With smart TVs and devices like Roku etc., streaming is now as seamless as changing a linear channel. The thing I’m not super comfortable with is exposure.
One thing not to forget in all of this: the Big12’s new media deal is mostly made up of streaming. And I don’t think it includes escalator clauses, etc… it is what it is.
Sort of.
I have a “smart TV” that I picked up a few years ago. It has built in apps for ESPN, Netflix, Prime, etc.
If I want to watch a game on ESPN, I have to launch the app, find the game I’m looking for, log in, have it confirm with my cable provider, then launch the game. Switching to another game requires me to go back to the main menu, search up the other game, then go through the process again.
It’s not terribly difficult once you figure it out (until the ESPN app de-syncs from Comcast, which happens on a fairly regular basis and is a giant pain in the arse to reset), but it’s not nearly as easy as simply flipping to another channel on the TV.
And I 100% guarantee that my 80 year old father-in-law - who doesn’t even own a cell phone - isn’t going to bother figuring out how to stream Apple TV+ to watch a game.
Yeah this is why I say I’m not super comfortable with exposure. The casual fan is less likely to see the content.
Apple TV works via browser too, even on android devices.
It’s hard to believe the App isn’t on your tech. It’s available for Android, just checked. Also an AppleTV 4K device is around $129 and plays all the other apps such as Prime/Roku/Fubo etc. and the performance and interface are much better. We use it for all of our TV.
My Roku TV platform can run Apple + TV as a bricklet, just like it does Amazon, Peacock, Max, Netflix, and Xfinity Stream.
The only weirdness - last year Xfinity locally was not prepared for the deluge of viewers tuning into Amazon to watch TNF. As a result, the system the first two weeks of operation crashed because they hadn’t opened up enough fiber bandwidth to handle the demand. The third week on ran smooth.
It may be buried in our blu-ray. It’s definitely not on the TV, it’s 13 or 14 years old. We don’t own any apple products, goes back to my tech support days. Apple isn’t all that user friendly, unlike what Apple wants you to believe. We don’t own a roku. We stream via our phones via chromecast. If we had a gaming console, it’d probably be on there, but we don’t. Casting via the browser, while doable isn’t always ideal. We’ve tried it a few times and found that video quality isn’t great.
What this says is that we may have to get something a la Apple TV 4k, which plugs into the TV with an HDMI.
This still goes back to my original gripe, in that I don’t really want another subscription. The tech isn’t too much of an issue, other than I don’t want more. I realize that streaming will probably be the future, but like @SkinyUte said, going back and forth between games can be cumbersome or just be plain old PITA.
This is the biggest pain with streaming, especially during primetime slots with multiple games going on at the same time. In traditional TV, when game A goes to a commercial, you can easily flip to game B for a few minutes. But with different apps or channels, it just doesn’t work. Even with my Roku Ultra, when I’m watching a Cubs game on MLB.tv, when the inning ends, by the time my DirecTV stream app loads up, I’m lucky to even have time to catch a score of a game on TV before I have to exit out, knowing how long its going to take MLB.tv to load up before the next inning starts (let alone have time to actually watch some game action).
I’ve done that on occasion for St Louis Cardinals games
Strange, when I’m streaming on Roku I just change the input on my remote when I want to flip to something else, and when I switch it back to Roku it’s still going. It’s just like flipping between two channels on a cable box.
I used to do that before I cut the cord. But since I went to DirecTV Stream, everything runs though the Roku (same TV input).
Ah ok I missed that. Yeah I have a Roku box and other inputs into my Smart tv which itself has several apps.
We bought a Roku Ultra a few years ago to run all our streaming services since we don’t have a smart TV. It is wired right into the Xfinity hub and is so easy to use. I can add AppleTV+ when the time comes if necessary.
what happens with the pac12 if Apple buys Espn?
BTW… the argument about “It’ll never be on in a bar” is less because Youtube.tv has the NFL sunday ticket. So bars are going to need to be streaming.
One aspect of the possible deals that I would love to see parsed out is the post season paycheck portion. What’s it worth to have say a 1/3 almost lock to go to the playoffs vs more
Money annually but only a 1/8 chance? In the Big12 (14-16) it road gets a good deal tougher. And the money gets diluted. In the Big10 the money is greater but the CFP path becomes super hard every year…
In the PAC10 the top schools have a walk to the new playoffs and that had to generate more interest and revenue.
Also inflation. 31m is decent today but will it feel like 20m in 5 years? And that’s where streaming and a buyout of ESPN can change everything again. Do you take the bird in hand or 2 in the bush? Do you jump into a place where it’s a much higher risk struggle to get to the playoffs or a 1/3 casual stroll?
Maybe a bit simplified but still part of what needs to be considered.
Just inept management from the conference. Which is kind of a “well, yeah” statement.
Crazy, but the whole thing reminds me of the “back to the office” thing. In short, a lot of the companies that have pushed their employees back to office work from remote work is because they had cut deals with government on the development of their campuses for tax increment financing. If they didn’t go back to the offices, they would be on the hook to their local governments for multiple millions of dollars. It would screw up their cash flow and possibly bankrupt the companies.
Hate to say it, but our school and the others are painted into the same corner as those companies. We’ve leveraged cash flow to upgrade our facilities, now we need the expected money to pay back the bonds. It is likely the due diligence that underwrote the bonds expected increasing revenues. A media rights deal with flat or declining revenues was a corner we simply couldn’t get painted into. For the record, the other schools were in far worse shape this way than Utah.
Kliavkoff didn’t do his own due diligence to recognize the gravity of things. When UCLA decided to follow U$C to the B1G, they were very clear about their financial problems. Cal’s and Wazzu’s money issues have been widely documented. Given the work done at UW, OSU, ASU and UA on upgrading facilities over the last 5 years, it wouldn’t surprise me they were banking on more money from the media deal to cover the costs. Oregon is likely the odd man out as their wealthy benefactor seems to just scratch a big check, avoiding the costs of bonding.
Nobody could afford less, and less is what Kliavkoff brought to the table.
Time to move on.
Well, part of it is Fox withheld bidding. So PAC wasn’t worth $20 to them, but same teams in Big 12 are worth 30-35 or 30-40 in Big 10? Networks are the real villians here. Stonewalled and manipulated to get their way.
TV networks more than anything killed the PAC. Combination of refusing to make any reasonable media deal and over the years have pushing game times later into the evening so games end well past 1AM on the east coast.