Let’s talk sports – Jim Quist
Most consumers understand that businesses will up their prices from time to time, even change the size of a product to squeeze another penny or two with the goal of making their investors happy. Anyone who frequents a grocery store sees this exercise in play. If you’re a consumer of media, especially television, unfortunately you’re encountering this ‘squeeze’ ad nauseum.
If it isn’t the local station prompting viewers to call their provider then it’s the type of battle we see playing out between two corporate giants in Disney and Alphabet. In case you weren’t aware Alphabet owns among other things, Google and YouTube TV. Disney controls ABC and ESPN along with the numerous sub-channels such as the ACC Network.
Subscribe To ACC Nation Podcast
From a financial standpoint companies can muck about for a time, make it look like a good battle and come away claiming some sort of victory for themselves. But alas, there must always be a loser and that my friend is the end consumer in the form of the monthly bill. Oh, sure you’ll have the sports content you want back on the air but this whole streaming approach to delivery, the one that moved most of us away from cable or a dish is rapidly approaching an eerily similar price that forced our hands to ditch the aforementioned.
Sports
Greed is a funny thing. It’s like gangrene. Once it starts to invade a body part it will rapidly spread and often result in the removal of a limb. In this particular case it feels as if the adage, ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’ may be coming into play. Greed has infected conferences. The never-ending ‘financial fix’ that teams and players think they need to compete in today’s sports environment has forced over-blown, exorbitant fees to be forked out by content producers. That infection filters into the platforms that deliver and eventually the rot comes to rest in your bank account.
It’s all spun out of control and sadly there is no immediate remedy. Sadly, we can’t turn back now. Unless the brakes are applied and hard we’ll see the entire system plunge at break neck speed over a cliff and down, down into a dark abyss. The numbers are simply not sustainable. Example in hand is the Big Ten equity deal.
Duke | Devils In The Details – 1 May Be A Magic Number
In the meantime, if you are a YouTube TV person go get your $20 rebate (applied next month) and hope the ballooning prices (two hikes in a year of 20% and a loss of 500K subscribers) of the platform don’t further erode your purchasing power. As for ESPN? Perhaps the loss of an estimated $30 million per week will have some effect on negotiations. But Disney is pushing their new platforms and apps in hopes of countering and steering YouTube TV subscribers their way. Is it working? Only time will tell.
One thing to keep in mind. Alphabet has deeper pockets. YouTube TV has ventured into being a platform for NFL games already. Would it be far-fetched to believe that launching a competitor for college sports might be an effective counter-punch to Disney?
In the meantime fans of college sports will be treated as second class citizens and we’re far from happy.
