Theyâre slowly killing this. Just got kicked off of my brotherâs HBO Max and heâs been recently kicked off of my Hulu. Theyâll all be doing it soon enough.
The NCAA tourney is a great example. I grew up in the era of consolidated coverage. Early round games were covered on the same network and every viewer got bounced to more compelling games and upsets in the making. It was on in many households, and kids grew up in it, whether they were really into it or not. Once the coverage segregated, even onto cable networks, that shared American experience of the tournament changed. Less kids grew up into it, and the future fan base shrunk. Whether it made sense financially in the short, you kneecapped future viewership by removing it as a cultural standard.
numbers for this yearâs March Madness were pretty good
The NCAA Menâs Basketball Tournament audience is at its best mark through the second round since 1993. The combined average through the second round across CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV is 9.4 million viewers, which is up 3% from the same point last year. Sunday was predictably the best day to date, with the four networks combining to average 10.1 million viewers (+13%), highlighted by Duke-Baylor, Kentucky-Illinois and Florida-UConn. The games on Thursday/Friday averaged 8.8 million viewers, a record for the first round of the tourney. That also had the most-watched opening day of the tourney on record, as Thursdayâs games averaged a combined 9.1 million viewers across the four networks.
The thing I wonder is if these leagues realize how easy it is to stop watching once you miss games because you are unable to watch it. The NFL is a little easier this way because there are fewer games. To watch the MLB or NBA, or NHL really, is to follow the story line of your team through the season. They have games much more frequently. The more you watch, the more you want to watch. Once you lose the thread of the team and knowing all the players etc., its easy to skip games.
I went to watch the Pistons and I had recently re-subscribed to HBO MAX ( I like to cycle). I thought I could watch them as they offered live sports programming but when I went to watch, to watch you had to pay for an add on. Seriously? I already pay. Plus I still have to watch commercials. So I just turned on youtubetv and watched it that way. But this shows you the trouble they are going to get into when people throw their hands up and say screw it. And now they have these college football games exclusively on Peacock and you canât watch them on NBC. Its getting ridiculous. I do think it will bite them.
I cannot STAND to try and watch sports at a bar, # everybody is blabbering loudly, the TVâs are controlled by someone else, usually your seat is 30 ft away from the damn thing, no way can you actually hear it, and there are drunk morons wanting to fight you because âin their mindâ you âwere hitting on or looking at their girlâ so fak that stay home , enjoy YOUR TV, drink for free, relax, and save moneyâŚ
I think itâs very difficult for them to come to terms with the idea that a little scarcity can make a product more valuable. Which is surprising, because, you know⌠supply and demand⌠but they want to keep squeezing out as much as possible without creating too much supply, but inevitably cross over that line.
And I get it, when these sports were first getting started, game day takes were where the vast majority of income came from. Baseball especially built their schedules in the era of games = money, and I understand thatâs itâs not easy to go backwards. It helps that itâs probably the least physically taxing of the major sports.
Basketball is a better example, they KNOW they play too many games, which is why players get days off now where in the late 20th century that was unheard of. The league would rather deal with the fallout of that than actually reduce the number of games.
The violence of the NFL has more or less prohibited them from playing too many games, that and the inability to rotate the vast majority of stars. More games would mean QBs would have to be treated like pitching staffs, could you imagine? Roll out Goff one day then Hooker the next and Allen the next? Youâd also have to increase what is already the largest roster in professional sports, and we know the owners are loathe to do that. Coaches have been clamoring for it for years.
I think the downfall of newspapers have also led to decreased attention to sports somewhat. It used to be, even if you donât watch all the time, that you could follow a team as a regular part of reading the paper. You could see batting averages etc. Read game summaries. And yeah, you can get all of that still sure. But the ritual and routine has went away for me and been replaced by social media links etc. where you just kind of go where you want instead of going step by step through the paper and going âah lets check out the stats todayâ which was a daily habit back in the day.
I have this mentality for nfl sunday ticket. I pirated the lions games or just flat out missed them for 20 plus years. I refuse to watch Dan Campbell on anything short of 80 inch 4k resolutionâŚi earned it baby!!!