Discussion From MSB.....Is This The Top Of The Sports Revenue Bubble?

I thought the bubble was 1990 I just realized why my cable bill is so high Thanks I will be cutting get cord as I cannot stand Pro sports

Sports is like a drug. People are chasing the highs of their team winning. As long they are willing to chase that high, the price of sports will increase.

But trend shows that many are opting out so it will interesting to see what will happen in the future.

Look at the basketball shoe industry i.e, air Jordan shoes. Take away the logo, it's the same shoe. But Nike can't sell it for $150. They sign Jordan. Now they can sell the illusion. "I have something in common with MJ". Nike and Jordan is cleaning up selling an image on a $16 shoe. It's a nice game for Nike and their athlete signees.

Just like Gordon Gecko said "The illusion has become real, and the more real it becomes, the more desperately they want it."

I know sports is a drug, Im not saying people are going to watch less of it, I personally watch more than ever, my KODI lets me watch every single game I want but nobody makes money off me. Im saying there are more options than ever to watch it today without paying for your own personal $200/mo cable subscription. I completely agree about shoes, but when you look back at the 90s and even just 10 years ago, every household either had cable or basic cable. Those NBA games on NBC or ABC were always attainable, things like the NBA Finals are on ABC for that reason not ESPN.

ESPN itself is the biggest cost in a cable bundle, I dont have links but you can read about it, something like $30-40/mo I wanna say is the cost of ESPN in a cable bundle. I know myself personally it was like $240/mo for the ATT u450 package and I realized that I just never watched tv other than some news or sports and it was just silly to have the biggest cable package ever.

Today I literally have something to watch whenever I want with Netflix + Hulu + amazon prime. The only thing is I cant get sports or news. I get my news online now and sports I had to get KODI. Anyways big sports games I like going to a bar anyways. Amazon prime is something you almost have to have this day in age. If they had better show/movie selections Id probably dump netflix and hulu too but I like Seinfeld and thats Hulu only for now. Anyways what Im saying is, this generation my age and younger, Im mid 30s, we aren't our parents generation, we aren't going to take it in the arse and pay $250/mo for a cable package just because and I think Disneys earnings late last year revealed that with the 7 million subscriber drop for ESPN

All I know is the trend is to drop cable and we're in the first inning of that ball game, heck my parents are even considering it when I told them they'd save $2000/year. One continue watching sports but for free via some streaming like KODI or a shared sling account or whatever. Im not saying people are going to watch less sports, Im saying they're going to find ways to do it where it doesn't cost money. Personally even if you took my fire stick away, all I have to do is on my apple tv, call my dad get his ATT Uverse login and I can login to the ESPN app and watch all ESPN/ESPN2/ESPN3/ESPNU/ABC sports all day and not pay a dime and in the long run this has to hurt cable companies, thats why they're discussing data caps now bc they're scrambling to stop the streaming.

Who knows what comes of it, but even the data caps, they can't fight google whose launching fiber and in Miami I have it via a company called webpass google bought last week with unlimited data monthly at 20x ATT speeds for $50/mo, if something like that is rolled out nationwide, goodnight. I think webpass is in like 4-5 cities today, but anyways just an interesting thing I thought about while these NBA salaries soared to unprecedented levels on the backs on a new TV deal.

fair enough, honestly even take out KODI, I dont think id care enough to ever pay $250/again for cable when I can get netflix,hulu,amazon for $30/mo total. If there's a big sports game Ill go to the bar with some buddies grab dinner and watch it. I just think there's a shift going on and hey nobody sees these things coming. Did banks see the housing crash coming in 2008-2010 back in 2005? Obviously not so they kept on with the lending.

Either way will be interesting to see what happens in a decade but I really dont think they can keep raising sporting event tickets,concessions, and everything else forever. People are paying more than ever today for rent,insurances, etc in terms of percentages as a total of their income, and wages aren't really growing as fast for most. Events like sports are fun, but the way prices are soaring every year, the average fan has to probably step back and think about whether its really worth going to watch a mediocre product for most cities that dont have lebron,durant,steph curry every night

We're all going to pay the price of cord cutters....but will you? I know I won't pay more, I already declined the $250/mo because that was ridiculous enough. I just dont see how they can stop it at this point. What Im saying man. I make a great income, I can spend $250/mo on cable or $400/night on 2 seats to a rockets regular season game sitting in row V but why? The experience? Its fun to watch playoff games, but the regular season? The games aren't even fun environments because they're not even sellouts. It would be fun at oracle arena or something but here in houston, whats my incentive to drop such a high fee then pay parking and ridiculous concessions to watch a mediocre team. I haven't been to more than 3-4 rockets games in the past 5 years and they were all seats that were given to me.......and now with this new TV deal, and these new enormous salaries these guys are getting starting this offseason.....Ill be shocked if those high prices dont rise even higher.

At what point does it all stop? Who knows but the way ESPN is trying to cut costs left and right, I just think there is going to be a big big problem at some point in the near future.

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.and now with this new TV deal, and these new enormous salaries these guys are getting starting this offseason.....Ill be shocked if those high prices dont rise even higher.

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We have so many choices and options for entertainment in 2016. Shows, movies, Facebook, youtube, games, other sports. Why would anyone pay $100-$200 for an NBA game is beyond me. Each game is different, but it's the same in most aspect. It's a bunch of guys running up and down a court putting a ball in a basket. That's all it is. They're good at their jobs, but we've seen a dunk, 3s, no look passes before. It gets old. So what if you beat a rival team? By next week, it'll be all forgotten in this "Now culture" that we are living in.

If it weren't for fantasy or sports betting, sports interest would decline greatly.

See Easter Bunny ATT and Comcast Will but google is coming in hard with their fiber to force ATT and comcasts hand. I have webpass in miami and google bought them like 10 days ago. They have internet 20x as fast as ATT and unlimited data for a 1 time $600/yr payment

the ATT/Comcast monopoly is under threat in that area too man, it will certainly be a while before fiber is everywhere but its not crazy to say all major markets will have it within a decade, I mean no sense of google buying webpass recently which does like san fran-san diego-chicago-miami unless they wanted to roll this fiber bad boy out nationwide

For me the pushing of the liberal agenda into what should be a non political world has turned me off from watching ESPN at all except for LSU games.

It's gotten to be too much for me to stand watching. If I wanted to listen to the struggles of a trans I would watch the Kardashians or MSNBC.

MikeD I admit I dont know how the model works exactly but is it the revenue from the commercials themselves or the revenue from cable subscriptions? Because if ESPN lost 7M subscribers that doesnt necessarily mean those guys dont watch ESPN it just means they watch it some other manner for free.

They'll find a way to adapt. Like selling ala carte packages or setting it up so Henderson's radio call is synced with the Fox TV feed. Or taking advantage of smart TVs by selling optional premium content packages.