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posted by Doyle
Tonight I wanted to watch the University of Denver Pioneers—my alma mater—take on the North Dakota Fighting Sioux in the semi-final game of the WCHA Playoffs. I’m willing to pay to watch the game, either on TV or online. I would have probably paid $34.95 or so without hesitation.
The funny part? It’s being broadcast on Fox Sports North, which just isn’t available in my area. Bottom line, it’s not like they needed to send a special crew and set up a complete broadcast. That’s already done. All they have to do is set up a stream and charge for it. I’d pay. Lots of others might as well. Let’s say just 500 people pay $30 each to watch. That’s $15,000. I have to believe that a substantial amount for a college hockey divisional playoff game.
Sadly, either no one thought of it or—more likely—there are some issues with broadcast rights that prevent Fox North from doing something so simple. So, I’m paying $8.95 for a very average audio stream.
Stupid.
Everyone involved—the universities, Fox Sports, even the advertisers, who get a larger audience—would win by making this available. When will we stop worrying about the handful of people that might steal the content and start serving—and profiting from—the large audience that’s more than happy to pay?
Soon, I hope.
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1 response so far ↓
1 Sam // Mar 20, 2010 at 7:23 pm
This was my same feeling about Napster back in the day. At its heyday, it had, what, 20 million users? I said that the record companies should cut a deal and they should just charge everyone $10/month. Sure, not everyone was going to pay, but say only 1 million did. That's 10 MILLION DOLLARS PER MONTH. Which was a heck of a lot more than they *were* getting, and it would have been a foot in the door of the business model.
Oh well. Sink or swim. I just wish we weren't getting pulled under in the meantime.
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