TV-sports operations veteran and TrillerTV executive Keith Evans has passed away.

Evans, the chief streaming operations officer at TrillerTV, died unexpectedly on June 16 at his home in Henderson, Nevada, according to TrillerTV executives. Evans joined TrillerTV, formerly Fite, in 2016, and was responsible for all aspects of airing programming on the TrillerTV sports and entertainment streaming platform.

Prior to Triller, Evans served as vice president of operations for GoFightLive.TV combat sports streaming service. “Keith was not only a business partner for eight years, but a real friend, ally, and sounding board in helping us collectively grow this company,” TrillerTV co-founder and chief operating officer Michael Weber. “It was a true collaboration across strategy, partner relationships, and so much more. We’ve already heard from so many leaders in the industry remembering Keith and his impact on streaming sports. He’s going to be missed by so many.”

TrillerTV co-founder and CEO Kosta Jordanov added in a statement: “Keith was an incredible person and teammate, highly respected by all of us, our business partners, and the industry. Keith will forever remain an instrumental part of the story of FITE/TrillerTV and our lives. We are keeping his family in our hearts.” 

Netskrt Systems, a Vancouver-based content delivery network (CDN) startup, believes it has the tool set that is needed to provide high-quality streaming video to hard-to-reach rural areas.

The company is touting the ability to more effectively deliver live sports to these regions and fend off subscriber churn in the process. 

When watching fast-paced, competitive content like live sports, Netskrt claims that frequent buffering and inferior video quality cause customers in rural areas to “become frustrated with a poor quality viewing experience."

Churn inevitably follows.

Netskrt says streaming companies can solve the problem by incorporating its “edge-native CDNs” (eCDNS), content delivery networks specifically designed to ensure high-quality viewing experiences for non-metropolitan customers. 

By incorporating an edge-native CDN into their content delivery strategy, streaming services can extend high-quality viewing to subscribers in remote and rural areas, and ensure up to 15% of subscribers who live beyond metropolitan areas won’t have to suffer from buffering or lower-resolution video, the company said.

The startup said eCDNs use a combination of cloud-based content and network management function to ensure outskirt internet-service providers and content providers can verify and validate that all their customers are getting the best possible experience.

“Content providers get an online set of rights to distribute their content online, but the question is, how can they be sure that they're reaching everybody to monetize effectively?” Netskrt Systems VP of product strategy Steve Miller-Jones told Next TV. “With eCDNs, they can verify that they are actually reaching the entire population with a quality that’s acceptable today.”

Netskrt cites S&P Global Market Intelligence’s prediction that sports media rights payments will exceed $25 billion in 2023 as proof of the need to cater to sports viewers.

“Every major company has experienced serious technical issues when streaming live events that attract large viewing audiences watching simultaneously,” Miller-Jones said. “Edge-native CDNs put every subscriber within one hop of an edge cache, minimizing latency, enhancing the delivery speed of video content and improving the metrics that affect quality of experience. 

“When edge-native caching is in place, viewers in last-mile or ‘last-subnet’ locations have an equally high-quality viewing experience as millions of other subscribers in highly populated urban areas,” he added.

In January, Netskrt partnered with global software provider Thales to bring airplane passengers full access to streaming services while in flight through the use of these same edge-native CDNs.

Founded in 2017 by CEO and technological entrepreneur Siegfried Luft, Netskrt has previously employed on-demand streaming on railways in the United Kingdom, continental Europe, North America and other underserved locations.

Luft is also president and owner of Gulf Islands broadband provider Beacon Wireless, which he started in 2010. He also founded cloud computing startup Siaras as well as the telecommunications supplier Zeugma Systems.

It’s no secret that no one’s been more aggrieved by TV’s shift to streaming than the great American sports fan.

Their litany of complaints seems endless, but it mostly stems from the fact that what was once easy, seamless and relatively cost-efficient is now none of those things, and that no one in charge really seems to care.

This hasn’t been a hard and fast fall, but rather one of those death-by-a-thousand-cuts things, where little by little the indignities have added up.

Regional sports networks (RSNs), once a deciding factor in which cable system to subscribe to, are now packing it in and launching their own streaming apps. Or going bankrupt doing so. Or both.

Sports like football and baseball have slowly been migrating over to streaming services that are not free, that need installing and that require the creation of easily forgotten passwords. And that’s not to mention the ability to shift the picture on the TV from the set top box to some sort of streaming device.

That would be fine if the average age of football and baseball fans was 35, but it’s not. It’s closer to 55.

So there’s that.

Then there’s the fact that none of this would matter, at least not all that much, if there were an easy way to figure out where the actual game was playing and whether or not you had access to it — as opposed to a little bit of Googling combined with a little bit of trial and error and trying to find the password.

So there’s that, too.

Which is why I am still in awe of the chutzpah behind what pundits have nicknamed “Spulu,” the joint app that Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. announced in early February.

The app that’s likely to sell for a subscription of around $50 per month, The Wall Street Journal estimates.

Who Is This For?

The answer to that question, many suspect, is “Disney Shareholders.” Because the app seems to mostly exist as a press release, with dozens of unanswered questions ranging from “how much will it cost?” right on down to “you didn’t bother to tell the NFL about this because why again?”

But say it does exist. Who then, I keep wondering, is the target audience?

The hardcore sports fan, the dude or dudette who will gladly fork over $50/month for this sort of app, already has a better solution.

It’s called “cable TV” and they’re likely quite happy with it, thank you very much.

All the sports they ever wanted (and then some), all easily located in a single interface, all in more or less the same order they’ve been in for the past 20 or so years.

Now granted there are probably some hardcore sports fans who are unhappy with their current MVPD-based cable system and would gladly cut the cord.

But most will not, at least not until what they gain by making that move matches or, more likely, improves on what they have now.

This means they are far more likely to switch to a vMVPD like YouTube TV or Hulu Plus Live TV which not only gives them access to CBS and NBC, but also collects all their sports programming in one easy bucket. It also lets them feel like they are cutting the cord even though all they’re actually doing is trading one delivery system for another. 

So again, I wonder, just who is that app supposed to be for?

All for One and One for All

The inability to pull CBS and NBC into the scrum — and it’s unclear whether that’s because no one asked them or because they refused — is a symptom of something bigger that is plaguing the industry: the seeming inability to actually cooperate even when doing so would clearly be in their best interest.

This stems from their frequent inability to identify Alphabet, Amazon and Meta as their real enemy, both in terms of ad dollars and attention.

Or to realize that as a joint force, they actually do have real power over the tech companies, if only for the simple fact that the media companies have built up an inordinate amount of goodwill over the years and that many people would like to see the tech behemoths fail. 

Instead, they each act as if they are going to be the next Netflix and plot and scheme against each other. 

That’s a behavior that, sadly, is unlikely to change.

Imagine though, a world where all five companies had agreed to cooperate. Had approached the leagues as a unit and said, “give us the rights and we’ll figure out how we’re splitting them up, and what we’re putting on streaming and where.”

And then went and did just that and allowed fans to buy a “sports subscription pass” that gave them access to all their games across all of their apps — ESPN and Max and Tubi and Paramount Plus and Peacock. 

Something that seems far easier to implement and deploy than an entirely new app.

A fan can dream, can’t he?

Pick your favorite hyperbolic sports metaphor and the business of sports is probably achieving it. In an era marked by massive sports streaming deals and surging fan viewership, market forecasts predict sports rights will soon top $30 billion. 

But the growing pains are real, especially for frustrated fans who endure whiplash trying to figure out which platform on a given night is streaming the game they want to see. 

There is a growing opportunity to simplify how fans find and view games — for instance, a sports search engine with every streaming option and quick links to the platforms or providers hosting the desired game, or league apps that become first-stop destinations for quickly finding and connecting to events on the right platforms. 

Until recent technical advancements, strategies like these would not have been possible. That’s because the nature of sporting events and business of sports content rights creates unique challenges in logistics, distribution and consumption. 

Ultimately, the goal is to increase the value of subscriptions by making it easier for fans to watch more games and become accustomed to a more consistent viewing experience, regardless of the particular rights holder. 

As leagues and partners acknowledge streaming growing pains, efforts are underway to streamline fan access to games. 

Complexity Breeds Confusion

Streaming has transformed sports viewing, giving fans a diverse range of platforms and access, but this age of abundance is not without pitfalls. A survey by Deloitte highlighted a staggering 50% of fans miss out on games due to platform unavailability. It is no secret the maze of apps and confusion over which company is serving up which game has simply become too complex.

Leagues have multiple teams spanning dozens of regions, often playing simultaneously. Different leagues and sports organizations manage streaming and viewing rights differently and there are sometimes blackout rules in effect for local games. Sports fans also struggle to determine which streaming service hosts a particular game on a specific date and the lack of centralized access to content hinders the ability to watch games live. Add in a requirement to juggle several subscriptions, passwords and apps, and it’s no wonder fans end up missing so much of the content they actually want to see. 

Some connected TV platforms have attempted to unify search but there has been no enduring solution to these challenges. Now, leagues are standing up to the challenge. 

League Apps Can Lead the Way

It makes perfect sense for league apps to be the place fans start every time they want to watch a game. However, integrating users from external streaming services into a league's application is fraught with challenges because such external services each introduce proprietary technical stacks, often using different technologies not designed to integrate with external sources. This puts the burden on engineering teams to manage updates, changes and technical requirements from each of these external platforms.

Leagues usually have to decide between hiring technical experts to handle multiple custom integrations or standardizing the integration process with industry standards like SAML and OAuth. 

A major U.S. sports league recently adopted the integration standardization process. They faced a familiar scenario where content deals made games available through more than a half-dozen partners. Logins needed to be supported through these third-party credentials with viewing taking place in the league’s digital properties or third-party apps. The league recognized that integrating all these diverse platforms into a unified technology stack required an extraordinary amount of technical expertise. It preferred its team of engineers to remain focused on the user experience. 

Sports streaming will only grow more complicated. As fragmentation intensifies, standardized integration processes can be a beacon for leagues and rightsholders eager to enhance viewer engagement and give fans the experience they deserve.  

By aligning with industry standards, sports leagues not only pave the way for revenue growth but also promise fans a seamless, immersive viewing experience.

Buy an ad on any of the new partially ad-supported SVOD services, and your audience is limited to that portion of the service’s subscriber base that has opted for the ad-supported tier (a relatively low number across the board.)

But buy an ad that runs during a live sporting event on a subscription streaming service like Apple TV Plus, and your audience isn't as limited. Anyone -- even those who don't subscribe -- can watch the game and see your commercial. 

That's a huge selling point for sports on subscription streaming services and a way for those services to convince the sort of big national advertisers who seem to view them as a way to reach upscale audiences that they are a way to reach mass audiences, too. 

TV As a Mass Reach Vehicle

Television has traditionally been seen as a mass-reach vehicle, and its biggest advertisers haven't been particularly bothered by their inability to target specific audiences.

This is something I find gets lost in the hoopla around the advantages of digital-style targeting on streaming. 

Many brands don’t want to target specific audiences, at least not with their big budget image ads, the ones they’ve spent several million dollars to produce and from whence all their other marketing messages flow. They just want to get those ads in front of everyone and anyone as much as possible.

Which is not to say that there isn’t a place for very targeted campaigns run by direct-to-consumer brands for whom success is selling a product.

It’s just that those brands don’t have the sorts of budgets that companies like Nike, General Motors or American Express have.

Ads on Sports Are Less Annoying Than Ads on Shows

Ads that run against sporting events also have something other than larger audiences in their favor: They’re usually a lot less annoying than ads that interrupt TV shows.

Sports ads run during downtime in the game (and there is a lot of downtime in NBA, NFL and MLB games) where the other option is listening to the announcer ramble on, or, worse still, staring at a blank screen that reads “Advertising Break In Progress.”

Either way, they can often provide some welcome relief/a chance to run to the kitchen or bathroom. And even if these commercials are not 100% relevant, they're likely closer than most because the advertiser is presumably targeting sports fans.

Sports on Streaming Delivers a Hard-to-Reach Audience

Finding younger viewers anywhere on TV is something many brands struggle with.  And if Amazon’s Thursday Night Football stats are a bellwether, it seems that sports on streaming are indeed drawing a considerably younger audience. That’s good news for advertisers looking to reach younger audiences in a more premium environment and for brands that are targeting sports fans too.

(One caveat: Amazon’s ratings have been steadily dropping each week. It’s not clear however, if that is due to the fact that the game is on Amazon or whether it is due to the fact that the game is on Thursday, which is a school night. Either way, something to keep an eye on.)

There’s another audience, however, that sports on streaming can reach: viewers who don't watch ad-supported TV.

This is something I’ve written about before-- we call it “15,000 Merits” after the Black Mirror episode about a dystopian world where you need to pay to avoid all pervasive advertising. 

Many viewers are in that world right now, upscale viewers in particular. They are happy to pay a few extra dollars each month in order to avoid advertising. They are often exclusively streaming viewers, and the longer they’re away from ad-supported TV, the more jarring it is for them when they encounter it.

Sports, where, as noted the alternative (listening to announcers babble during time-outs and pitcher changes) is the less attractive option, may be the one place that advertisers are able to reach these viewers. 

These ads should prove to be quite valuable, too, in that they are likely to have more impact than they would with a viewer who sees multiple ads each week.

There is one final area where sports on streaming helps advertisers and that is fleshing out the current audience on streaming services like Netflix and Disney Plus, which are just rolling out their ad-supported products.

While I suspect those services will be able to sign up tens of millions of subscribers to their ad-free tiers, they're not there yet, and it may take them the better part of a year.

By offering up their entire subscriber base (and then some) on streaming, these services can give advertisers even more justification for their ads buys while helping them to meet their reach and frequency goals against a much larger and more diverse audience.

Which is why the upcoming battle over NBA rights will be something to keep a very close eye on.

New York State Attorney General Letitia James recently issued a press release and accompanying tweet calling for Apple TV to allow an upcoming Yankees game to be seen on YES, the New York Yankees’ regional sports network (RSN) that traditionally hosts all of their games.

James, who to be fair, was likely reacting to complaints from multiple constituents, mistakenly claimed that Yankees fans (who were anxiously waiting for Aaron Judge to tie Roger Maris’ American League home run record) were being done a disservice by Apple, as they’d paid for YES, and now Apple was making them pay again.

While industry commentators and fans in general were quick to point out that Apple did not, in fact, charge fans to watch MLB games and that, if anything, the massive cable bills required to watch YES were what was really unfair, the incident pointed out an important issue: Viewers find the entire streaming ecosystem incredibly confusing, sports even more so. 

It should not be that hard. Most streaming interfaces make it relatively easy to find sporting events once you are in the app, even offering up tiles that link to live games for teams you like on services you subscribe to.

But figuring out what game is on what app and what it might cost is another story. And fixing that gap will be key to the leagues successfully making the move to streaming.

Not Everyone Is Tech Savvy

The noted columnist H.L. Mencken once said that “no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people,” a statement that is still quite relevant today if you substitute “tech-savviness” for “intelligence.”

While most of us in the media-tech industry have figured out all the nuances between the various business models on streaming, there are a whole lot of users who understandably don’t, especially the what is free and what is not free part.

That’s something that crops up fairly often with Amazon Prime Video, where some of the programming is free if you have a subscription, but some is only available via Amazon’s TVOD (transactional video on demand) model where you need to buy or rent the movie or program in order to watch it.

Given that most people see the video they get with Prime as a nice perk that’s included in the free two-day delivery, that’s not been much of an issue to date. Besides, having to pay $1.99 to watch an episode of a random sitcom isn’t a very high-stakes transaction.

Sports, however, is a different story, as NBCUniversal found out when it launched the 2021 Summer Olympics on Peacock and many fans were surprised to learn there were events they had to pay to see because, it turned out, Peacock was a pay service after all.

While some of that is on NBCU, much of it is on the generally confusing nature of streaming where some services are free, some are paid, some are paid but ad-supported and many are a mix of some combination of the above.

Which brings us back to sports.

Sports programming — the RSNs in particular — are often blamed for the high price of cable bundles. That is one reason why the two largest vMVPDs — Hulu Live TV and YouTube TV — do not carry YES.

Yet the RSNs are also the reason many fans still subscribe to those high-priced cable bundles.

That is not surprising, though, if you look at the nature of sports fans. There are, on a very macro level, two types of sports fans (with massive overlap between the two.)

There are what we might call “ESPN fans” — fans who have a favorite team, but who are happy to watch any reasonably good match-up because they like watching certain sports, regardless of who is playing.

And then there are the “RSN fans,” who are happy to watch any basketball game … so long as the Celtics (or whatever their favorite team might be) are playing in it.

For years those RSN fans knew that there would be games they would not be able to watch on their RSN of choice, but rather, would need to watch on one of the broadcast networks or ESPN.

Those were few and far between and, given that they already had a cable subscription, easy enough to navigate to.

With streaming, the stakes are much higher, especially if you are not all that tech savvy. As James noted in her correction, while Apple TV Plus’s broadcast might be free, “it creates requirements including an Apple ID, a smart TV or streaming device, or WiFi or cellular service.”

Start Spreading The Word

Apple quickly enlisted comedian Jon Stewart to spread the word that the games were free, but the sports and streaming industries overall should see this as an opportunity to educate the many fans who have been actively avoiding streaming and bring them on board. 

This is particularly critical right now since many RSNs, led by Sinclair’s Bally Sports group, are indeed making the move to streaming, setting themselves up as subscription apps.

It’s even more critical because while the apps can help the major sports leagues attract the younger audiences they’ve been missing, they are going to still need to appeal to the older audiences who have been their bread and butter for years.

Teams and leagues can do anything from the simple (sending out a how-to-stream-our-games guide via email and direct mail to their mailing lists) to the complex (strike a deal with an OEM to provide discounts for fans on devices that come with the team’s RSN app preinstalled along with apps that cover the league).

There are a lot of ways forward, but the more the various teams and leagues can walk their fans through the process and help them to see that streaming is an easier and lower-cost option than a full-on cable subscription, with greater opportunities for interactivity and engagement, the better off they will be in the long run. ▪️

Feeling like watching a little Australian rules football? Pro lacrosse? Little League softball? Belgian soccer? Pakistan v. West Indies Test cricket? All of those and much more were streaming on Sunday, cool news for those wanting to explore the frontiers of world sporting competition on all the new streaming services out there. 

But we’re right on the cusp of even bigger changes in even the most mainstream parts of American sports. It has big implications for how we watch, sure, but even bigger implications for the crumbling cable bundle, the financial underpinnings of the major sports leagues, the creation of ever-younger stars, the shape of both media and social media and much else. 

One of the first steps came with this spring’s $100 billion,12-year NFL rights deal. The incumbent broadcasters/cable powers signed up for what seemed like it was maintaining the status quo, just at twice the price. But the inclusion of streaming rights for everyone and Amazon winning rights to produce 15 Thursday-night games a year beginning in 2022 (it’s been running Fox’s game feed since 2017) is sure to send a batch of viewers online to watch legacy TV’s most popular programming. 

But even more big changes have been happening lately at the college level, on several potentially conflicting fronts.

First, the Supreme Court crushed 9-0 an NCAA appeal of a small case involving how much supplemental educational assistance (graduation scholarships, research equipment, etc) a school could give a student. Far more importantly, the case has huge implications for all the other ways the NCAA tries to control compensation for student-athletes, practically inviting antitrust lawsuits against the organization that runs major college sports. It likely will further distort competitive balance between the haves and have-nots of college. 

And since that opinion crested in early summer, several other transformative issues hit college sports practically simultaneously: 

> Name, image and likeness. Right after the Supreme Court decision, efforts collapsed to create a NCAA-wide policy on so-called NIL opportunities for athletes, basically allowing college stars to make as much money as they can from endorsements and social media. Again, the haves win. Not long after, Alabama head football coach Nick Saban “happened” to mention that his team’s backup quarterback, who’ll be leading the Crimson Tide in defending its national championship, already had signed $1 million in endorsements. That Orange County kid with a golden arm is only one of the first young stars to score big endorsement and brand deals. Plenty more are coming, complicating marketing, recruiting, and competitive balance across not just football but most college sports. 

> Conference realignment. The Southeastern Conference stunned the neighboring Big 12 league by raiding its two most successful and mediagenic schools, the universities of Oklahoma and Texas. The first big shift in conference makeup in more than a decade promises to reshape TV deals, too. Both conferences have ESPN contracts, but the SEC is clearly college sports’ top dog, and getting more alpha by the moment. ESPN is focusing accordingly. Will the Big 12 survive, possibly by raiding members from still other conferences? What happens to everyone’s TV deals? Will other conferences scoop up the Big 12’s leftovers? Latest rumors suggest the Pac-12, Big 10 and ACC (the other three of the “Power 5” conferences) are discussing a scheduling partnership, to counterbalance the SEC’s burgeoning market power. That won’t solve the Big 12’s problems, though, or what happens to non-Power 5 conferences and their TV deals. 

> College football playoffs. Consensus had been building to reshape the current four-team football national championship playoffs, a TV gold mine that first opened in 2014. The plan, pushed in part by SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, would open the playoffs to 12 teams, and generate even more mounds of TV cash. But the SEC raid on the Big 12 complicates consensus on a new playoff format too. Sankey may be the most powerful man in college sports, but that doesn’t mean everyone wants to play ball with him anymore. A 12-team playoff likely will mean the end of league championship games, many parts of the endless bowl season and much else. 

Meanwhile, we saw Olympics viewing, the world’s biggest sports-travaganza, make a decided shift to the digital. Primetime viewing on NBC sagged 40% compared to the Rio games, while online viewing neared 6 billion minutes, and Peacock had its best two weeks. The digital viewer shift will only continue as consumers get used to the benefits of on-demand streaming. Expect ad dollars to follow the streams when the Winter Games arrive next year, just as they are in other parts of the streaming world. 

AT&T finally lightened its debt by offloading DirecTV to a far more creative managing partner, a private-equity company. As the sat-caster keeps shedding subscribers, and the NFL’s all-you-can-eat Sunday Ticket package expires after 2022, its inevitable merger with Dish and continued decline will only provide streaming services with more customers seeking near-bottomless access to the sports they love. 

Regional sports cable networks are facing their own streaming realignment, forced by cord-cutting, shrinking space on basic tiers and uncertainty about what’s happening in college sports. This summer, Sinclair said it will launch a streaming service next spring built around the more than 40 pro teams on its two-dozen RSNs across the country. Expect other RSNs to make the move to streaming as they try to remain relevant, adjust to the changing college sports landscape, and try to keep up with all the other changes hitting right now. 

As of last month, sports gambling is live and legal in 22 states, plus Washington, D.C., with 10 more states legal but not yet operational. We’re already seeing Fan Duel, Draft Kings, ESPN, TNT, Sinclair (which now owns a 15-percent stake in Bally’s), and other players on both sides knitting gambling information into most corners of their online and on-air presence. 

If you can figure out how these colliding developments will play out in coming months, you’re a better strategist than even Nick Saban. What’s clear is sports viewing is getting turned upside down this summer, and its increasing shift to compelling streaming experiences will hasten the utter collapse of the cable bundle. The question is, as always when we’re talking about sports, who will be the winners, and who will be the losers? 

News this past week that Sinclair Broadcast Group and investment banker LionTree are raising $250 million to launch a sports streaming service may not be quite as big a deal as, say, that $43 billion spinoff/merger between WarnerMedia and Discovery. 

But despite the difference in the number of zeroes involved, a Sinclair streaming service could  dramatically reshape the sports streaming leader board, and not incidentally, what’s left of the cable bundle and broadcast TV, too.

It’s an obvious move to turn Sinclair’s suite of 21 regional cable sports networks into a streaming power, even if one that’s not quite national in scope. Likely, it would have happened far sooner, had the pandemic not shut down sports this time last year, and deeply complicated just about everything else having to do with producing and distributing video. 

Sinclair, despite its deep broadcast roots, has been building digital infrastructure and competence for years. Its portfolio includes not just those 186 local broadcast stations, but several digital over-the-air channels, hybrid AVOD/local programming streaming service STIRR, a major investment in ATSC 3.0 tech, and the shared local-news service NewsON, plus a better integrated ad-selling infrastructure. 

Not coincidentally, Sinclair also bought into Bally’s, selling naming rights for its regional sports networks for $85 million and a 15% stake in the gambling company. Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley has been championing sports gambling’s potential since at least 2018, when the company’s most notable sports holding was the Tennis Channel. 

These days, Sinclair’s sports empire is considerably more impressive, including networks carrying 42 teams in the Big Four pro U.S. sports, a college sports network, and part ownership in the Chicago Cubs’ Marquee Network and the New York Yankees YES Network. 

The sports service would only be available in the markets where Sinclair has its networks, but that still includes most of the country’s biggest markets, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Arizona, Detroit, Indiana, Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin.

A streaming service is also the best chance the company has to redeem its nearly $10 billion purchase of the RSNs in 2019. Disney likely would have kept the networks as part of its Fox acquisition, knitting them into ESPN and ESPN Plus, but for once, antitrust divestiture actually worked.

It’s been a dream deferred since that deal closed in 2019, though, thanks to the pandemic, a months-long sports shutdown, and larger viewing trends moving audiences from cable to connected TVs and streaming. With a sports streamer, Sinclair would catch up its biggest investment with where viewers are heading. 

The price of admission would be steep, $23 a month, probably around the all-in price of a future Warner Bros. Discovery bundle—ad-free HBO Max and Discovery Plus, and whatever CNN Plus ends up looking like. 

But for sports fans looking to see every game of their home teams of choice, a streaming service called something like Bally’s Sports Plus could be a bargain. 

It would remove the headaches of subscribing to an RSN on a cable provider, frequently on a more expensive tier, if it’s even available. Los Angeles Dodgers fans in many parts of Southern California, for instance, went five seasons with no access to most of their team’s games because of long-running carriage battles between Charter Communications and many other providers in the region. 

Add in the Bally’s connection, which almost certainly brings betting information and likely in-game betting, and the Sinclair service could be a big deal indeed. That’s especially the case with hockey, basketball and baseball teams, which largely have only regional audiences.  

Upstart sports networks and skinny bundles such as DAZN and Fubo have carved out modest but significant followings built on combat sports and international soccer. Bally’s Sports Plus would bring much more mainstream programming to local fans most likely to watch, and pay for, it. 

In turn, a Sinclair streamer creates potentially big problems for the anemic ESPN Plus, at least as currently constituted. It could even impact the Four-Letter Mothership, saddled as it is with a complicated Disney streaming strategy and a declining cable redoubt. And would family-focused Disney add gambling to ESPN Plus? 

That’s a big enough set of questions. 

But it’s also worth pondering what else cable audiences will have to watch after they lose exclusive access to one of the few remaining sources of tune-in regular programming. What’s left when local pro and college sports head off to join the first-run movies, premium series, live news, and reality shows already on streaming sources?   

The reasons for sticking to legacy providers, which still provide the majority of TV viewing, will dwindle to virtually nothing, likely further accelerating the collapse of the cable bundle. 

Reports suggest Sinclair hopes to launch the service in April, in time for the next Major League Baseball season. By then, we also should have an Amazon Prime bolstered by all those MGM movies and TV shows, and a merged Warner Bros. Discovery up and running, possibly with a better logo. And then, we’ll see for real what’s left of the cable bundle. 

Sports streaming service DAZN will look to expand its reach with a new weekly series launching on streaming service Pluto TV beginning Oct. 24.

The weekly, three-hour series, DAZN Fight Zone, will stream on Pluto TV’s Fight channel and will feature original content surrounding its upcoming marquee fights as well as archived classic fights. In addition, Pluto TV will program fight week events from open workouts to press conferences and fight weigh-ins, according to network officials.

Among the original shows set to air on DAZN Fight Zone is the special 40 Days: Canelo vs. Kovalev, executive produced by LeBron James, Maverick Carter and Carlos Vela, which will profile the Nov. 2 Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev light heavyweight fight.

DAZN executive vice president North America Joseph Markowski said that the deal allows DAZN to showcase its fight archive and original fight programming outside of the service’s monthly $19.99 pay wall, a strategy that he says has paid dividends for the service internationally.

“WE are an OTT service first and foremost, but we need to provide our content outside of our four walls to grow our brand and to drive sports fans back to our service,” he said. “We will be producing content especially for Pluto featuring our marquee fighters to the Pluto audience.”

The deal comes as DAZN prepares to offer several marquee fights over the next two months including the Oct. 26 Regis Prograis-Josh Taylor WBA super lightweight championship; the Nov. 2 Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev light heavyweight championship; the Nov. 7 Naoya Inoue-Nonito Donaire bantamweight championship; the Nov. 9 KSI-Logan Paul II boxing event; and the Dec. 7 Andy Ruiz-Anthony Joshua II heavyweight championship.

“We’re able to put DAZN content in front of the paywall, which allows us to grow our brand and drive people to our key upcoming events,” Markowski said. He added that DAZN will look to partner with other content distributors across a number of platforms in an effort to gain exposure for the brand.

“This fall, DAZN has the best possible schedule in boxing and we’ll be looking to send that message across as many channels as possible,” Markowski said. 

Sports streaming service DAZN will look to expand its reach with a new weekly series launching on streaming service Pluto TV beginning Oct. 24.

The weekly, three-hour series, DAZN Fight Zone, will stream on Pluto TV’s Fight channel and will feature original content surrounding its upcoming marquee fights as well as archived classic fights. In addition, Pluto TV will program fight week events from open workouts to press conferences and fight weigh-ins, according to network officials.

Among the original shows set to air on DAZN Fight Zone is the special 40 Days: Canelo vs. Kovalev, executive produced by LeBron James, Maverick Carter and Carlos Vela, which will profile the Nov. 2 Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev light heavyweight fight.

DAZN executive vice president North America Joseph Markowski said that the deal allows DAZN to showcase its fight archive and original fight programming outside of the service’s monthly $19.99 pay wall, a strategy that he says has paid dividends for the service internationally.

“WE are an OTT service first and foremost, but we need to provide our content outside of our four walls to grow our brand and to drive sports fans back to our service,” he said. “We will be producing content especially for Pluto featuring our marquee fighters to the Pluto audience.”

The deal comes as DAZN prepares to offer several marquee fights over the next two months including the Oct. 26 Regis Prograis-Josh Taylor WBA super lightweight championship; the Nov. 2 Canelo Alvarez-Sergey Kovalev light heavyweight championship; the Nov. 7 Naoya Inoue-Nonito Donaire bantamweight championship; the Nov. 9 KSI-Logan Paul II boxing event; and the Dec. 7 Andy Ruiz-Anthony Joshua II heavyweight championship.

“We’re able to put DAZN content in front of the paywall, which allows us to grow our brand and drive people to our key upcoming events,” Markowski said. He added that DAZN will look to partner with other content distributors across a number of platforms in an effort to gain exposure for the brand.

“This fall, DAZN has the best possible schedule in boxing and we’ll be looking to send that message across as many channels as possible,” Markowski said. 

Amazon will step onto the live streaming sports field tonight (Sept. 28) with its coverage of the Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers Thursday Night Football contest, part of a new 10-game, $50 million streaming rights agreement with the National Football League.

Amazon hopes the package will help further enhance the value of its Amazon Prime subscription for sport fans while better positioning the streaming service to acquire additional live sports content.

Amazon head of sports Jim DeLorenzo discussed its NFL streaming deal along with Amazon’s future live sports acquisition aspirations as part of an interview held at the company’s Sept. 21 press reception touting its Thursday Night Football deal. 

Tom Umstead: How big is the NFL Thursday night deal in terms of boosting the value and appeal of the Amazon Prime brand?

Jim DeLorenzo: We’re looking at what’s good for our customers as opposed to what’s good for the brand, and that’s not just for sports but for anything we do. In this situation, the NFL is obviously super popular both in the US and internationally, and because of that we view it as a really good opportunity to provide a great benefit to our customers. Its something that Prime members are really going to enjoy.

TU: Are you expecting to draw new sports fans to Amazon with the NFL deal?

JD: We’re not really commenting on whether we feel the deal will grow the [Amazon] audience or whether it will be the same, but I do think that it’s something that our current Prime members will find really compelling.

TU: How will Prime members find the Thursday Night Football games?

JD: We’ll be rolling out a number of different ways to market that and to make sure that leading up to the game everybody is very much aware of the right way to access it, whether on the web, through [Amazon] FireTV, or through the app on your phone. 

TU: Will Amazon look to acquire more live sports content in the near future?

JD: We just recently announced that we did a deal with the ATP for the Next Gen ATP Finals tournament, which is their under 21 year old tennis players. Beyond that, we’re just going to have to see how things progress, and we’re always looking for opportunities to try and benefit our customers. If something comes along we could potentially do it, but for now we’ll see how things go.

TU: You mentioned the NFL is popular, but the league has suffered some ratings declines early in the season. Are you concerned about the NFL brand not being as strong as it was when you completed the deal?

JD: For us, we look at it and say that the NFL is massively popular – I think a lot of leagues would want to be where the NFL is in terms of the viewers. We look at that and say there are a ton of Amazon Prime members who are NFL fans, and for us that’s why it made a lot of sense for us to look at those rights.

fuboTV subscribers, many of whom get the service to see live sports matches such as the Honduras vs. United States FIFA World Cup qualifying game Tuesday night, were on social media complaining that they could not login to watch the match, which was televised by beIN Sports and NBCUniverso.

READ MORE: 'El Clásico’ draws more than 62K concurrent U.S. views on fuboTV

The service, which is actively going after subscribers now with discounts from the normal $34.99 monthly base package of channels, was busy during the match responding to customers on Twitter, apologizing for the inconvenience, saying it was working hard to fix the problem and offering a work-around to login to the beIN Sports app using fuboTV credentials.

Hey all! As tech are working on a fix, please use your fubo cred to log into the beINConnect app to watch it. How > https://t.co/G9Q1Pgi2D6

— fuboTV (@fuboTV) September 5, 2017

Some fans were frustrated despite (or partly in response to) the social media response.

hey Andy, we're the ones keeping in touch with you, techs are the ones working on a fix. No tweeting doesn't mean a faster fix, sadly.

— fuboTV (@fuboTV) September 5, 2017

As the match reached a dramatic conclusion -- U.S. forward Bobby Wood scored in the 85th minute to obtain a 1-1 draw that maintains hope of coach Bruce Arena's team qualifying for the FIFA World Cup finals in Russia next year -- fuboTV was able to report good news.

Don't wanna jinx it, but everything seems to be working well again. Refresh/reload streams to see effect. Please let us know.

— fuboTV (@fuboTV) September 5, 2017

At one point fuboTV said the glitch was affecting customers on a random basis.

Hey Xadier,

Our tech team is looking in this login issue as we speak. It's affecting fans at random, hoping for a 100% solution soon.

— fuboTV (@fuboTV) September 6, 2017

This writer attempted to login using the fuboTV app on Roku and could not access the programming menu until after the U.S. match was ended. We will update this story if more information is reported from fuboTV.

READ MORE: Sports Streaming Picks up the Pace