For years, cable TV has bled viewers and subscribers to streaming giants like Netflix, Apple and Amazon. Now, those same companies are vying to stream live sports, one of the last lines of defence when it comes to audiences paying big bucks for traditional cable packages.
AppleTV+ has a 10 year, multibillion-dollar deal to stream MLS soccer matches and also streams some MLB games. Netflix has paid to secure the rights to WWE wrestling.
But Amazon was among the first streamers to aggressively bid on broadcast rights for a range of sports, and just this week, it added Monday night NHL games to its offerings.
“We’re committed to driving more innovation for fans as we bring the NHL into more Canadian homes and across more devices on Monday nights than ever before,” said Magda Grace, head of Prime Video, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, in a news release.
The leagues won’t survive if paywalls go up. Watching your team “for free” via OTA broadcast TV is how they got so big in the first place. CBC’s HNIC was huge. More and more, if there are barriers to watching something, many people prior just won’t bother.
These franchises have local monopolies. There’s no substitute, no competition, so there’s little risk of “not surviving”. Countries that are serious about soccer (EU/LatAm) will have several teams per city and each team will take part in a dozen independent leagues, but if you move to Canada each city has this one Hockey/Soccer team that matters, and the one league that matter is the NHL/MLS.
You assume, incorrectly, that people will always care about said professional teams/sports.
A lot of the “care” is in the communal activity of watching a game together with one’s mates. Take the convenience of that away, and people will find something else to do.
Yeah, we are definitely starting from different assumptions. I don’t see people pivoting their life-long passions often enough I guess.
There’s precedent: MLB Lockout. No ball games on TV, people found other things to do.
It took years to recover.
MLB on Apple TV
If I cared enough to go out of my way to watch something then why wouldn’t I pirate it?