• Loading stock data...
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
The Best Employers in Sports survey is open through Nov. 6 Learn More
opinion
Media

Where Is the Dang Game? Fragmentation Is Worse Than Ever

  • With leagues like the NFL parceling their games out to a growing list of networks and streamers, it’s become more of a headache to find the game you want.
  • Consumers and media execs are aware, and they’re trying to alleviate it—but things will get worse before they get better.
Bill Streicher/Imagn Images
Front Office Sports Today

Surprising Start to MLB’s Offseason

Gerrit Cole opted out from the Yankees, and a prospect lied about his age.
Listen Now
November 4, 2024 | Podcast

Mark Phillip quit his job to start his company Are You Watching This?! in 2006 because, he says, “I hated waking up in the morning and learning there was a great game the night before that I didn’t know about, because it was on some random channel.” 

The company sells “real-time sports excitement data” and gambling widgets to customers like Fox Sports, USA Today, Hearst, VSiN, and DraftKings. In 2011, he also launched icantfindthegame.com, which tracks every live sports event being broadcast or streamed at every moment, tells you what channel it’s on, and adds a human rating of the current action (“Ok, good, hot, or epic”). Fourth quarter, game tied? Tune in right now.

The need for such a service is obvious: Sports fans are all suffering from the same headache these days, and it’s building up to a migraine. Where can I find the damn game? What additional service do I have to pay for? 

Take the NFL as the best example, though not the only offender: its games are on either NBC, CBS, Fox, ABC, or ESPN… or ESPN+ (one exclusive Monday Night Football game), Amazon Prime (Thursday Night Football), Peacock (two exclusive games last year, one this year), or Netflix (two Christmas Day games). Even coughing up for Sunday Ticket gets you only the 1 p.m. out-of-market games. You’ll still need at least three streaming subs to watch the games exclusive to streamers. Paying for cable (remember cable?) wouldn’t get you all the games. To get every game without cable would run you $788.

The latest sign that even the broadcasters involved in this morass feel your pain is that ESPN added a new feature to its mobile app and website called Where to Watch, and notably, it lists games on competitor networks. It had long been an unspoken practice, by ESPN and others, to avoid directing viewers to games not on Disney networks; that practice has officially ended now, sources tell me, and it’s specifically because live game fragmentation has gotten so bad. 

When Phillip saw the news about ESPN launching Where to Watch, “my stomach fell,” he says. But then he tried the product. “ESPN isn’t doing any curation. If you think about what Netflix would be without curation, it would just be a White Pages and you’d have to scroll through. You have to also curate for people.”

TV confusion is what led CBS Sports to create the oft-copied, occasionally automated “How to Watch” posts that include nothing other than a game’s time and channel. TV confusion is how the “What time does the Super Bowl start” SEO game got so big (and silly). 

The broader point is it shouldn’t be this hard to find the game you want. But it’s all happening because tech giants are crowding into the room when live sports rights are coming up for bidding. 

NBCUniversal Group chairman Mark Lazarus doesn’t sound scared, but he should be. Tech giants like Amazon and Netflix “don’t have the combined reach that we have with broadcast and streaming,” he told me onstage at our Front Office Sports Tuned In summit last month. My take: Having broadcast reach might not outweigh the dollars that the tech giants will soon dangle in front of big leagues. (The NBA already chose Amazon over longtime partner TNT.)

At that same summit, I was struck by the realization that all of our guest speakers—from ESPN, NBC, Scripps Sports, Roku, Teton Ridge, and YouTube—are in the same business these days: live television. Separating the networks from the tech companies, in the context of live sports rights, is almost beside the point. They’re all competing with one another for rights. 

Maybe YouTube is best-positioned of all, since, as the company is careful to caution, it’s merely a platform. Apart from its megadeal signed in 2022 to show NFL Sunday Ticket (which YouTube’s top sports exec Jon Cruz described more as an endpoint than the start of YouTube going after more rights), YouTube TV merely shows live programming from other providers in a conveniently curated pane. 

Major League Soccer took its primary package to Apple TV, so we’ve seen this shift begin. But in a future where an entire season of a major league is exclusive to Amazon or Netflix, you’ll need to leave YouTube and head to the walled gardens of other apps. The headache persists. 

This was the thinking behind Venu Sports, the sports-specific pay-TV app cooked up by the triumvirate of Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery. It was set to launch in time for this NFL season—until FuboTV sought and won a temporary injunction that stopped Venu from launching. Fubo argued it was anti-competitive that these mega broadcasters weren’t willing to license out just their sports channels to other TV apps, but were going to do it for their own joint venture. (A trial is set for a year from now.)

My guess is Venu won’t see the light of day, but it was a nice idea for sports fans: far more of the games in one place. What all sports fans want, of course, is a single, simple app (tell me the price, I’ll pay it!) that shows every single NFL game. Of course, that can never happen when the rights are parceled out to so many different companies that compete with one another. Or can it? 

Venu won’t be the last attempt by competitors to come together on one product that would wield huge pricing power. “The great rebundling will happen,” Phillip says. “People will be tired of dealing with all the splintering.”

Linkedin
Whatsapp
Copy Link
Link Copied
Link Copied

What to Read

New Era, New Chaos? New CFP Team Rankings Explained

The new College Football Playoff system’s complexities might confuse some college football fans.

Super Bowl Ads Sell Out Three Months Early, at Record Price

Ad units are believed to be selling at more than $7 million per 30 seconds.
Donald Trump

ESPN Will Drop First 12-Team CFP Rankings in Heart of Election Night

The network traditionally hasn’t shied away from going up against election coverage.

Saints Fire Dennis Allen: NFL’s Coaching Carousel Spins Early

The now-former Saints coach was in the third season of a four-year contract.
podcast thumbnail mobile
Front Office Sports Today

Surprising Start to MLB’s Offseason

0:00

Featured Today

Vanderbilt Commodores fans head to the south end zone as the goal post is taken down by exuberant fans after beating No. 1 Alabama 40-35 at Vanderbilt Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024.
opinion

Something New in College Football This Year: Parity

Upsets, surprises. CFB is more fun on the field than the NFL.
Sep 28, 2024; Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA; GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump waves flanked by former Georgia Bulldogs player Herschel Walker, recording art Kid Rock, professional golfer John Daily, Alabama senators Tommy Tuberville (R) and Katie Britt (R) during the second half of the game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
November 1, 2024

Mission Swing State: College Football’s Political Advertising Battle

Trump, Harris, and the PACs that support them are utilizing the sport.
October 31, 2024

The Untapped Revenue ‘Powder Keg’ of Women’s NFL Fandom

There’s a “boatload” of money at stake for brands and the league.
Donald Trump holding a basketball in the White House
October 30, 2024

Mavericks Owner’s $100 Million Trump Donation Dwarfs All Other Sports Owner Political Giving

Dr. Miriam Adelson is one of the most powerful donors in U.S. politics.

Sports Drive Fox Corp.’s Revenue Despite Election Ad Overload

The Fox Sports parent posted increases in revenue and earnings.
Fubo-TV
November 1, 2024

Fubo Reports 9% Subscriber Growth As Venu Sports Trial Looms

The sports-focused streamer grew revenue by 21%.
Tom Brady
November 4, 2024

Tom Brady Won’t Be Punished for Criticizing Packers-Lions Ejection

The “Brady Rules” faced their biggest test so far after Sunday’s broadcast.
Sponsored

World Series Delivers High-Demand Marquee Matchup

The hype around the World Series matchup drove ticket prices to record levels—but the Dodgers’ dominance quickly quieted the fervor.
Adam Schefter
November 1, 2024

Adam Schefter Uses Same Pirated NFL Clips As Everyone Else

ESPN’s NFL insider posted a video from an illegal stream Thursday night.
October 31, 2024

World Series Delivers 7-Year Ratings Record, Marking MLB’s Big Comeback

Viewership of the five-game win by the Dodgers soared by 74% over last year.
October 31, 2024

Comcast’s Olympic Gold: Paris Games Spark Surge in Peacock Subscribers

Company revenue and Peacock subscriptions rise thanks to a big Olympics boost.
October 30, 2024

World Series Game 4 Draws 16.7M Viewers, Up 92% From 2023

The average audience of 16.7 million nearly doubles the comparable figure from last year.