On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 7:30 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > I agree that is not a question of technology, but the paying for rights > issue is a pretty huge mountain. Networks overpay for sports rights for > several reasons ("prestige", to provide an advertising platform for their > entertainment programming, to muscle cable operators, etc.). They also > invest heavily in both human and non-human infrastructure to televise the > events, and to promote them via ancillary programming. If the NFL were to > suddenly move to Netflix there would be a hell of a lot less randome Tebow > coverage on ESPN (not saying this would be a bad thing, but less hype on > the NFL marketing machine). I can not really imagine any possible future in > which Hulu or Netflix could find enough downstream payoffs to having the > NFL to offset the huge rights fees they would have to pay to wrestle it > away from the networks that currently control it. I can't even imagine that > for cheaper sports like baseball and basketball. >
Economically the NFL is an outlier because it seems the sky's the limit when it comes to rights fees. Everybody is willing to overpay for rights now regardless of their real value. So I wouldn't use the NFL as an example, nor the SEC or Big Ten for football. Other sports may already be in a bubble with a crash in the future. Hulu and Netflix seem more suited to recorded material viewed on demand and I don't see them taking an interest in live sports. But ESPN and Xfinity can offer pay-per-view streaming events. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
