Submitted by randoyinzer t3_11cgard in pittsburgh
Comments
Derpadoooo t1_ja35hcz wrote
I have the same opinion. I would gladly pay a subscription to watch all Pens and Pirates games, but local blackouts and other nonsense make it extremely untenable. I'm not getting an expensive full cable package just to casually watch local sports.
Lord_oftheTrons t1_ja36km2 wrote
Hockey is crazy now, I have YouTube TV so I can get the TNT/ABC games, but don't have NHL Network games or AT&T games. So with YTTV and my VPN I can now watch all but the NHL Network games due to blackouts. I've spent money on the VPN and firesticks on all the TVs to enable this workaround and I'd rather just give the money to someone and just be able to watch the games.
It is so anti-consumer and they don't seem to care. Until it impacts them financially that will be what we have to deal with. Bring back KBL and I will give them $100 a season for every game.
Financial-Pie2221 t1_ja5ekwx wrote
Look at what Apple TV did with the MLS. That is the future. Especially because T-Mobile gave it to customers for free and even if you had to pay it’s around $60. The NHL used to have their own version of MLB.TV, but then they sold the rights to ESPN+. MLB.TV could be the gold standard with they would fight to remove blackouts. Especially since cable tv is dying.
Lord_oftheTrons t1_ja5gesr wrote
Yeah ESPN+ is great if they figure out the blackout games. I have it included with my Verizon plan.
alexp8771 t1_ja62hs2 wrote
Yeah I have basically stopped watching sports entirely because I don’t want to put up with this bullshit. I wasn’t going to pay money for ESPN+ and still have blackouts.
Chris19862 t1_ja441t5 wrote
That's why I quit cable....couldnt rationalize the 100+ a month just to watch a few sports games....I would pay 10-15 a month to just stream these events. But it seems companies would rather go bankrupt than offer these options
ScratchMoore t1_ja46081 wrote
THANK YOU
I would happily and easily give the NHL $150 every year for a subscription to NHL.com or NHL.tv or whatever for the ability to watch the Pens.
But noooooo. I have to get Fubo. I mean, come on. It’s 2023. Take my fucking money.
SendAstronomy t1_ja57yz8 wrote
I can only guess that the NHL doesn't want you to watch the games to explain why they make it nearly impossible to do so easily.
Wide-Concert-7820 t1_ja80cdf wrote
Right? It takes a complicated process map to figure out:
A) where the game you want is B) how to change your vpn to get it.
Maybe this IS working. I just had a thought of going to 10 games a year with my son and screw watching the rest. The math checks.
SendAstronomy t1_ja86ftv wrote
Yeah, I gotta jump through VPN hoops to get access, I'm not paying them shit.
For the most part I might go to 1 game a season and watch a handful at a bar or a friend's house. This is down from going to a dozen games and watching nearly every single other one on TV 10 years ago.
The NHL simply hassled me out of being a fan.
Bulkmodulus t1_ja51yu2 wrote
ATT Sportsnet is streaming on FuboTV, but it's nearly as much as cable.
selitos t1_ja58e01 wrote
And it's an awful interface. Just miserable to use. Way too expensive and awful navigation and playback options.
Lord_oftheTrons t1_ja5ckob wrote
Agreed. I don't want something bundled. I want to hand the Penguins or someone a pile of money and I want every game on all my devices.
I spent probably $150-200 getting firesticks and the VPN (VPN app wouldn't work on Roku or Android TV) and I would have rather gave that money to the Pens or their broadcast partner. Cut out the middleman.
pghgamecock t1_ja3yrw0 wrote
>Can we please get some option that doesn't require my use of a VPN to watch the games without a cable subscription. I just want to hand some group money just for the Pens games.
The only way you'd be able to do that would be to pay way more than you'd want to pay.
Cable subscribers subsidize the relatively low cost of streaming-only services like mlb.tv.
A streaming only option would be so expensive that it would just be cheaper to have cable anyway. Because as it stands, half of cable subscribers are paying the regional sports network fee but not actually watching those channels. If you take away the regional sports networks from cable, you'd have a lot smaller customer base. Taking the networks off of cable won't result in some option that's better than what you can get now.
It's not like there isn't a way to watch these games. If you want to have access to all the games, you need to get cable.
Lord_oftheTrons t1_ja42qbi wrote
I'm not saying it needs to leave cable. It can stay there. Give me an option for $100 to give AT&T Sportsnet all that money for just Pens broadcasts without cable. Surely there is some reasonable amount that would equate to the cut they would get of my cable bill that would make sense. At this point locking people into cable isn't a winning business strategy and offering alternative ways to take my money make more sense. They are just losing out on revenue streams and we aren't going back to the way cable worked in the 90s.
mr_pgh t1_ja7pxvn wrote
Easier said than done. NHL does make the majority of its money from ticket sales. But teams typically rake in the benefits of RSNs; Penguins probably make ~$25mil off RSNs.
It's easy to say you want a streaming service (I do too!), but that has a huge impact on cable companies. A streaming service would likely cost 5x the cable equivalent. RSNs are typically the most expensive network for a cable company behind ESPN. Typically, they cost somewhere around $4-8 per month. Would you pay $20-40 a month for just NHL?
NHL probably has about $750mil worth of National Broadcast contracts in the US and Canda (Rogers, ESPN+). These ultimately get priority over RSNs.
glenn_q t1_ja2x9vu wrote
"Sports Business Journal reported the Pirates deal in Pittsburgh as one that is especially advantageous to the team, bringing in an average of $60 million per year from its local media deal."
Especially advantageous? Of course it is. Fuck Nutting. If the Penguins weren't on the same channel I would have cut the cord long ago.
My wish is that when this situation is sorted out I'll be able to drop the Pirates channel and keep the Pens channel. Or at LEAST that it has some negative impact on Nutting.
UnaffiliatedOpinion t1_ja2zjr2 wrote
I would love to see the RSNs collapse so we can finally get a proper streaming solution without blackouts. If it was only our local RSN, maybe it would be too much to ask. But I see the article mentions that Bally Sports is also considering bankruptcy.
Put it all on ESPN+ or NHLTV with no blackouts and I'll drop my Fubo subscription and subscribe to the new service in a heartbeat.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_ja3pgmk wrote
The massive payroll and valuation bubble in the MLB over the past fifteen years has been fueled by RSN fees being paid by cable subscribers, most of whom don't even care about sports but have to pay the fees anyway to get the cable package they want.
MLB has essentially been making money off every paying cable subscriber in America whether they watch baseball or not. The bubble was due to pop eventually.
filetofeedback t1_ja3aldn wrote
The RSNs are collapsing slowly. Diamond Bally’s just missed an interest payment and about to declare bankruptcy.
Aggravating_Foot_528 t1_ja47ecz wrote
what's amazing is that they've been subsidized by all cable subscribers for 30-40 years...
Corny_Toot t1_ja301vz wrote
I hope they at least get picked up by someone willing to do a deal with more of the streaming tv providers.
The comments in that article make it seem like they're behind the times internally too.
PedroAlvarez t1_ja32452 wrote
Fubo should be interested considering that's their whole thing.
Bucs-and-Bucks t1_ja39d77 wrote
Fwiw, I the the Pirates revenue from their RSN is on the low end among MLB teams. Nutting is terrible and I despise him, but, if anything, I think his failure here is not getting more.
Pensfan66595 t1_ja3hhgl wrote
Apparently the Pens make more than the Pirates.
Brak710 t1_ja3inzd wrote
Sure, but they also lead the US in local ratings. The Penguins are the team an RSN wishes they had.
The pirates don’t nearly the draw the same viewers plus they have a likely more expensive production (simply because there are double the number of games.)
Impossible-Bit-5304 t1_ja4osbh wrote
The Pirates regularly have more viewers per game than the Penguins.
Brak710 t1_ja5cdn7 wrote
Do you have a source on that? From what I see online it’s not even remotely close.
Impossible-Bit-5304 t1_ja5dy63 wrote
You can Google articles online. Pirates broadcasts are typically either right at where the Penguins are, or higher.
Maybe not last years but typically over the past 15 years it’s either very close or Pirates are higher.
Brak710 t1_ja5etej wrote
I’ve googled this and can find absolutely nothing that confirms your anecdote.
Please provide the sources.
Impossible-Bit-5304 t1_ja5ewm7 wrote
Sports Business Journal and Forbes has articles every year.
Brak710 t1_ja5fnpv wrote
Provide the source links.
But I know you can’t find it because there isn’t any.
Impossible-Bit-5304 t1_ja5fv9z wrote
If you don’t know how to properly use search engines to find articles telling you what sports teams local tv ratings were in any given year, you’re beyond help, and you won’t believe it anyway, you seem dead set on believing the Pens are some huge draw just because they lead the NHL. It’s all relative.
Brak710 t1_ja5ggw2 wrote
Pirates ~40,000 per game avg.
That’s it. That’s near half of what the Penguins get.
Impossible-Bit-5304 t1_ja5h49p wrote
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2015/04/20/Media/NHL-RSNs.aspx
In 2015, Pirates were much higher. It’s typically more even, or Pirates higher.
Brak710 t1_ja5hgm4 wrote
2015 lol
The pirates should hire you when they’re trying to sell this shit team’s broadcast rights to next RSN.
Impossible-Bit-5304 t1_ja5hwvu wrote
2015 is just as relevant as Covid year 2020 when the entire season was delayed months, leading to serious disinterest across the entire sport.
BlimeyFish t1_jabnrc3 wrote
I have also seen these articles and the Pirates regularly out rate the Penguins. But I'm also not searching for the articles and giving you links because you don't know how to use the google machine. Do your own work.
Brak710 t1_jacijw4 wrote
We cannot find them. Try searching for them and you’ll see the issue. You’re asking me to prove a negative.
The first guy here had to settle for a 2015 article.
apitbullnamedzeus t1_jacoj8v wrote
Making a claim and telling someone else to do your homework for you is lazy bullshit.
Rellimie t1_ja61pdf wrote
I don’t doubt this could be true. Hockey is like the 5th or 6th most popular professional sport in the US. Baseball is 2nd or 3rd.
It’s not close either, hockey is so far down the popularity list it’s funny.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_ja8ce84 wrote
The NHL is the entire world's fifth highest revenue sports league.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_professional_sports_leagues_by_revenue
You have an odd definition of "so far down the popularity list".
Rellimie t1_jab51d0 wrote
As I said, the US, not the world.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_jabc4u7 wrote
It's the 4th highest revenue league in the US.
The US is a part of the world, surprisingly enough.
SDMF8766 t1_ja3yv84 wrote
Finally. Please let us have a streaming option that isn't blacked out.
sctlight t1_ja2ym7y wrote
What’s important to keep in mind is while the company may lose money on its RSNs, Att Pittsburgh is profitable, so I imagine someone will step in to keep it going.
PedroAlvarez t1_ja32hge wrote
Though they may hesitate on wanting to invest in the Penguins what with the aging core and the lack of prospects since we dumped like all our first round picks.
Rellimie t1_ja6202s wrote
It’s profitable because they pay the small market local professional teams so little compared to other franchises.
Kirk1233 t1_ja5k6ok wrote
The Pens and Pirates should run the channel as a joint venture. They need to get carriage on YouTube TV and Hulu Live. They also need to offer a standalone option for people who don’t want a live tv service.
Rellimie t1_ja626gf wrote
I don’t think there is much money to be made with a stand-alone option. If they did something joint, selling a package together to an existing provider is the best way to go.
A provider is not going to allow a standalone option anyways.
SWPenn t1_ja3acjg wrote
How did people watch before cable when everything was free? I remember people watching on over the air TV and the Pirates games were always on the radio?
gmus t1_ja3o0ue wrote
In the mid 70s they showed games on channel 11, then in late 70s they went to WPGH 53 which at the time was an independent UHF station. After WPGH become a charter Fox affiliate the penguins split time between Fox 53 and the regional cable sports network KBL. From 1990 to 1996 the Penguins split time between KBL and KDKA. In 1996-97 they showed some games on channel 22, and on Fox and KBL rebranded to Fox Sports Pittsburgh.
Since the beginning of the 1997 season, regionally televised games have not been available over-the-air
Lord_oftheTrons t1_ja6e8nn wrote
There was some glorious time in there that I remember the Outdoor Life Network having hockey games, evolving into Versus, then NBCSN, then getting put down. That was a heck of a run too. My earliest memories of Pens games was KBL.
a_waltz_for_debby t1_ja9gu4o wrote
That was WAAAAAAY later. That was after the '04 lockout they went to OLN/VS.
poodog13 t1_ja3me8d wrote
There were only a limited number of games televised at that time.
Frosty_Mycologist_53 t1_ja3er29 wrote
When I was a little one in the early 90’s (before we had cable) I remember watching pens games on broadcast/ air waves.
Tube tv’s and standard definition… it was awful.
[deleted] t1_ja31n7r wrote
[removed]
chuckie512 t1_jaal7it wrote
The Warner-Discovery merger is making all of their channels worse
BlimeyFish t1_jabo21t wrote
THIS GUY GETS IT. EVERYBODY PAY ATTENTION TO THIS GUYS POST.
Discovery had the cash because of popular and cheap reality TV programming. They are gutting HBO Max and everything else for a business model. Part of this was inevitable, as the race to get monthly subscribers fueled a golden age of TV programming that was unsustainable economically. But Discovery is crushing everything. More Cake Wars or 1000 lbs sisters or whatever shit programming and less artistic content.
BlimeyFish t1_jabo6c9 wrote
BTW, the leagues will step in on this front. You'll still get the games. And the teams will still get the revenues. This is largely due to the fact that CBA in both sports will force the leagues to compensate both franchises.
VietBongArmy t1_ja2z9my wrote
Copy and paste the title next time instead of turning into a question
Lord_oftheTrons t1_ja30ze5 wrote
Can we please get some option that doesn't require my use of a VPN to watch the games without a cable subscription. I just want to hand some group money just for the Pens games. Not a bunch of other crap or Pirates games, just Pens games. Right now my ESPN+ subscription and a VPN is the only way to watch games only broadcast on AT&T Sportsnet.