re: Sling TV Releases Sports Package - $5 Per Month

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Up there with diamonds & mattresses.

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And anything related to fashion.

Thy is Sling deal is pretty good, but it is as cheap as it is because they already make so much money with regular cable and satellite.
If the whole system was a la carte, this Sling deal wouldn't be possible at the price it is.

They are trying to pick up the relatively few who have already cut the cord who otherwise wouldn't be paying them.

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You would be paying way more than $2 per channel.

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I understand that, but that matters little if I am only paying $20. I am willing to pay more per channel to just have those channels.

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The only reason channels are as cheap as they are per subscriber is because of how many subscribers there are.

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If channels are $2 a piece then wouldn't it take less subscribers to reclaim the same margins?

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If everything was a la carte, subscribers for an individual channel would go WAY down.

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I don't want everything a la carte. Just give me less crap. Give me those 10 stations offered by Sling and I will pay you more per station. Its simple. I am now paying $80 for 90 channels that I don't watch.

Even I only watch 7 out of those 10 channels offered I am still saving money.

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My point being that EVERYONE would subscribe directly through ESPN and they wouldn't have to pay a middle man.

They could charge $5 and make more than Sling is paying them.

Some of y'all are so damn dense

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your point is incorrect

the only reason ESPN is at $5ish a month on cable is b/c its on all the cable system's basic packages. If they went a la carte it would skyrocket per month b/c they would have to make up for all the lost revenue needed to pay the sports leagues from the millions that wouldn't subscribe to it.

It's a guarantee that by the time you paid for all your individual channels you'd end up paying the same amount for less channels.

ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, and SECN alone would easily be upwards of $100 once they were added up.

Since the SEC Network is included I might have to look into this.

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I understand that, but that matters little if I am only paying $20. I am willing to pay more per channel to just have those channels.

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You are missing the point. ESPN as it is right now with 100 million subscribers charges cable companies like Comcast $5 per month per subscriber. They are getting $5 per month from 100 million subscribers.

If the whole system was a la carte, then only a fraction of those 100 million subscribers would subscribe to ESPN on their own.

That means the price would go WAY up.

It would be like a premium movie channel.

You would be paying more than $20 per month just for ESPN most likely.

TNT might be $10 per month.

Smaller stations may not be able to afford being on the air at all.

You say you are paying $80 per month for 90+ channels... but if the entire system was a la carte, then you'd be paying $80 per month for maybe only 7-10 channels.

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Thread title is misleading

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how? (srs)

Plus, ESPN pays sports leagues a MASSIVE amount of money to broadcast the games.

The NBA just recently signed a $24 billion dollar deal with ESPN and TNT.

$24 billion!

The way the cable and satellite system is set up now helps the sports leagues we like to follow and watch, and it helps companies like ESPN bring the games to your TV.

To put it in perspective, ESPN's highest viewership ever was for the CFB Playoff title game. That had 27 million viewers.

To make the math easy, let's say they get an even $5 per month and have 100 million subs via cable.

That's $500 million gross each month.

To get to that number w/just 27 million subs they would have to charge about $18.50 a month.

However, they would NOT have 27 million subs a la carte. That number would likely be cut in half at best for the average during the year. That means you'll be paying more like $36 per month.

Also, b/c the sus would fluctuate during the year depending on the sports they would more than likely charge even more than that just to make sure their quarterly profits stay somewhat consistent. So to make up for parts of the year when subs would drop off a cliff it would go even higher to something like $50 a month.

That's JUST for ESPN alone. That does not take into account channels like ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3 streaming, or the SECN. All of those would end up being around $15 to $20 minimum a month.

So if you want those 5 (w/o ESPNews which is starting to air more CFB games) you are easily going to end up paying over $100 a month just for the ESPN networks.

Dunno why you are laughing. They have to make the money based off current cable subs if they want to be able to pay off their deals with all the sports leagues and conferences they have deals with.

They simple cannot do that with the prices you seem to think would occur via a la carte b/c there is no way in hell they would ever approach their current amount of subs.