Quote:
Originally Posted by ISiddiqui
It's going to be completely cost prohibitive. People kind of laughed at Bally's wanting their RSN product to be over $20 a month, but that's how much these would cost divorced from bundles. ESPN properties would likely be $30 a month.
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Isn't that exactly what I just wrote? Since we agree, isn't the question really more about how far ESPN will push carriage before worrying that each push removes so many people from the cable bundle that the system finally topples?
YTTV probably blinked. But they fired a very important shot before they did. They offered $15/month off for the duration of the outage. Now more people - people who don't watch sports - understand just how much ESPN drives the entire bundlewagon. That was dangerous, but it also indicates that they know how close this is to toppling and they're willing to risk that danger because they don't think ESPN understands.
Let's say ESPN costs $30/month - twice Netflix, right (I've never been a Netflix subscriber). How many sports fans will pay that? Will that generate the same total revenue that forcing everyone to pay $15/month generates? Not to mention the additional cost of marketing and putting together a secure and useful app.