Long-Term Viewership Trends for Sports

[chitownsportsfan]

3 minutes ago, BackDoorBreach said:

So the video game stuff/eSports is kind of funny to me. I'll give a quick online video game history lesson.

I played competitively for $ at the very start of competitive console gaming on a website that used to be called SocomBattles.com around 2003/2004 when I was 14 or 15.  The website was for the Playstation 2 game SOCOM 2 and had a very competitive ladder.  Socombattles.com turned into Gamebattles.com which I played a ton of competitive games such as Socom 3, Socom 3: Combined Assault, then eventually the original CoD 4: Modern Warfare, RBSV 2, CoD Black OPS, CoD MW 2 et cetera.  CoD4 onwards turned into Major League Gaming on the website and in turn exploded to what is now eSports. Around the same Counter Strike was the competitive game on PC IIRC.  Fun times.

Nice, highest rank I ever achieved in a ladder was Plat in SC2.  I think that's like 20th percentile and then Diamond is like top 5%, so it's a massive leap to get to diamond.  I gave up after a few months of trying and haven't touched SC2 in years.  

If this is a video game thread I'm now playing a shitload of Rimworld after playing Rust for about 3K hours over the last 5 years.

[ron883]

1 hour ago, chitownsportsfan said:

Nice, highest rank I ever achieved in a ladder was Plat in SC2.  I think that's like 20th percentile and then Diamond is like top 5%, so it's a massive leap to get to diamond.  I gave up after a few months of trying and haven't touched SC2 in years.  

If this is a video game thread I'm now playing a shitload of Rimworld after playing Rust for about 3K hours over the last 5 years.

Look into escape from tarkov brother... Unless you don't want another addicting game taking up your time. It's addicting as hell.

[he gone.]

Overall just some quick thoughts from just my own perspective...

Technology will continue to disrupt - it will be up to each league to either adapt or not. I personally think VR @ home tickets could be a huge success, but almost in the same mindset of how the Atlanta Falcons lowered concession prices, I think owners are scared of what it might do to their revenues. I believe the NBA already does this, but basicalyl you can put on a VR headset and you have a court side seat. Imagine putting on a VR headset and having Scout Seats behind home plate for every game. I'd pay for that.

 

Rule purists need to let up. I wish some of these purists would re-read the rules from like 1895 and then defend themselves. People change, technology changes, everything changes, the game should too. Just my own feelings, but outside of the Packers I don't watch more htan maybe 30 mins of NFL or college football in the background any more. The continuous challenges and refs + length of game is just too much. I'd rather be doing other things with my time. Kind of touched on it there too, but length of game is too much. I think most of us would agree that the game would be better suited at 2hr 30 mins. Those Buerhle games were always the best. Imagine them all like that. 

 

Cost: This is going to sound crazy ... but i actually went to a independent baseball game this summer in Michigan, the team that Randy Dobrek guy played for (Twins). And I'll say i had a great time. $2 hot dogs, free parking, easy in and out with no traffic. Sure the players weren't great, but i had a good time. Feeling like you've been taken advantage of each time you leave the park is never a good feeling. Or whatever arena you've been to. There's a supply and demand curve, and you're seeing it play out a bit in my opinion. You see it with cable tv prices... at a certain point now more people are cord cutting than ever. A lot of revenues for sports are being driven by cable and tv contracts .. thats going to start coming back around once cable companies start going belly up or changing their consumption models. 

 

 

[greg775]

22 hours ago, Richie said:

Part 2...

Why is MLB viewership declining? First off, it's just the casual viewership that has declined a bit. And it's easy... You want casual viewership like the NFL and NBA? Do things that will ruin the game for the rest of us. Cut the season in half and make it the length of NBA/NHL. 82 games. This chops the rotation in half, gets rid of the fat and ensures quality on the mound every night. Your bullpen is ready and your positional guys never need rest. Then, you make the game 7 innings long. So, it's a 2 hour length. No mid-inning pitching changes either barring injury. You start it, you finish it. 

 I f'ing guarantee that the above would increase viewership and interest in baseball. I'd bet my house AND my car on it. But none of us want that, do we? I sure as hell don't. I rather chop my d**k off than watch that brand of Major League Baseball. We on the same page? Nice. 

It's not rocket science. The game is slow, people. It's honestly f'ing boring if I just look at it from a neutral perspective. I love it. This game is my first love... but when you have smart phones, social media, video games that are more fun to people than real life, unlimited internet porn at the click of a mouse. Come on... you people really can't understand why the game of baseball is not generating the interest that it used to? 162 games, played nearly every day, your star pitcher only plays 1/5th of the games.... Hell, your star hitters only succeed 30% of the time at the plate. Think about that vs football/basketball and the rate that star QB's fire completions and star shooters make baskets. 

Your blinded by your love for this game if you can't see why it's losing favor to NFL, NCAAF and NBA. It's obvious. Not only that, it isn't fixable. Not unless you destroy the game as we know it. 

 

This is a pretty remarkable post. Nice job.

[greg775]

8 hours ago, BrianAnderson said:

Overall just some quick thoughts from just my own perspective...

Technology will continue to disrupt - it will be up to each league to either adapt or not. I personally think VR @ home tickets could be a huge success, but almost in the same mindset of how the Atlanta Falcons lowered concession prices, I think owners are scared of what it might do to their revenues. I believe the NBA already does this, but basicalyl you can put on a VR headset and you have a court side seat. Imagine putting on a VR headset and having Scout Seats behind home plate for every game. I'd pay for that.

 

Rule purists need to let up. I wish some of these purists would re-read the rules from like 1895 and then defend themselves. People change, technology changes, everything changes, the game should too. Just my own feelings, but outside of the Packers I don't watch more htan maybe 30 mins of NFL or college football in the background any more. The continuous challenges and refs + length of game is just too much. I'd rather be doing other things with my time. Kind of touched on it there too, but length of game is too much. I think most of us would agree that the game would be better suited at 2hr 30 mins. Those Buerhle games were always the best. Imagine them all like that. 

 

Cost: This is going to sound crazy ... but i actually went to a independent baseball game this summer in Michigan, the team that Randy Dobrek guy played for (Twins). And I'll say i had a great time. $2 hot dogs, free parking, easy in and out with no traffic. Sure the players weren't great, but i had a good time. Feeling like you've been taken advantage of each time you leave the park is never a good feeling. Or whatever arena you've been to. There's a supply and demand curve, and you're seeing it play out a bit in my opinion. You see it with cable tv prices... at a certain point now more people are cord cutting than ever. A lot of revenues for sports are being driven by cable and tv contracts .. thats going to start coming back around once cable companies start going belly up or changing their consumption models. 

 

 

I know a lot of people that never will pick up the check for a pretty darn cheap meal. So yes, the cost of baseball is important to many. Now the rich boomers who list baseball as their favorite sport, don't care about the prices, but the regular Joe does. Baseball refuses to attack the issue of length of games. So it actually might be smart to shorten the game to seven innings. Or have 50 percent of the games 9 innings, 25 percent eight innings and 25 percent 7 innings for starters. Some of these posts ring true. I realize you can get bargain prices on tickets through stubhub if you are willing to sit in the crap seats and that the Sox have various specials, but also you can get his 50 dollars for a decent box seat, 19 dollars for a burger basket and drink; 12 dollars for a beer; 7 dollars for a soft drink, etc. It's like going to the movies too. Very expensive.

[BackDoorBreach]

9 hours ago, ron883 said:

Look into escape from tarkov brother... Unless you don't want another addicting game taking up your time. It's addicting as hell.

I'm about to buy it like right now.  I'm one of the nerds that watches people play games on Twitch (when I'm working) and I'm sold.

[caulfield12]

“We’ve got a lot of good momentum,” Ricketts said. “We’ve got good carriage (for Marquee) so far. It’s not 100 percent done, but we’re going to keep pushing forward. It really hasn’t had any impact on baseball spending. We just know that we still got some work to do there, but it’s going to be a great thing for the fans. And it’s the right long-term answer.”

While Marquee announced a carriage agreement for all AT&T platforms, including DirecTV, in October, Cubs fans are still wondering about a deal with Comcast, which remains a dominant cable provider in Chicago and a direct competitor in the form of NBC Sports Chicago.

“We’ve got a couple of very good carriage deals set up,” Ricketts said. “We’ve got more that we’re going to announce over the next few days. With regards to Comcast, we’ll see how it plays out. I think everybody wants to do the right thing for their customers. And I think that’s going to be the driving force.”

https://theathletic.com/1540450/2020/01/16/theres-no-magic-free-agent-out-there-tom-ricketts-on-a-slow-winter-and-the-cubs-future/?source=dailyemail

Edited January 17, 2020 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/consumers-are-starting-to-feel-streaming-fatigue-analyst-says-204234560.html
 

This is interesting.  The projected ideal range that families are expected to be willing to pay for streaming packages is around $55.  The cable and satellite companies really need to figure out a path towards being more competitive.

 

Yes, the streaming options have become too numerous and hard to keep up with. Every one of them has exclusive or proprietary content of some sort. We now have Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Apple+, Disney+, ESPN+, CBS All Access, Peacock, YouTube Red, any more that I'm missing? I cut the cord to save money, and it worked for a while. But, now I'm spending just as much on all the various streaming services. It was good while it lasted.

...

All a typical family needs is a Netflix (must have) + Disney (if they have children). Other than that, from HBO, Amazon to Hulu, are only an occasional add-on but unnecessarily.

Edited January 18, 2020 by caulfield12

[caulfield12]

https://theathletic.com/1547779/2020/01/20/cub-o-coffee-all-weekend-long-the-cubs-mustve-been-thinking-lets-see-if-theyll-believe-this/?source=dailyemail#_=_

The night had already started out awkwardly for Tom (Ricketts) when his mention of the Marquee Sports Network during his opening remarks was met with a very loud chorus of boos. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Hey, just because at least 50 percent of the city gets its TV from a provider that has yet to come to terms on a deal for the network, why would fans be upset?

During his time with Dempster, Tom decided to wax nostalgic about the good old days when you could watch every game on WGN TV for free. He was promptly heckled by a woman in the audience loudly enough that it could be heard on the live stream.

The next day he was interviewed on 670 The Score and claimed he wasn’t booed, at least not personally. I’m sure that was a reaction to an overnight email chain where Laura and Todd complained about Tom hogging all of the boos for himself.

On Saturday, the Cubs finally had a flurry of announcements about the upcoming TV network, none of which included an explanation as to why they are starting a network that they own and program themselves and yet they didn’t bother to put the team name in the name of the network.

Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney dropped a lot of information during the session, including, for some reason, his age (he’s 57), and he predicted that the team would come to deals with “all” of the streaming services and work out an agreement with Comcast before Opening Day. 

[pcq]

On 1/16/2020 at 2:18 PM, BrianAnderson said:

Overall just some quick thoughts from just my own perspective...

Technology will continue to disrupt - it will be up to each league to either adapt or not. I personally think VR @ home tickets could be a huge success, but almost in the same mindset of how the Atlanta Falcons lowered concession prices, I think owners are scared of what it might do to their revenues. I believe the NBA already does this, but basicalyl you can put on a VR headset and you have a court side seat. Imagine putting on a VR headset and having Scout Seats behind home plate for every game. I'd pay for that.

 

Rule purists need to let up. I wish some of these purists would re-read the rules from like 1895 and then defend themselves. People change, technology changes, everything changes, the game should too. Just my own feelings, but outside of the Packers I don't watch more htan maybe 30 mins of NFL or college football in the background any more. The continuous challenges and refs + length of game is just too much. I'd rather be doing other things with my time. Kind of touched on it there too, but length of game is too much. I think most of us would agree that the game would be better suited at 2hr 30 mins. Those Buerhle games were always the best. Imagine them all like that. 

 

Cost: This is going to sound crazy ... but i actually went to a independent baseball game this summer in Michigan, the team that Randy Dobrek guy played for (Twins). And I'll say i had a great time. $2 hot dogs, free parking, easy in and out with no traffic. Sure the players weren't great, but i had a good time. Feeling like you've been taken advantage of each time you leave the park is never a good feeling. Or whatever arena you've been to. There's a supply and demand curve, and you're seeing it play out a bit in my opinion. You see it with cable tv prices... at a certain point now more people are cord cutting than ever. A lot of revenues for sports are being driven by cable and tv contracts .. thats going to start coming back around once cable companies start going belly up or changing their consumption models. 

 

 

Sitting at a game means missing replays and no channel or tablet surfing. Attention spans make it difficult. Shortening the game might help and also save on player wear and tear. Given that almost every pitch is hyper-analyzed perhaps the game has gotten too stressful and stretched out. 

[caulfield12]

10 minutes ago, pcq said:

Sitting at a game means missing replays and no channel or tablet surfing. Attention spans make it difficult. Shortening the game might help and also save on player wear and tear. Given that almost every pitch is hyper-analyzed perhaps the game has gotten too stressful and stretched out. 

Haven’t some stadiums toyed around with issuing tablets or I-pads to those sitting in box/Scout seats...or at least providing free WiFi access?

[caulfield12]

https://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2020/5/27/21271286/marquee-sports-network-comcast-xfinity-cubs-tv