tybert

March 14th, 2023 at 11:06 PM ^

No shock here - the first domino to drop was when Disney bought Fox Sports in 2019 and had to divest the MLB stuff for anti-trust reasons. 

I've been watching a lot of reruns of MLB spring training games on MLB network this month. Figured Bally was going to be SOL when they overpaid for the rights to teams like the Brewers and Indians (aka Guardians) and Rockies. At least Detroit has a loyal market that someone will pick up. 

Hopefully, MLB will show a lot of free games for a while. Otherwise, it's back to EVEN WORSE than the 1970s when at least we had Channel 4 in Detroit with George and Al calling home games on Saturday and Sunday and a decent amount of road games. Was kind of weird those days when the Tigers were home mid-week and the only games were on radio. PASS didn't come along until 1980s. 

Maybe MLB and Bally are learning, like Disney+, that people have choices and will opt out of watching overall unless the price is right. 

Joined: 11/17/2008

MGoPoints: 8529

stephenrjking

March 14th, 2023 at 11:16 PM ^

I don't have to be a cable cutter, I don't live in the area anymore.

I periodically drop cable here, and I'm mostly indifferent to the local RSN unless a Detroit team is playing a Minnesota team; I watched the Loons on it occasionally, but MLS decamped to its own streaming service (which is currently too expensive for me, maybe later). 

This is not good for the overall health of local sports. Maybe they'll find a package that provides affordable coverage for most people for most sports, but I'm not sure about that.

My in-laws and grand-in-laws get the Detroit RSN in northern Michigan, and they enjoy flipping on the Wings or the Tigers. It's fun for them. It's convenient. It's their team and they're on tv, even if they don't know the roster very well or anything.

But my in-laws and grand-in-laws are retired on fixed incomes and they're not going to spend extra to watch one team. They'll probably wind up watching less of something or multiple things. Maaaybe they pick up a Tigers package, but that will be it.

It's harder to be connected to the local teams. I'm still a fan, but I can't name everyone that plays for them. I only have so much bandwidth, and not every team will be squeezed in in any given year. When the Tigers were good I subscribed to the MLB streaming package and watched them frequently and it was great; maybe they'll be good again and I'll get back in, or it maybe the Pistons. It's easier to follow the Lions because of the nature of football and NFL coverage, of course.

In the long run it is worse for the sense of community you get following the local team, and worse for the legions of casual fans who will still buy merchandise and watch the team and cheer when they do well, and worse for the state. And, in the long run, worse for the teams and sports themselves, which exchange a longer-term building of dedicated, paying fans for a short-term cash boost from people who are fans already. 

May be no avoiding it, but that's what it is. 

*I will, however, acknowledge that what we have here is a good problem; there are so many things to watch and it costs money to show them. BTN Plus is terrible, for example, but it used to be that a lot of the stuff that looks terrible on BTN plus was stuff that didn't get shown at all. We yearn for the days of George and Al, of Pistons and Wings on channel 50... but a lot of us didn't have PASS and we couldn't watch most of the games at all. I did a good bit of following of the Bad Boys by reading the stats section of the sports page the day after. There are tradeoffs but there are benefits, too. 

Joined: 03/15/2012

MGoPoints: 20144031

tybert

March 14th, 2023 at 11:39 PM ^

My mom and dad subscribed to PASS for Tigers games starting in 1984, when we eventually won it all. Remember telling my dad, even as a college student living off boxed Kraft Mac and Cheese and occasionally splurging on Chef Boyardee SpaghettiOs, how I'd pay him half the bill just to keep PASS when I came home from classes on a weekend. It wasn't cheap but didn't seem like it broke the family budget to have the package. I think PASS had Ray Lane and Jim Northrup while Channel 4 had George and Al. You go could a whole season without missing a game, which was a far cry from late 1970s when a night weeknight road game in Seattle was only on radio (Not that Ernie and Paul weren't awesome to listen too).

Whatever happens, the reality is that WGN for the Cubs, YES for the Yankees, etc. make it hard to compete for TV contracts. Bally rolled the dice and now we see that people will only fork out so much. I'm not expecting much from my Tiges this year anyway. But would be nice to see Miggie have a decent final year. 

 

Joined: 11/17/2008

MGoPoints: 8529

I Bleed Maize N Blue

March 15th, 2023 at 10:46 AM ^

Ah, PASS. I didn't have cable as a kid, but when I got to U-M, the dorm lounge did. Late night, flipping through the channels, PASS had some strange sport on. Looked kinda like rugby, at least the ball did, but it wasn't. I had tuned into Australian Rules Football. When they scored, some guy in a hat and long coat would step up and make an emphatic pointing gesture, half-arm extended, and one or both arms, depending. Eventually, I figured out the scoring.

Joined: 09/27/2008

MGoPoints: 59023

jbohl

March 15th, 2023 at 8:59 AM ^

I primarily watch Sports. 

I'm old.  I don't want the hassle of leaving wifi cable (Comcast).  I know I will cut from cable one day.  

On regular cable, I get all Detroit teams, BTN (not BTN+); USA, TNT, ESPN2 (no ESPNU or ESPN3).

For sports, I supplement cable offerings with a firestick for ESPN+ & Paramount+ (mostly soccer) & Amazon Prime for a little football.

For non-Sports, we have Amazon Prime/Disney+/Netflix/MHZ.  Periodically we have HBO & Showtime when there are deals.

All in, I'm around $220 a month

I know I will cut the chord one day.  What platform do you recommend to serve as the streaming(?) backbone?  FireTV works for me, but my kids are not impressed......

If this sounds naive.....duh.....I have kids and grandkids to tell me that.....

 

Joined: 12/02/2017

MGoPoints: 786

befuggled

March 15th, 2023 at 11:04 AM ^

That's the downside, isn't it? I'm in Toronto, and in order to get all the Michigan games I had to buy most of the sports packages and one or two of the higher tier regular cable packages. It got to be pretty expensive, and I don't watch a lot of TV other than live sports (and mostly just Michigan games now). My wife mostly watches streaming media (e.g., Netflix, etc.).

Worse, I'd end up having to stream one or two games a year anyway. 

So when we moved a few years ago I cut cable TV completely. Occasionally I stream to the TV in the spare bedroom; since I'm the only one who watches, though, I usually just stream to the PC in my office.

Joined: 07/01/2008

MGoPoints: 10014

stephenrjking

March 15th, 2023 at 1:07 PM ^

If you're looking for a "streaming" backbone, it sounds like you mean, the device to stream through. Smart TVs seem to do a lot of that, but you can get a Roku or an Apple tv to fill that function. We use an Apple TV and we like it; it makes sense for us since we have a lot of stuff purchased through Apple's ecosystem. Roku is fine if you don't have such inventory. 

I've found that my sports viewing is best streamlined when I choose to pay less attention to some sports, and thus not need to pay to watch them. It's not easy; Michigan stuff is important and it is spread all over the place. But, for example, you can watch a whole lot of soccer for $10 a month total with subs to Peacock and Paramount without needing any cable subscription. 

Joined: 03/15/2012

MGoPoints: 20144031

tigerd

March 15th, 2023 at 2:08 PM ^

Zero sympathy for them after taking away my Detroit sports from YTTV. Only good thing is, they did it when they all sucked so it was no great loss. You lose a lot of bargaining power when you have a product that sucks.

Joined: 11/12/2016

MGoPoints: 6470

AVPBCI

March 16th, 2023 at 9:37 AM ^

I had Direct tv but as soon as football season ended i got rid of it after 20 years.

Saving myself 140 bucks a month.

I used to love the NBA but the league is a league full of divas and overpaid idiots who care more about Woke political agenda and about themselves ,and the game sucks these days and the league is watered down and is just softer than charmin. The league is severely watered down talent wise. Plus I am sick of the NBA subsidizing the WNBA a league that is boring as hell to watch and is full of divas and extreme wokeness.

Ben Simmons and BG cases in point.

I use dofusports to stream games and espn+ and have paramount +  for serie A soccer

Espn+ i can watch pretty much every red wings game with.

Tigers and Red Wings and Pistons ( when i used to care about the nba )  i just use DOFU, i could do the same with the Lions and Michigan if I wanted to, Tigers are gonna suck, the pistons suck and as i mentioned the NBA is the worst product right now,. The red wings are almost their but will take time still.

The pistons will suck as long as Gores owns them. He is no Mr. Davidson

Ill probably get YTTV for sunday ticket and cut it after the season.

As for Bally's trying to charge 20 bucks a month for local, that is a huge joke.

I live in Wisconsin so i have to find alternate ways to watch the Michigan teams play.

 

Joined: 11/08/2011

MGoPoints: 1521