Major Announcement Tomorrow

[Lowcountry App]

Anybody know what this is about? TV deal?

[firemoose]

Given this....



And McElwain's reply...



Make your guesses now...

[AtlAppMan]

Sun Belt is getting a permanent New Years Day bowl tie in

[AppDawg]

Initial thought was something about the Conference Championship Football Game.... but the icon on the top left of the video in the tweet is a Basketball.... hmmm.

Perhaps a new TV deal with the mothership.

[T-Dog]

I think its a new TV deal with ESPN. The trade is TV-esqe and had an ESPN logo in the upper corner.

ESPN had lot some of its CFB programming in recent years to rival networks, plus the ACC Network will take some more away.

Karl Benson has repeatedly said that he wants to stick with ESPN as offers the best options for all fans.

Also, the current Sun Belr deal expires in 2019 and with a new football championship game, the rumor was that the league wanted to negotiate for the whole package, not that game individually.

[appgrouch]

The ESPN Logo is a Basketball Logo

?????

[appstate77]

The ESPN Logo is a Basketball Logo

?????

Perhaps indicating an all sport package maybe?

[NattyBumppo'sRevenge]

Is this why we moved the ECU game?

[Gonzo]

AP already reporting it. 8 year deal with ESPN “Plus” which moves our games behind a pay wall.

Terrible.

[Saint3333]

ESPN is partnering with PBS.

[appgrouch]

Though it may mean an end to Weekday Games. With the streaming, live content might not be as important as content in general.

It may be behind a paywall, but if we are the main game(s) in town on the new service, it will put us in a good position.

[97APP]

Is espn+ going to be behind a paywall for everyone or is the paywall a way of accessing content if you don't already have access to ESPN content through a cable/satellite provider (i.e. cord cutters)?

[MtnMan09]

So what does this mean? Even if you have a cable subscription that lets you access WatchESPN/ESPN 3 now you will have to pay n additional charge to watch app games? Also what happens to potential for games on the regular ESPN networks? This sounds shitty from the get go.

[TheMoody1]

"The launch of the long-awaited ESPN Plus, expected in late March or early April, offers a version of the sports network for $4.99 a month, as Disney disclosed this month on its quarterly earnings call. Describing that price as “reasonable” given the less-than-platinum offerings at launch, Iger said plans call for tiered pricing as OTT rights to top-tier sports are solidified."

[TheMoody1]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/c ... ed00041ee2

A person with knowledge of the deal says the Sun Belt Conference has signed a new eight-year contract with ESPN that gives the network exclusive rights to all of the league’s sports.

The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Thursday because the conference had not yet announced the deal. The person would not disclose financial details, but says the deal will increase annual payouts to Sun Belt members. The current ESPN contract pays schools about $100,000 per year.

The person says Sun Belt sports will become a key part of ESPN Plus, the network’s new streaming service set to debut in late March or April. The Sun Belt has 10 members that play major college football and two more that compete in other sports.

[TheMoody1]

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/6/1698203 ... ve-dollars

Want to pay for a subscription to ESPN without paying for a subscription to other cable channels?

Sorry, you still can’t do it.

But next month ESPN will finally launch ESPN Plus, the digital-only subscription service it has been talking about launching since the summer of 2016.

It will cost $5 a month. Tough sell.

That’s because if you’re the kind of person who likes watching the stuff that ESPN is paying billions of dollars a year to show you — NFL games, NBA games, big-time college football and other top-tier sports — ESPN’s new service won’t give you what you want.

Instead, ESPN Plus will have “incremental thousands of hours of live programming,” as Disney CEO Bob Iger put it today on his company’s earnings call — but none of the stuff you can see on any of ESPN’s cable channels. That stuff still requires a subscription to ESPN — either via traditional pay TV outlets or many of the new internet TV bundles that have launched in recent years.

Instead, ESPN Plus will have stuff that ESPN doesn’t think is valuable enough to put on regular TV — or even on ESPN Watch, the digital bonus service it bundles with ESPN subscriptions. So this stuff has to be niche, by definition.

ESPN still hasn’t publicly spelled out what that means, but people familiar with the company have filled in the blanks. Think small college sports. Or tennis tournaments that aren’t one of the major tennis tournaments. That kind of thing.

To be fair, Disney has said that it won’t be carrying “real” ESPN on the service from the get-go. But lots of people have still assumed/hoped that an ESPN subscription service would be, you know ... ESPN.

Instead, ESPN Plus will be an add-on service available in a new version of an ESPN app, which will give you access to real ESPN programming — if you’re a “real” ESPN subscriber. Just like you can get from ESPN’s existing apps today.

It is possible to imagine that one day — who knows when — ESPN finally breaks from its very long-term, very lucrative relationship with the pay TV ecosystem and lets you subscribe directly to “real” ESPN, like HBO has done with its HBO Now product.

And if that happens, they can use the app and infrastructure they have created for ESPN Plus for that service. That is probably what Iger is getting at when he says, “If anything points to what the future of ESPN looks like, it will be this app.”

And selling anything directly to consumers is a new and important idea for Disney, which has said it is staking its future on the idea. Next year, the company plans a much bigger launch for a Disney-branded movie service, designed to compete with Netflix. So there’s logic in using the lower-stakes ESPN Plus launch as a trial run, to work out kinks.

But that doesn’t mean you’ll want to pay for it.

[firemoose]

Given the large drop in revenue that CUSA schools took with their newest deal in 16' and the fact that some schools are actually starting to cut budgets because of drops in TV payouts, any increase of revenue from a TV deal these days, no matter what, is something positive. We'll just see how much it is.

[MtnMan09]

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/6/1698203 ... ve-dollars

Want to pay for a subscription to ESPN without paying for a subscription to other cable channels?

Sorry, you still can’t do it.

But next month ESPN will finally launch ESPN Plus, the digital-only subscription service it has been talking about launching since the summer of 2016.

It will cost $5 a month. Tough sell.

That’s because if you’re the kind of person who likes watching the stuff that ESPN is paying billions of dollars a year to show you — NFL games, NBA games, big-time college football and other top-tier sports — ESPN’s new service won’t give you what you want.

Instead, ESPN Plus will have “incremental thousands of hours of live programming,” as Disney CEO Bob Iger put it today on his company’s earnings call — but none of the stuff you can see on any of ESPN’s cable channels. That stuff still requires a subscription to ESPN — either via traditional pay TV outlets or many of the new internet TV bundles that have launched in recent years.

Instead, ESPN Plus will have stuff that ESPN doesn’t think is valuable enough to put on regular TV — or even on ESPN Watch, the digital bonus service it bundles with ESPN subscriptions. So this stuff has to be niche, by definition.

ESPN still hasn’t publicly spelled out what that means, but people familiar with the company have filled in the blanks. Think small college sports. Or tennis tournaments that aren’t one of the major tennis tournaments. That kind of thing.

To be fair, Disney has said that it won’t be carrying “real” ESPN on the service from the get-go. But lots of people have still assumed/hoped that an ESPN subscription service would be, you know ... ESPN.

Instead, ESPN Plus will be an add-on service available in a new version of an ESPN app, which will give you access to real ESPN programming — if you’re a “real” ESPN subscriber. Just like you can get from ESPN’s existing apps today.

It is possible to imagine that one day — who knows when — ESPN finally breaks from its very long-term, very lucrative relationship with the pay TV ecosystem and lets you subscribe directly to “real” ESPN, like HBO has done with its HBO Now product.

And if that happens, they can use the app and infrastructure they have created for ESPN Plus for that service. That is probably what Iger is getting at when he says, “If anything points to what the future of ESPN looks like, it will be this app.”

And selling anything directly to consumers is a new and important idea for Disney, which has said it is staking its future on the idea. Next year, the company plans a much bigger launch for a Disney-branded movie service, designed to compete with Netflix. So there’s logic in using the lower-stakes ESPN Plus launch as a trial run, to work out kinks.

But that doesn’t mean you’ll want to pay for it.

So Benson just made it harder for us to watch our games. Forget getting casual fans interested. If all of this is true hes a moron.

[TheMoody1]

https://www.recode.net/2018/2/6/1698203 ... ve-dollars

Want to pay for a subscription to ESPN without paying for a subscription to other cable channels?

Sorry, you still can’t do it.

But next month ESPN will finally launch ESPN Plus, the digital-only subscription service it has been talking about launching since the summer of 2016.

It will cost $5 a month. Tough sell.

That’s because if you’re the kind of person who likes watching the stuff that ESPN is paying billions of dollars a year to show you — NFL games, NBA games, big-time college football and other top-tier sports — ESPN’s new service won’t give you what you want.

Instead, ESPN Plus will have “incremental thousands of hours of live programming,” as Disney CEO Bob Iger put it today on his company’s earnings call — but none of the stuff you can see on any of ESPN’s cable channels. That stuff still requires a subscription to ESPN — either via traditional pay TV outlets or many of the new internet TV bundles that have launched in recent years.

Instead, ESPN Plus will have stuff that ESPN doesn’t think is valuable enough to put on regular TV — or even on ESPN Watch, the digital bonus service it bundles with ESPN subscriptions. So this stuff has to be niche, by definition.

ESPN still hasn’t publicly spelled out what that means, but people familiar with the company have filled in the blanks. Think small college sports. Or tennis tournaments that aren’t one of the major tennis tournaments. That kind of thing.

To be fair, Disney has said that it won’t be carrying “real” ESPN on the service from the get-go. But lots of people have still assumed/hoped that an ESPN subscription service would be, you know ... ESPN.

Instead, ESPN Plus will be an add-on service available in a new version of an ESPN app, which will give you access to real ESPN programming — if you’re a “real” ESPN subscriber. Just like you can get from ESPN’s existing apps today.

It is possible to imagine that one day — who knows when — ESPN finally breaks from its very long-term, very lucrative relationship with the pay TV ecosystem and lets you subscribe directly to “real” ESPN, like HBO has done with its HBO Now product.

And if that happens, they can use the app and infrastructure they have created for ESPN Plus for that service. That is probably what Iger is getting at when he says, “If anything points to what the future of ESPN looks like, it will be this app.”

And selling anything directly to consumers is a new and important idea for Disney, which has said it is staking its future on the idea. Next year, the company plans a much bigger launch for a Disney-branded movie service, designed to compete with Netflix. So there’s logic in using the lower-stakes ESPN Plus launch as a trial run, to work out kinks.

But that doesn’t mean you’ll want to pay for it.

So Benson just made it harder for us to watch our games. Forget getting casual fans interested. If all of this is true hes a moron.

My guess is that this won't really effect Football. We will still get some ESPN family games and the rest will be on Watch ESPN. We will see.

[ASUchipman]

It is already a pain in the butt watching games on ESPN3 with announcers who dont know what teams they are covering, and weird camera angles. Now they expect us to pay for that same terrible coverage? It might be a good deal for the schools but it is screwing the fans.