Pirating NFL Broadcasts

[Grizzled]

52% of Cincy fans say they use illegal streams to watch games, 48% of Packers fans also. Pennsylvania as a state, with 71% of residents saying they pirate streams leads the nation (I'm not admitting to anything...). Bears fans are not in the top 10 for pirating:

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bur ... 46284.html

[UOK]

Please note that this is simply a thread detailing some information regarding NFL piracy, and not a hub for providing stream links for gamedays.

[Grizzled]

Please note that this is simply a thread detailing some information regarding NFL piracy, and not a hub for providing stream links for gamedays.

Dang ....

[Rusty Trombagent]

the methodology on this completely useless, but a broader study of this would be pretty interesting. I imagine the two main factors contributing to this are:
- how far reaching the fan base is (likelihood of people watching out of market), and
- how good teams currently are (likelihood of games being shown outside their market)

...which would lead me to believe that bengals arent high on that list, but then you sprinkle in some economic factors, and maybe?

as someone who hasnt owned a tv in over 20 years, and has been viewing the bears through alternate means, i think it's probably completely random at the end of the day.

[Xee]

I'm luckily in the Chicago market so I get all the games over the air but I can understand why people would watch pirated streams.

First, if you live out of the market, being able to watch your team can be extremely cost prohibitive. Second, even if you can afford to pay, depending on what service you go with you might need to get subscriptions to several networks. Third, I hear that even if you do pay, watching it on whatever device you want may be challenging due to restrictions they might have.

On the other hand, the convenience of pirated streams means you don't need to install any proprietary apps and can be watching whatever game you want, on whatever device you want, in seconds.

[Atkins&Rebel]

I feel the NFL and Networks could end any form of piracy just by streaming the games in it's entirety with commercials. The Networks would collect more ad revenue based on the number of people watching online and the NFL could re-work the contracts to allow it.

[The Marshall Plan]

It's funny to me how many people there seemingly are with a $1,000 smartphone and other things, but then they bitch about having to pay to watch an event that is dependent upon ad revenue or subscription fees in order to exist. The Netflix pirates irritate me as well. They've got the $7 latte in their hands but cry a river over $10 month for Netflix. Hypocrites.

I blame:

Bad personal behavior by people.

The NFL for having an antiquated way to watch games. Nationally televised Big Games and the local team on the local broadcast make sense to me, but it needs to be easier to watch other games live. There needs to be a way to watch live games a la carte. Whatever it is, pay $5.00 to watch the Bears game or another Big Game that doesn't quite make the cut for the nationally televised game.

In this day and age of streaming services and content owners leveraging that I'm baffled that the NFL doesn't just make their own network, charge advertisers whatever they want, and viewers a subscription fees based on different tiers of service. Tell CBS and Fox to shove it and offer the app over multiple platforms like Smart TVs, Firestick, iPad, iPhone, etc.

[HisRoyalSweetness]

Game Pass over here used to have a 'follow your team' option, where you paid a lower subscription to be able to only watch the games of one team. I'm pretty sure you also got Red Zone too. Then they took this option away, which meant a significant price hike as you have to pay for the full package. I'd imagine a lot of subscribers dropped out in favour of illegal streams as a result.

I can't help wonder whether the policy change actually made the NFL any more money.

[dplank]

It's funny to me how many people there seemingly are with a $1,000 smartphone and other things, but then they bitch about having to pay to watch an event that is dependent upon ad revenue or subscription fees in order to exist. The Netflix pirates irritate me as well. They've got the $7 latte in their hands but cry a river over $10 month for Netflix. Hypocrites.

I blame:

Bad personal behavior by people.

The NFL for having an antiquated way to watch games. Nationally televised Big Games and the local team on the local broadcast make sense to me, but it needs to be easier to watch other games live. There needs to be a way to watch live games a la carte. Whatever it is, pay $5.00 to watch the Bears game or another Big Game that doesn't quite make the cut for the nationally televised game.

In this day and age of streaming services and content owners leveraging that I'm baffled that the NFL doesn't just make their own network, charge advertisers whatever they want, and viewers a subscription fees based on different tiers of service. Tell CBS and Fox to shove it and offer the app over multiple platforms like Smart TVs, Firestick, iPad, iPhone, etc.

The NFL makes 6 billion per year off their network deals. The NFL Network concept would lack the ability to attract enough premium advertisers to get anywhere close to that figure, and they would lack the ability to bundle in advertising deals that include off season broadcast time. And offering people to be able to bypass it for a stand alone $5 per game fee would dilute the advertising power from the seller (the NFL), in such a way that they couldn't offset the losses they'd certainly see on their current 6 billion guaranteed income. The NFL "package" with YouTube now, they are still broadcasting games from the major networks and showing those same ads that you'd see as if you were local there. So this has become purely additive income for them, not in any way a replacement nor a dilution of the ad value of their main 6B deal with the majors. They negotiated the best deal they could get for that income stream as well, and it would be up to the package provider to think about variants to their bundle offer. They simply must not believe allowing this would make for better income, and honestly I agree with them. If I could buy "per game", I would and I'd skip a bunch of weeks where we might be on national broadcast or MNF or TNF or if I have something else going on. They'd lose money in that scenario unless they priced it insanely high per game - maybe like PPV deal where it's $50?

Basically, the advertisers pay the freight here, so we just need to deal with that.

[Burl]

Meh. I make decent living and could afford to pay the Sunday Ticket if I wanted to, but I just see the cost as exorbitant.
The league has already sold the rights to the networks to broadcast these games, and the networks are making money off of ad revenue. It's a simple deal, yet the league feels the need to insert yet another middle man into the system (DirecTV, Youtube) to strangle every cent possible out of the product they've already sold once.

Then the owners reaping all this want taxpayers to help fund the stadiums too.

Screw these guys. They're trying to screw you at every turn.

[spudbear]

I could see some kind of middle ground, where instead of a pay per game stream you could sign up for a single team at about $150/yr for all 17 games. It's not $400 but the league and content providers still get their cut and the broadcasts over local and cable channels still goes on. That would make for some interesting competition in how many people sign up for a particular team. Could give an idea of the hardcore fanbase outside of the region they play in.

I don't have any experience with one, but those Fyresticks can get in a bunch of channels, say the Chicago feed of Fox and CBS, for not all that much per year. I still don't know how they get by with what seems illegal but apparently they do.

[wab]

I could see some kind of middle ground, where instead of a pay per game stream you could sign up for a single team at about $150/yr for all 17 games. It's not $400 but the league and content providers still get their cut and the broadcasts over local and cable channels still goes on. That would make for some interesting competition in how many people sign up for a particular team. Could give an idea of the hardcore fanbase outside of the region they play in.

I don't have any experience with one, but those Fyresticks can get in a bunch of channels, say the Chicago feed of Fox and CBS, for not all that much per year. I still don't know how they get by with what seems illegal but apparently they do.

I think the hard part with that is the revenue sharing aspect of the NFL. Shitty teams in shitty markets would suffer in a team based subscription offering.

[Moriarty]

I could see some kind of middle ground, where instead of a pay per game stream you could sign up for a single team at about $150/yr for all 17 games. It's not $400 but the league and content providers still get their cut and the broadcasts over local and cable channels still goes on. That would make for some interesting competition in how many people sign up for a particular team. Could give an idea of the hardcore fanbase outside of the region they play in.

I don't have any experience with one, but those Fyresticks can get in a bunch of channels, say the Chicago feed of Fox and CBS, for not all that much per year. I still don't know how they get by with what seems illegal but apparently they do.

I think the hard part with that is the revenue sharing aspect of the NFL. Shitty teams in shitty markets would suffer in a team based subscription offering.

I don't think that should be an issue. You can just pool it and divide it. The league already does that with all sorts of other revenue streams (like TV deals).

[Shadow]

Game Pass over here used to have a 'follow your team' option, where you paid a lower subscription to be able to only watch the games of one team. I'm pretty sure you also got Red Zone too. Then they took this option away, which meant a significant price hike as you have to pay for the full package. I'd imagine a lot of subscribers dropped out in favour of illegal streams as a result.

I can't help wonder whether the policy change actually made the NFL any more money.

I have used Gamepass here in Germany since it was made available. I had no qualms paying the full subscription price of @ $200. My previous option was Premiere/Sky satelite coverage that game me 3 games a week with no choice in what games I could see. The service cost me about $50 a month. So GP was more logical for us. Replay with All 22 and 4-6 years of archived games, NFLN Broadcast and NFL films and specials.

We still feel it is a bargain.

I finally got Fiber Optic to the house with a Gig-E connections, so simutanious streaming of multiple games is now a reality. <i have never watch Red Zone as it is geared toward Fantasy Players and Gamblers IMO.

Years ago I watched the illegal stream but was frustrated with the quality, but how can you bitch when it is free.

The best times were about 15- to 20 years ago. I had a motorized 6' satelite dish and could get the Broadcast feeds directly from the satelite. No commercials and they Broadcast all the action during the comercial time. Some of the best John Madden quotes I know were off air comments and were awesome and uncensored. Those were the days! You really knew how they really felt back then.
But alas, the Networks started encrypting the feeds and I lost that avenue.

So GP is the best option over seas by a long shot.