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The impending death of Bally Sports


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  • 2 months later...
On 5/30/2023 at 10:47 AM, CMRivdogs said:

This may end up becoming a nothing burger. Initial thoughts are if there's smoke might as well look for a flame or two...

https://frontofficesports.com/white-sox-and-bulls-owner-acquires-controlling-stake-of-stadium-network/

 

It wouldn't surprise me at all if he tries to make his own Network.

Given how the internet has changed how we get media, I wonder stuff like this isn't going to be much more common? If you don't need cable or TV broadcasters to air your content, can smaller things like this exist?  I mean, part of the expense of a RSN is filling the majority of the time when the local sports teams aren't playing, right? It would be weird to have a TV station that's just "on air" for a few hours a day.  But if you're strictly stream the sports events online, then all the rest of the stuff can just go away. Just stream when the game starts and stop when the game is over.

The biggest deterrent to this, I think, are the people who grew up on broadcast or cable TV (old folks like me), but we're a dying (literally) breed. 10, 15, 20 years from now the people who HAVE cable subscriptions are going to be the oddities. If I'm Chris Ilitch, I'd be seriously looking at just creating my own streaming service for locals.

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IIRC...In the early early days of "Pay TV"  like Channel 100 (1970's) and ONTV (1980's) they were only broadcasting content in the evening.

We had channel 100 for awhile in Toledo when I was a teenager.  Nothing emptied the living room of me and my sibs quicker than having a movie with a sex scene that involved nudity on when the parents were watching.  

What kind of a sick F would watch that with their parents?

 

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4 minutes ago, RedRamage said:

It wouldn't surprise me at all if he tries to make his own Network.

Given how the internet has changed how we get media, I wonder stuff like this isn't going to be much more common? If you don't need cable or TV broadcasters to air your content, can smaller things like this exist?  I mean, part of the expense of a RSN is filling the majority of the time when the local sports teams aren't playing, right? It would be weird to have a TV station that's just "on air" for a few hours a day.  But if you're strictly stream the sports events online, then all the rest of the stuff can just go away. Just stream when the game starts and stop when the game is over.

The biggest deterrent to this, I think, are the people who grew up on broadcast or cable TV (old folks like me), but we're a dying (literally) breed. 10, 15, 20 years from now the people who HAVE cable subscriptions are going to be the oddities. If I'm Chris Ilitch, I'd be seriously looking at just creating my own streaming service for locals.

To me the biggest drawback to streaming services is the eventual cost of wide-band streaming services. Cable companies still have us by the short hairs if you're looking for enough bandwidth to accommodate several devices, plus the cost of each service. The cell phone companies promote "inexpensive" 5-G plans, but it it really enough to provide what we want if you're in a household that still relies on things like Zoom as well as using the service for entertainment?

 

 

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23 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I just turned on the Blue Jays game for a minute and they showed a commercial in the middle of an at bat?  They are losing me man.  

I would say with the faster game times they have to make up for lost ad time but I guess with baseball that really doesnt matter since they only would take breaks in the half innings and pitching changes so game pace shouldn't have any effect on that. 

Edited by RandyMarsh
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6 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

To me the biggest drawback to streaming services is the eventual cost of wide-band streaming services. Cable companies still have us by the short hairs if you're looking for enough bandwidth to accommodate several devices, plus the cost of each service. The cell phone companies promote "inexpensive" 5-G plans, but it it really enough to provide what we want if you're in a household that still relies on things like Zoom as well as using the service for entertainment?

I dunno... I haven't really paid enough attention to speeds for services like this vs. what speeds I'm actually using.  I do know that I just recently downgraded my internet speed (cable) and both my kids came back from college and I'm not having any issues personally.  With both of them HEAVY users plus me being a (at times) pretty heavy user as well, and having youtube TV (so streaming all TV content) I expected to run into some issues, but so far that hasn't happened.

I believe that 5G home services are supposed to be relatively on par with cable (at least in the lower speed of cable) internet. That said, if EVERYONE in an area started using 5G for home internet that may clog things up.

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8 minutes ago, RandyMarsh said:

I would say with the faster game times they have to make up for lost ad time but I guess with baseball that really doesnt matter since they only would take breaks in the half innings and pitching changes so game pace shouldn't have any effect on that. 

Not surprisingly, it was a commercial for some gambling casino.  

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1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

I just turned on the Blue Jays game for a minute and they showed a commercial in the middle of an at bat?  They are losing me man.  

SNO has been doing that for years. Don't Bally and the Tigers do that now? I could swear I've seen ten-second spots for one of the casinos in between pitches.

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12 minutes ago, chasfh said:

SNO has been doing that for years. Don't Bally and the Tigers do that now? I could swear I've seen ten-second spots for one of the casinos in between pitches.

yes, they've been doing short inserts right into game play for both Ford and MGM Grand for at least a couple of years. Of course if you want precedent, they've done 10 second 'Station ID' cut-ins on the radio during game play since forever and those came with a short ad component as well- often for the local station built in with the read: e.g. "You're listening to Tiger baseball on WJR, AM760,  the Great voice of the Great Lakes: Tune into J.P McCarthy mornings from 6-9"

Edited by gehringer_2
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2 hours ago, chasfh said:

SNO has been doing that for years. Don't Bally and the Tigers do that now? I could swear I've seen ten-second spots for one of the casinos in between pitches.

Probably.  I usually listen on the radio and when I watch on TV, I often have the sound down or I jump around from game to game.  Plus, I rarely watch the Tigers feed.  

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1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

 

Probably.  I usually listen on the radio and when I watch on TV, I often have the sound down or I jump around from game to game.  Plus, I rarely watch the Tigers feed.  

I'm the opposite. I use my DVR to record the game and start watching it an hour or so later. That way I can skip the commercials. Only problem is I get stuck listening to Shep and whoever. 

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5 hours ago, RedRamage said:

I dunno... I haven't really paid enough attention to speeds for services like this vs. what speeds I'm actually using.  I do know that I just recently downgraded my internet speed (cable) and both my kids came back from college and I'm not having any issues personally.  With both of them HEAVY users plus me being a (at times) pretty heavy user as well, and having youtube TV (so streaming all TV content) I expected to run into some issues, but so far that hasn't happened.

I believe that 5G home services are supposed to be relatively on par with cable (at least in the lower speed of cable) internet. That said, if EVERYONE in an area started using 5G for home internet that may clog things up.

I was just looking into needed speeds for streaming. And it was really eye opening the speeds to stream many popular platforms is really low;

https://www.howtogeek.com/796237/what-internet-speed-do-i-need-for-streaming-services/

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49 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I'm the opposite. I use my DVR to record the game and start watching it an hour or so later. That way I can skip the commercials. Only problem is I get stuck listening to Shep and whoever. 

we do this a lot - esp with the earlier starts.

Edited by gehringer_2
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40 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

I was just looking into needed speeds for streaming. And it was really eye opening the speeds to stream many popular platforms is really low;

https://www.howtogeek.com/796237/what-internet-speed-do-i-need-for-streaming-services/

well, for what that is info is worth. There are a lot of bottlenecks between the stream and you as the final user that will get you even if you have a lot of bandwidth. I have fiber to my house and a CAT7 hardwire from the router to the TV and Bally still stalls out fairly often due to "degraded network conditions", which really means their server is busy doing something else in the middle of my ball game.

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10 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

well, for what that is info is worth. There are a lot of bottlenecks between the stream and you as the final user that will get you even if you have a lot of bandwidth. I have fiber to my house and a CAT7 hardwire from the router to the TV and Bally still stalls out fairly often due to "degraded network conditions", which really means their server is busy doing something else in the middle of my ball game.

So you pay for speeds you don't consistently get. I stream Amazon, Hulu and YouTube videos on my TV but never noticed it lagging. 

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13 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

well, for what that is info is worth. There are a lot of bottlenecks between the stream and you as the final user that will get you even if you have a lot of bandwidth. I have fiber to my house and a CAT7 hardwire from the router to the TV and Bally still stalls out fairly often due to "degraded network conditions", which really means their server is busy doing something else in the middle of my ball game.

Can you record just using the Bally app?

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1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

So you pay for speeds you don't consistently get. I stream Amazon, Hulu and YouTube videos on my TV but never noticed it lagging. 

 

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

Can you record just using the Bally app?

yes and no. I get the 1 gig/sec from ATT - which is who I'm paying for bandwidth. OTOH, I pay DirectTV for content but they are not always capable of putting the data stream into the pipeline. And the kicker is it stalls as oftern on a 'recorded' program as a live one, because it doesn't actually make local recordings. 'Recording' something on a service like DirectTV just gives you a pointer into their stored program archives, so you are in the same position of being subject to server glitches whether the program is from a live programming stream or your 'library' because they are exactly the same thing system wise.

Even on a very fast connection you learn quickly that it's the content providers, and sometimes your ISPs DNS service, that are where most of the lag comes from, not your HW service rate.

Edited by gehringer_2
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