Game On? Increasingly, Yes.
Live sports in the era of cable decay
Every other day, it’s the same story. What game is on? What time is it on? What channel is the game on? Most importantly, do I have a way to stream that channel?
Tonight. Warriors vs. Trailblazers. 7:30pm. On TNT. Which is a part of Sling’s streaming service, so… yes! Score.
Some nights, of course, I’m not so lucky. But, as time goes on, I’m seemingly getting luckier…
We can no longer go a day without some story about the end of the cable bundle. Those stories used to be immediately followed by some PR around how the reports of the death of cable have been greatly exaggerated. Those types of follow-ups are slowing. And while there are still plenty of people who continue to insist the cable stronghold will endure, those people continue to be wrong, just more obviously so.
Cable will not die overnight, but it is dying. The gradual death is gradually morphing into the sudden death. To see evidence of this, look no further than what everyone with a stake in the game is doing. They’re either quietly rolling out their own streaming options, not-so-quietly doing so, or taking some less conventional measures to bolster business…
This is happening. But the one inhibiting factor remains sports. Specifically, live sports. As you can tell from my scenario above, I jump through hoops to make it work. But it still doesn’t always work. And most people still won’t go through such hassles.¹
But again, it’s getting to be a lot less of a hassle. Just a couple years ago, it was basically impossible to watch any sporting event live over the internet, beyond perhaps a few of the biggest events, like the Super Bowl. Now, via services like Sling, I can watch games shown on channels like TNT and ESPN. And, if you happen to live in certain cities (San Francisco being one), the games shown on ABC are an option as well. Last year, there was a game on Yahoo. This year, there will be a few on Twitter. Next year, who knows?
The story the other day about Hulu’s forthcoming streaming service seemed to leave out all details about sports. But presumably, they’ll be a part of the package because of the networks involved. (Which would be a great idea!) Then we’ll see what Apple, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and the like eventually conjure up.
As you can tell, the early days of the end of cable are going to be messy. We have so many different services, some of which offer the same things, but include just enough differentiation that you need to get all of them to be fully covered. And that’s expensive. Actually, all-in, it’s probably far more expensive than the cable bundle of old.
But that’s the cost of progress. Eventually, this will all be far more streamlined, and we’ll laugh at how we used to only be able to watch content on televisions delivered via coaxial cable into our living rooms. At some point in the near future, the last hold-outs may be the sports diehards. But that will be temporary as well. Plus, you can always just go to a bar.
Update 5/4/16: Hulu has today confirmed their live TV streaming plans, including sports:
That’ll include “live sports, news, and events,” Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins said
¹ I include in this “hassle” of setting up an antenna to get the network channels (and their sports) over the air. This isn’t really much of a hassle, and actually provides a much better picture than the compressed one you get over cable, but it is still a hassle to some people to constantly have to switch inputs on their televisions. I get it.
