Digby

if they bumped all of the EPL to Peacock, I’d be more fine with that, but inevitably the NBC and USA games will still require a cable/streaming service subscription and won’t be available on Peacock.

I haven’t thought about USA Network since the 90s. I don’t even think my streamer gets it! But maybe that explains the strategy, considering NBCSN is car shows and video game racing for 90 percent of the time anyway, perhaps USA is similarly dire. There are too many TV channels.

That’s surprising but also not; how many hours of car auctions and drone racing video games can a cable channel carry while still retaining legitimacy? 

On 12/1/2020 at 1:47 AM, TheRealPepman said:

I think that the Knicks should use the uniforms below as their regular uniforms. Maybe that can turn the franchise's fortunes?

I've thought the same! Use that navy as an alt, cook up a white version and a regular blue version. Also make the side trim normal alternating lines instead of that weird tattered effect. It would be different for the Knicks, but still fits into their general look.

North London Derby on Peacock Premium, again with the Mecum Auto Auctions on NBCSN. Again, I must be really underestimating the value of auto auctions on TV, not to mention the dignity of airing anything called Mecum. I don't normally root for monopolies but it would be easier to just pay a higher-but-single fee for one of the streaming services if you're a soccer fan; I'm not paying for ESPN+ for Bundesliga and CBS for Champions League and Peacock for (some) Premier League. Maybe it seems less bad since Xfinity internet subscribers get Peacock anyway, but I prefer functional internet at home so I'd have to pay extra.

Sorry but I refuse to believe that a vintage car auction at 11:30 am is a better use of NBCSN's time than Manchester United vs. Arsenal.

*Insufferable Soccer Dweeb enters the chat*
 

ESPN does big soccer well, too, or at least they did after the Dave O’Brien debacle of the 2006 World Cup. I miss them having any world soccer of importance.

The way I remember it is that TNT got the early SNF games when it was still baseball season, right? Because Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN was actually quite a thing.

Moved FROM ABC, yes.

Has it really been 15 years since Monday Night Football moved to ABC??? Jeez. I'm old. And still not even used to that.

Looking like an all-merseyside dominant year in the EPL. Get a load of this Everton squad!

There's a certain niche in the internet era for sports-media voices who are "voices of the average fan" but, more likely, can bring the perspective of someone who appreciates the irreverence of it all and is self-aware and rolls their eyes at the cult of access. It was Bill Simmons in the early Page 2 days, it was Will Leitch's original Deadspin, then it was Katie Nolan with that mantle for a while. I'd rather listen to someone who can appreciate where sports is funny and kind of absurd and can also point out the toxicities and hypocrises of the whole thing, which is what those guys did. I'll take that genre over the First Take/PTI screaming match nonsense, or the talk radio sports-as-white-male-grievance shtick.

Vets Saving Pets counts as E/I???

...explains a lot of things, actually.

20 hours ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

I just took a look at the TV listings for NBC and NBCSN for this weekend...I'll tell you what - if this ends up reoccurring beyond this weekend, I'll think you're onto something. As it is, this weekend is the final stages of the Tour de France and also the third and fourth rounds of the US Open. Things that, in normal years and normal circumstances, would never conflict with the Premier League. Fox ditched their US Open deal because they couldn't reconcile it with the NFL. 

 

So I understand the optics, and some of their MD1 shenanigans don't give them much benefit of the doubt, but this weekend looks like they have other properties that, I'm guessing, have higher priority/contract stipulations that force their hand. Why not just use USA Network? Good enough question and one I can't really answer. But I can see why their national network and sports network have their hands tied. For this weekend. I haven't looked any further ahead than that.

Mystifies me. We have no problem putting soccer on unrelated channels when they do the last matchday of the season thing and want to show it all. It's Saturday morning! Why not? We'll see, I get that the Tour is a big draw and a weird conflict. But my local regular NBC affiliate is rolling with Vets Saving Pets and some travel show early in the morning on Saturday. Come on!

I have no idea what is even on USA Network anymore. I'm sure my Hulu would be able to find it for me if there was soccer on, though.

With apologies to the Crystal Palace diehards of America -- if they want to air every single match on Peacock and ask $5/month for it, that's fine, I get it. It's a good price to pay for access to every match there is. But if you're only putting two matches of a matchday weekend on cable, that looks to me like deliberately sandbagging the cable product, making it worse than it's traditionally been since NBC held the rights, just so that you'll pay for the streamer. Or pay Comcast for internet service, which is even more cynical and infuriating! (Internet service should be a publicly owned utility, anyway.)

It's been the same with CBS's newly getting the rights to Champions League. At a time when US interest in European soccer has never been higher, it's profoundly cynical to say the games are worth less coverage on regular programming, and need to be part of a premium package. It's like the early 00s PPV channels all over again.

On 9/12/2020 at 12:50 AM, Digby said:

NBC is already pulling insidious nonsense for the first weekend of the premier league. Bumping games to the Peacock streaming service, as if they have anything better to show on NBCSN at 11:30 am on a Sunday or 3:15 pm on a Monday.

lol update on this, 8 out of the 10 games upcoming this weekend are on "Peacock". Thank goodness we're keeping NBC Sports open for flat track motorcycle racing.

I should mention that this isn't an issue for you if you have Xfinity internet, in which case you get Peacock for free (though heaven forbid you want to watch Premier League on your actual television). NBC and Xfinity, of course, share a corporate parent.

NBC is already pulling insidious nonsense for the first weekend of the premier league. Bumping games to the Peacock streaming service, as if they have anything better to show on NBCSN at 11:30 am on a Sunday or 3:15 pm on a Monday.

Even beyond the gross cruelty of the Bayless thing -- is this what he does now, making overwrought cornball Tiktoks on a platform that isn't TikTok? Is this the content that people want? I often find social media mystifying but that's next level.

I clicked just to confirm that Jack Edwards was at the bottom of the list. I might actually be more of a Bruins fan but having to listen to those guys stands in my way.

Is fans caring about having the Best Broadcast Team really a thing? Feels like one of those wallpaper things; it's best when it's not attracting all the attention.

Quote

“A lot of people will look at Netflix or Spotify and ask ‘are these just anomalies?’” Stromberg said. “Or actually, are we seeing an emergence of a powerful new business model? They’re proof that subscription can scale just like transaction and ad-based models.”

Well, there's a difference between the actual content -- all the content that has ever been recorded, in Spotify's case -- and the sort of meta-content, which is kind of the central problem of paying for media, no?

Quote

Eric Jackson, founder of EMJ Capital, a hedge fund that specializes in media and technology investments, is curious about how many customers are churning and the distribution of how many people are paying full price as opposed to promotional offers.

This is my thought too. Then again, maybe the best business model we've got is lure people in with a promo offer, and hope that like most Americans, they're too bad with money and don't pay attention to the credit card statements to notice the 400% increase when renewal rolls around.

To their credit -- the Athletic writes a lot of stories I want to read! Both breaking news and features. I'm happy to pay a reasonable price for that, especially since their website is actually functional and pleasant to read, which is rare for news sites. Every time I read the tire-pumping articles like this, though, I actually feel more skeptical about the enterprise; why are their founder-bros so eager to fly at the sun?

one can imagine that a lot of players in these bubbles are actually pretty bummed to be away from their families for weeks on end. Not every jock is a horny prick who hates his wife immediately after marrying her! It’s just a crappy joke on several levels from a guy who already kind of sucked.

St. Louis was a sort of birthplace city for American soccer in a way. It would be nice if they found a way to pay tribute to that (and I don't mean Soccer Capital, because I'm not a rube), instead of the usual generic Britishisms. I don't think a French name would solve that either, StL is a much more diverse area than just French, and besides, you're just running into the MLS as Soccer Epcot problem yet again.

16 minutes ago, gosioux76 said:

 

Not sure I even believe that scenario. Just pointing out that the timelines here would make it seem more complicated than it otherwise appears to be. 

Yeah, I mean, a regular cliche of this board is that new brands take a long time. Seems unlikely that the decisions at the level of colors and fonts were still being picked less than a month ago for a new MLS team. And, again -- neither team is pulling from a well of originality on this one.

(incidentally I'm digging into this MPLS City stuff and it's actually cool! 7-a-side youth leagues in a community-run club, different brands for different pieces of the city, it's like a concepts thread come to life.)

@Gothamite, if the backdrops of those squares are based on shirt color, Chicago ought to be changed, yes? (This is a correction that brings me no joy, maybe hold off til next year in the hopes that they sweep that whole thing under the lost-2020 rug.)

9 hours ago, -kj said:

 

 

I wish I could get over my eyeroll reaction every time I think of Mpls City, since I know so many people who love them, but their attitude just rubs me the wrong way.

That's a much sharper kit than that cut-rate Minnesota United kit I posted earlier. That said, these guys have their regular brand, that fauxback brand (which was nice!), and now this hyper-modern youth team brand. That cheapens the cries of "we're getting ripped off" to me. Still not great on STL's part, you'd think they would have checked on these things, but in fairness they've been telegraphing interest in a pinkish red for quite a while.