Very interesting article from Cory, but it lacks a little perspective. Cory touts broadcast television as the "answer" to streaming services but fails to understand that the evolution of television technology was largely because of the shortcomings of broadcast TV.

Cable television started out as response to people's inability to receive broadcast television services. Mountain ranges and other topographical features blocked people's ability to receive broadcast signals (even though they were in the broadcaster's nominal footprint) and cable TV was born as a means to distribute television signals to hard to reach places. The realization that cable TV could also carry other non-broadcast signals (ESPN, CNN, etc. etc.) only came years later. Cable TV exploded the amount of programming available to viewers.

As much as cable TV helped television in general, it is not a ubiquitous service either. People traveling, people in remote geographical areas, people at work often have little or no access to broadcast or cable television services. But they do often have access to cellular services that can provide streaming capability to their phone. Now you can carry your television with you where ever you go. Streaming is simply the next extension of television pushing viewing capability ever closer to every customer.

You can't stop technology, particularly one that benefits the consumer. Cory may not like viewing football games on his phone, but lots of other people do. Streaming isn't going away and likely will continue to grow. You may as well get used to it.

And for the record, I am a 75 year old viewer who doesn't like watching football games on his phone, but I have also been around long enough to recognize that streaming services are expanding the reach of television viewing just like cable TV did for my age group.

What good are the streaming services, if local TV media controls what's aired? If the local media team is playing at the same time your team's game is playing, will your team's game be aired, even if it is on a streaming service?

Greed will destroy the game. Soon we'll ned to pay 5 different streaming services to watch teams that will be hampered by injuries after playing 18 games.

The NFL is a corrupt, money hungry entity. Surprise, surprise. Years ago I changed my whole TV viewing by purchasing a satellite to buy the Sunday Ticket so that I could see our beloved Packers. It sounded perfect. They charged whatever and I paid to get ALL games. ALL meant ALL.

I was fortunate to have the resources to buy it and was relatively satisfied. Then after many years the contract with Directv ended. So the NFL in its endless greed starting selling a streaming Sunday Ticket package. Of course “every game” DOESEN’T mean “EVERY “ it became well not the Thanksgiving Night game or a certain playoff game or a Christmas game and so on and so on and so on. ALL no longer means ALL it means some at OUR discretion as denoted in the fine print.

All so the NFL could turn over your sofa to get you to buy more and shake you down for every red cent. Don’t even get me started on the International games money grab.

Love that the DOJ is looking into the NFL streaming scam but we know nothing will happen . We are already jumping through hoops to see Packers games . All of a sudden some random game is on Peaflix on a Wednesday night . I have lost interest in the NBA and MLB . Two teams in Ohio and you can’t find any of them on TV . I hope the NFL finally goes too far but the fans will have to decide that .

I stopped paying for TV a long time ago and have NEVER had a streaming service. I resigned myself to one thing only, the Internet. It costs me $45 a month and not a penny more, and there isn't a single thing I can't watch: TV shows, movies, and sports of any nature, whenever I want, and this includes Dodger games and Packers games. Right now, I have about 20-25 places to do such and until they're taken off the Internet, No, it isn't piracy if the Internet offers the sites for it. It's really great how I watch what I want when I want. Live, reruns, game replays, everything.
The problem is you've become dependent on the phone for all you do, and that's exactly what they want for it. The cost is high for convenience, so don't cry about what you want; pay the price or find another way to live and enjoy what you want. It's out there, you just need to adapt to use it. with less convenience. Some things simply shouldn't be accessible every waking and walking moment.

"...... but are they aren't as glorious as expected."

Cory, i thought i told you to get a proofreader.

JK 😉

At the root of this is the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 (SBA). That law expressly permitted leagues to pool broadcast rights. Before that, rights were held to be exclusively owned by the home teams and that it would be anticompetitive to allow the teams to form a cartel to market them as a single league product.

In those days that stopped big market teams cornering the dollars. It also enabled the league to market itself unitarily of course, which proved very lucrative. However, particularly since TV revenue was paid for by advertising, it actually made it more accessible to fans and relatively independently of location. It was a win:win for consumers and the league as a whole and the Packers in particular, as a small market team.

Arguably that changed, or began to, once the league started breaking up the season between subscription providers as well as free to air, but it really accelerated once those providers became both more numerous and less universal. Instead of facilitating access, the League is now asking fans to pay possibly multiple sources. At least those strictly legally minded.

So now one could argue that the league wide cartel is being used as a tool not to broaden access but to restrict it and/or leverage a higher cost of consumption. At that point, the bargain becomes more one sided in favor of the league. That’s essentially the conundrum.

I have to say that I think the league got too greedy here. I agree, the balance is skewed and will skew more. I’m in favor of resetting that to some extent by requiring open access where providers have too limited subscription and by restricting the number of providers who can own rights in any given season.

Of course, that may suppress league income below what it could be, but that was on the back of a legal exemption that it undermined itself. Cake-and-eat it thinking that destroyed the primary justification for the monopolistic exemption that bred the fatted calf that is the modern NFL franchise (or about 3/4 of its income): TV revenue.

Penny wise and pound foolishness.
If it continues to insult the fans and ruin the traditions, the NFL risks its irrelevance.
Never underestimate the power of human folly to ruin a good thing.
Go ahead, change the name of Lambeau Field to the Menards MegaCenter.
Put advertisements on the uniforms until the players look like NASCAR drivers.
Continue to demean longtime fans with insulting slogans that basically tell us we are racist ignoramuses.
Meanwhile, these fans are increasingly struggling to make ends meet in a gig economy that requires two or three low-paying jobs and none of them providing benefits. However, make these fans pay for six streaming services to watch the Packers.
At some point, what's so special about rooting for the Packers? What's the big deal about the NFL and its heritage? Who cares about the history the league and the records of the players and the glory of past champions?
There's a lot to be said for traditions. There's a lot to be said for appreciating the customer. There's a lot to be said for maintaining a mystique that's been hard-earned over the course of a century but can be easily dissipated by artificiality.
***
It's not that the whites are privileged and the blacks are impoverished; it's not that the urban ghettoes are pathetic and the countrysides are paradise. The whole nation is in decay. People of all colors are strained to the breaking point.
America is the land of addiction, divorce, and diabetes 2. It's an embarrassment for such a great country to be in such steep decline.
In our Gilded Age 2.0, a tiny few own almost everything, and the vast majority own almost nothing. We work on their corporate plantations. We rent from their company towns. We are paid in their worthless scrip.
We are debtors and dependents. We're all getting the shaft.
Even the better off among us must fall in line or be censored and cancelled and ostracized. It's considered hate speech to simply disagree with our social betters (e.g., Jaden Ivey being cast aside by the Chicago Bulls of the NBA).
If we want to avoid the horrors of socialism, we must reform the abuses of capitalism.
To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, we need a capitalism in which the most of us own capital.
Ownership is independence.
***
Roger Goodell makes $40-$80 million per year as NFL Commissioner.
I don't really know the amount. I'm not sure if his salary is public.
It's obscene, though. So obscene that Goodell distracts us from his extravagance by putting meaningless slogans on the helmets of the players and writ large across the back of the endzones. He distracts us so as to divide us.
If we're fighting each other, we won't notice that the likes of Roger Goodell consider themselves worth something like an obscene $60 million per year. We won't notice that even America's most prominent socialist, Bernie Sanders, apparently owns three houses. We won't notice that the leading politicians of both parties are in almost all cases filthy rich.
The husband and wife both working hard to make $60,000 per year -- and still $10,000 in credit card debt and unable to buy a home -- might wake up to the senseless disparity.
What in the world is that guy Goodell doing to make so much money when all he seems to do is insult me with BLM slogans and Bad Bunny, while making it more expensive for me to watch games?
Maybe people of all colors will realize their mutual plight and join together in a solidarity of rejecting the elitists and supporting each other.
If we don't, it's more than the Packers and the NFL that will be lost. America, too, will fade like the Roman Empire. Lambeau Field will deteriorate to the Colosseum.

People can live 3 minutes without air, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. How long can they live without sports entertainment?

I know this article is mainly about the US but Dazn is a godsend for me in Australia . The NFL is on free to air TV ( 3 games )but the games were getting to be a bit shit . This is the only chance for me to watch all the Packer games .