. . . then pleased be advised you are taking your chances viewing a pirated stream, and probably one that’s typically of unreliable or poor quality.
That’s what Nicholas Carlson says on the Silicon Valley Insider blog today, then links to some sources of tips on getting a streaming feed to your desktop.
Neither of Sunday’s conference championship games are being live-streamed on official (i.e. NFL-approved) outlets, but Carlson suggests that the league at some point is going to have to grapple with the fact that football fans are going to continue to find ways to watch online. What to do?
“The only solution is for the leagues to create their own iTunes for live games. As with digital music, piracy won’t stop, but it will slow down. Better yet, the leagues will have a new revenue source and more legitimate impressions to sell to advertisers.”
Yet as I’ve pointed out on this blog before, the leagues and major television networks that own NFL rights (and those for most top-shelf sports “properties”) are fearful that streaming will somehow “cannibalize” their cable or over-the-air productions. It’s also that they haven’t figured out how to make money from online streaming, which is still in its infancy, technologically and financially. And in this economic environment there might not be much interest in experimenting.
But I like the iTunes idea. Pay-per-game, or even a season ticket package, may help the leagues and media companies determine how much interest does exist, rather than trying to sell advertising on a free stream that in some cases (such as NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecast) that leaves a lot to be desired. I haven’t subscribed to the streaming package on mlb.com, but I know users who have who are quite pleased with the service.
If the quality of the feed and the user experience is high, then I think online users, especially those out-of-market or out of U.S. television range, will spend the money to watch.
Posted by Wendy Parker 
Posted by Wendy Parker 