising rates and income of the local affiliate who paid for the right to broadcast the local team's games. It's part of the NFL's contract with the broadcast networks. That same contract is also what allows the NFL to sell out of market games to a 3rd party like DirecTV. DirecTV does not have the right to broadcast home market games. When you pay for a Sunday Ticket package it's will advertised that its only for "out of market" games.

If the NFL did not have the local blackout rule then some viewers might watch the game on Sunday Ticket, lowering the local affiliates ratings which would correspond to lower ad rates and revenue. In turn, the NFL wouldn't be able to command the billions it gets from the networks. That is why it's there. Every sport has the same rule for the same reasons. TV revenue is the main income source for sports leagues so they are going to do everything to protect its broadcaster's revenue.

 

[4jasontv]

What is to address there. That is the NFL's broadcast rule. It's purpose is not random or an attempt to annoy fans, but is to preserve the advertising rates and income of the local affiliate who paid for the right to broadcast the local team's games. It's part of the NFL's contract with the broadcast networks. That same contract is also what allows the NFL to sell out of market games to a 3rd party like DirecTV. DirecTV does not have the right to broadcast home market games. When you pay for a Sunday Ticket package it's will advertised that its only for "out of market" games.

If the NFL did not have the local blackout rule then some viewers might watch the game on Sunday Ticket, lowering the local affiliates ratings which would correspond to lower ad rates and revenue. In turn, the NFL wouldn't be able to command the billions it gets from the networks. That is why it's there. Every sport has the same rule for the same reasons. TV revenue is the main income source for sports leagues so they are going to do everything to protect its broadcaster's revenue.

Right. So what I said.

 

[NoBodyCaptiva]

If you want "free" football then OTA is your only choice.

It might be one of your only 'legit' choices for free football in your house, but it's far from your only 'free' choice... One can easily find dozens of free SD and HD streams of any football game if they are inclined... Or you could simply go to a local establishment or friends house that has the game playing...

A legit streaming service would fill a much needed void but only if the price is significantly lower than cable or sat cost...