All those rich TV sports deals may finally make cable so expensive that we’ll see more demands for a la carte subscriptions. It’s one reason why I cut the cord years ago. I’m indifferent to sports, and I refuse to subsidize media that holds no value for me. I’ll just watch those Super Bowl ads with my over-the-air rabbit ears.
Read the New York Times article. Revealing quote:
The eye-popping price tags have restarted debate about a topic near and dear to sports fans, fairness: many TV customers never watch the mightily expensive channels at all, yet almost all must pay. There was a shudder in the industry when John Malone, the business tycoon who helped create the modern-day cable system, said in November that “runaway sports rights” costs amounted to “a high tax on a lot of households that don’t have a lot of interest in sports.” The only short-term fix, he said, was government intervention.
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Agreed that the cable/satellite providers aren’t going to be the ones pushing for a change, especially given the level of engagement for sports viewers. According to Nielsen’s State of the Media: 2012 Year in Sports report (http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/sports-on-the-go/), 41% of all TV-related Tweets were about sports programming, though sports accounted for only 1.3% of all TV programming. The significant imbalance was likely driven by the Olympics, but speaking as a sports fan, the experience of watching a live sporting event at home while engaging via twitter is often a better than attending the event. I expect the level of engagement of sports fans via social media to continue to increase.