Would you pay $36.30 for ESPN?

VectorVictor said:
zoogs said:
I just care about live TV -- and only a few sports, really. Sling is already $20/mo and gets you ESPN, among other things.
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On a related note, I'd love to cut the cord, especially since ESPN has Sling TV now and will have a stand-alone subscription service soon. But until BTN comes out with a Roku/XB1/PS4 app to where you can subscribe and use their app to watch live programming...I'll have to stick with overpriced cable providers.
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Not sure how much longer ESPN will be on Sling. According to the WSJ

When Disney struck a deal to put channels on Dish Network Corp.’s Sling TV service, it negotiated the right to terminate the deal if ESPN lost three million Nielsen households after May 2014—a threshold that has now been crossed, according to people familiar with the matter.

Also not sure if ESPN will go the HBOgo route:

If ESPN offers its channel as a direct-to-consumer streaming service, some pay-TV operators have the contractual right to boot ESPN out of their most widely-sold channel packages and sell it a la carte, according to people familiar with the matter.

 
I read the ESPN book a couple years ago. It went into detail on how they invented the subscriber fee model that is now used by every cable channel/system.

 
$20/month seems reasonable for Sling during College Football season. Watching football games while on my cycling trainer makes an hour go by really quickly and well worth the $20.

 
I pay for DirecTV. I know it's an expensive product, but to me it's worth the premium I pay for it. I never have any issues with it. The picture quality is great. DirecTV has bonus channel coverage for big golf events (which I love) and now ESPN.com has an agreement with them to show online content. That's great because I am watching The Open Championship on ESPN.com right now, while I am at work.

 
As the world of unbundling and a la carte cable seems to be drawing closer and closer, sports fans will have an interesting decision to make: How much is ESPN worth to them?

While everybody who has cable, from the biggest sports diehards to someone who can’t tell Peyton Manning from LeBron James, pays the same $6.10 in subscriber fees now, an unbundling would raise the price of the network, as all that free money from those non-sports folks would disappear. How much would you have to pay per month? Michael Nathanson, of MoffettNathanson Research, told Forbes that $36.30 is his projected number. That’s about $435 per year for Chris Berman.
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I wonder how much the $36.30 number would go down if we unbundled the channels even further? espn is a part owner of both the Longhorn Network and the SEC Network. I'll bet the $36.30 would go down quite a bit—maybe down another $5 or $10 bucks—if we didn't have to subsidize those channels.

 
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I just want the Big Ten to negotiate their contract before the bottom drops out of the cable market. By all accounts that next contract should be HUGE. But if too many people cut the cord too soon, and the outlook dims, that contract shrinks.

Nebraska has a direct vested interest in that contract being as massive as possible. Fingers crossed.

 
knapplc said:
I just want the Big Ten to negotiate their contract before the bottom drops out of the cable market. By all accounts that next contract should be HUGE. But if too many people cut the cord too soon, and the outlook dims, that contract shrinks.

Nebraska has a direct vested interest in that contract being as massive as possible. Fingers crossed.
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Will be interesting to see what route they go. ESPN isn't having the best few months/years, but they're not exactly bleeding or in serious trouble. Does the B1G go with the monopoly, knowing that it will provide by far the most exposure to the casual viewer, or do they pioneer the way out of the ESPN era by going with a Fox or CBS for other conferences to follow suit?

I don't really care either way, about this or about ESPN's troubles, because if you're smart you can find any broadcast of anything online whether you're paying for it or not, but what I do care about is the BTN stepping their game up. It was a total game changer when it first unveiled, but now it's just a pitiful JV clone of everything else. You have a 24 hour network dedicated to your conference - there are SO many innovative ways you could take advantage of that with great content.

 
hskrfan4life said:
If Fox Sports could start competing it would force ESPN you think to try harder
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I think FoxSports 1&2 could be great channels, but I never head over to those. It's hard to break habits of going to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, etc.

FoxSports will succeed if it continues to add live content. That's the key driver for sports channels.

 
Dagerow said:
It depends of the time of year. I pay a lot for Big 10 Network when during its college football season, but apart from college football season, I wouldn't pay much.
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Same here. Sept-Nov I'd pay. Other times no I wouldn't pay 36/mo. College football is the only thing I really want good access to live. Most programming on ESPN you'd have to pay me to watch.

What would happen if people could buy ESPN by the day at a reasonable price? I'd probably buy it 20-30 days in a year, and be happy I couldn't turn it on the rest.

 
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$36/month is too much year round. I might during during college football season. I would like to see this fail and trickle through everything. It's mentioned earlier in the thread that they pay $6B for rights. That in turn helps pay the huge salaries of players and coaches. I would like to see those salaries drop and TV rights made more affordable. The average MLB salary is around $4M. NBA (smaller rosters) is $4.9M. Football is around $2M, and hockey is $2.5. These aren't the stars, this is the average. I can only think of one major pro sports event I've been to in about 10 years, because the ticket prices are just too high. But many sell out so I guess they will stay high until more people have had enough. Get off my lawn.

 
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