I don’t hate sports, but I hate the hell out of professional sports leagues. Part of the reason I cut my cable and haven’t looked back is that I live in Boston, and for the privilege of living in the same city as the Red Sox, you have to pay a premium for NESN, which is like the cable access version of ESPN, even if you have the most basic cable. Believe it or not, sports are a big part of the reason your cable bill keeps going up; ESPN costs the most out of any cable channel to carry. Yes, even HBO.
Fortunately, the power of greed might be helping us out in both respects. DirecTV is bringing their NFL Sunday Ticket package to the PS3 and basically anything with an Android OS, at a cost of $340 for non-subscribers … but unlike, say, HBOGo, at least non-subscribers have access.
Why is this a big deal? Sports and live shows are what’s mostly keeping people attached to cable. And the NFL was the last real streaming holdout: the NHL and MLB already have dedicated streaming services on consoles, and the NBA streams over ESPN3. In short, with this, if you’re a sports fan, you now actually aren’t cable dependent anymore.
Imagine, you the consumer actually get choice and control over what you watch. Cah-razy!