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Television

ESPN's 'Where To Watch' Tries To Solve Sports' Most Frustrating Problem (arstechnica.com) 67

Posted by BeauHD from the modern-day-TV-guides dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Too often, new tech product or service launches seem like solutions in search of a problem, but not this one: ESPN is launching software that lets you figure out just where you can watch the specific game you want to see amid an overcomplicated web of streaming services, cable channels, and arcane licensing agreements. Every sports fan is all too familiar with today's convoluted streaming schedules. Launching today on ESPN.com and the various ESPN mobile and streaming device apps, the new guide offers various views, including one that lists all the sporting events in a single day and a search function, among other things. You can also flag favorite sports or teams to customize those views.

"At the core of Where to Watch is an event database created and managed by the ESPN Stats and Information Group (SIG), which aggregates ESPN and partner data feeds along with originally sourced information and programming details from more than 250 media sources, including television networks and streaming platforms," ESPN's press release says. ESPN previously offered browsable lists of games like this, but it didn't identify where you could actually watch all the games. There's no guarantee that you'll have access to the services needed to watch the games in the list, though. Those of us who cut the cable cord long ago know that some games -- especially those local to your city -- are unavailable without cable.
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ESPN's 'Where To Watch' Tries To Solve Sports' Most Frustrating Problem More

ESPN's 'Where To Watch' Tries To Solve Sports' Most Frustrating Problem

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  • What about one service, one box, one bill to get a (Score:3)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Thursday August 29, 2024 @09:08AM (#64745982)

    What about one service, one box, one bill to get all your local team games? for an start. And an later goal can being able to get all the out market and national games on the same setup

    • "What about one service, one box, one bill to get all your local team games?"

      Local teams don't want you watching them on TV unless the stadium is sold out. They'd much rather you'd buy a ticket.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by wed128 ( 722152 )
        Maybe in some markets that's true, but if you try to buy tickets to a Pittsburgh Steelers game, you won't find them for less then $200 a seat, and aftermarket/resale tickets are even more expensive then that. Again, not sure if all markets are like that. To me, that means they're having no trouble filling the stadium.

        • As I said, "unless the stadium sells out". The Steelers at home have played to sell-out crowds since 1972. They're not worried about local broadcasts costing them ticket sales.

        • $200 for NFL tickets? That's a bargain. The Steelers must suck this year.

      • I don't know anyone who goes to a game because they just need to see the game, they all go for the experience of seeing the game in person. They'd go whether they could see the game via the media or not. It seems like a very antiquated way of thinking on behalf of the leagues.

    • One service to rule them all, One box to bind them, One bill to pay them all and to the network bind them?

      • To be fair, no one owes you the opportunity to watch a private sporting event. Just pirate it anyway. It's vastly easier then jumping through all their silly hoops.

        You could always watch college football and XFL in the spring if you want to stick it to the NFL.

    • That one service used to be called "Cable" And it was great because you had all of these streaming pipes called "Channels" that could cater to very niche things. Like, if you like only retro cartoons? Channel for that, Like sci fi only? Channel for that, Animal Shows? Channel for that, History Documentaries? Only if you're a fan of WW2.

      I hate this dystopian hellscape of streaming services that you have to pay individually for that don't make any good unique programming anymore.
      • I hate this dystopian hellscape of streaming services that you have to pay individually for that don't make any good unique programming anymore.

        This is what people asked for. Those that didn't watch sports didn't believe they should have to pay for those channels as part of their cable package and instead said they would be interested in paying for only the things they wanted to watch. And here we are.
        • Except now the companies that have the sports licensing want to force you to pay for sports with the streaming services. A monopoly from beginning to end.
          Now streaming is just cable without cords.

        • We wanted to cherry pick the shows and specific channels we want to watch. That NEVER happened because of licensing.

      • Not in this case. For sports, you could not always get your team if it was not the local team. This applies to major professional sports. DirectTV satellite exploded in popularity because people could get games for their team. And then there is college sports which is another matter.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

        I hate this dystopian hellscape of streaming services that you have to pay individually for that don't make any good unique programming anymore.

        Remember when people were agitating for a la carte [arstechnica.com] pay television options? Like the man said, be careful what you wish for.

      • And everybody just loved cable because it was so convenient, and the customer service was so outstanding, and you got *all* the stuff you wanted, and an additional 500 channels you *didn't* want, and it was so affordable!

        Yeah, let's go back to that!

    • What about one service, one box, one bill to get all your local team games? for an start. And an later goal can being able to get all the out market and national games on the same setup

      Sure. Which one service shall that be? ESPN? CBS? NBC? NFL? Personally, I really liked how Peacock did the Olympics and would be happy if they surfaced all sports.

      The problem is a there are a zillion players competing in the market. All of them want to be the One Service. And if there was One Service, wouldn't that be a monopoly that many here on /. are terribly afraid of? So while it's a nice idea, it's unlikely to ever come to fruition.

      Best I can imagine is a service like Roku who aggregates all the strea

    • That has always applied to local teams. If your team was not local, that was a problem. DirectTV was popular because you could get your team wherever you where.

    • We have that. You just got to pick your team and your sport. The issue here is where do you get a different team or a different sport.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hawk ( 1151 )

      >What about one service, one box, one bill

      don't forget one ring . . .

      in the land of redmond where the shadows grows . . .

  • Sigh. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ledow ( 319597 ) on Thursday August 29, 2024 @09:16AM (#64745996) Homepage

    Or we could just live in a world where those things are just put online by default, are all easily searchable, people can choose what they want to watch and - if there's a fee - they could pay just that fee necessary to watch just the things they want to watch, without even so much as an ad. And they could watch it live, or watch it later, or get schedule warnings about upcoming things. And none of it would care what "channel" anything was because a channel is an utterly meaningless concept nowadays, akin to worrying about "what IP subnet" they're streaming from.

    Oh, no, sorry, I'm living in a dreamworld again.

    P.S. The closest thing we have to this is literally illegal streaming sites - again! - including those that just publish a playlist of all the premium channels that loads into VLC and you just select the stream you want to watch.

    • Or we could just live in a world where those things are just put online by default, are all easily searchable, people can choose what they want to watch and - if there's a fee - they could pay just that fee necessary to watch just the things they want to watch, without even so much as an ad. And they could watch it live, or watch it later, or get schedule warnings about upcoming things. And none of it would care what "channel" anything was because a channel is an utterly meaningless concept nowadays, akin to worrying about "what IP subnet" they're streaming from.

      Oh, no, sorry, I'm living in a dreamworld again.

      P.S. The closest thing we have to this is literally illegal streaming sites - again! - including those that just publish a playlist of all the premium channels that loads into VLC and you just select the stream you want to watch.

      That would be an interesting application to aggregate all streaming services into a single app. Provide the capability to search through every streaming service API for the show you want, provide a list of all streaming services that provide that show, allowing the user to select which one they want, and pay a subscription fee if needed or immediately stream the show from one already subscribed. Taking the raw stream from the selected provider and display it in the aggregation app. Just charge a small addi

      • Re:Sigh. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Thursday August 29, 2024 @10:04AM (#64746098)

        I still believe the streaming world needs it's equivelant of The Paramount Decree where you can either be in the business of producing media or distributing media, but not both. If you are a producer you cannot have perpetual exclusive licenses, everyone should be able to license given a reasonable license fee.

        That would only be possible legislatively.

        • I still believe the streaming world needs it's equivelant of The Paramount Decree where you can either be in the business of producing media or distributing media, but not both. If you are a producer you cannot have perpetual exclusive licenses, everyone should be able to license given a reasonable license fee.

          That would only be possible legislatively.

          Does seem like it would solve some, if not most, of the issues we are seeing.

        • nfl Sunday ticket really needed to be multi system.

        • just doing that for sports alone will help or even just movies.

        • also ban the ISP's from owning media or the distributing system.
          At the very least ban caps or make them so controlled like the.
          power meter with that is state certified, has an readout and counts at the customer end and has none of that BS that some data (content that the ISP owns) is not counted.
          Now it may be ok to not count system control data / overhead.

          If you ban caps then ISP's can't push there own content over others with an unfair boost.

        • Who gets to determine what is "reasonable"?

          • We have decades of historical pricing examples already in both movies, music and television which have been doing content licensing since almost forever. Companies obviously already have a model on how they determine this already, it would just be staying inside this envelope of reasonability.

            Basically by reasonable it's real goal is to make sure a company can't gatekeep it's properties through absurd pricing. "Well anyone is free to license our show, it simply costs $15,000,000 per showing" .

        • Not to mention that carelessly worded legislation would turn the distributors into gatekeepers of what audiences are and aren't allowed to view. As of right now, individuals and smaller independent producers that haven't yet signed with a distributor are allowed to self-host their own work on their own website. A carelessly worded law in the vein of the Paramount decree would replace that with "We are seeking a distributor" notices.

          • True but that's why the mandate to license is part and parcel of the regulatory package. The independant producers simply have to make their content available to license, I would not say that would preclude them distribution, I would say it only gets in the way if A) they want to charge money for the distribution, i.e. if you make a short film and want to release it for free on your own platform or youtube, hey go nuts. and B) if you don't want to do that and nobody wants to pick up your content, well, tha

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tepples ( 727027 )

              Distributors have pretty much every incentive to license and host content their viewers want to see

              And every incentive not to waste their time==money on content that they think their viewers don't want to see.

              Or there could be some rules about smaller producers with thresholds before regulations kick in. Also these are pretty small edge cases I imagine.

              I admit that my perception is biased by having such micro-scale music and video producers in my circle of friends.

              Also we would likely see an increase in the number of niche distributors including more specifically for smaller, indie stuff much lik eyou see in the music business.

              All too often, I've heard from small-time recording artists that they make less from performance royalties on Spotify and other streaming music services than distributors such as Distrokid charge them per year just to be on the services.

      • That would be an interesting application to aggregate all streaming services into a single app. Provide the capability to search through every streaming service API for the show you want, provide a list of all streaming services that provide that show, allowing the user to select which one they want, and pay a subscription fee if needed or immediately stream the show from one already subscribed.

        Apple TV and, I believe, Google TV kind of do this already. It's not perfect or totally seamless, but if you really want to watch a show, you can search multiple streaming services at once through the UI. I think that only a few services, Amazon and Apple in particular, allow you to only "purchase" or "rent" single movies or TV series..

        • That would be an interesting application to aggregate all streaming services into a single app. Provide the capability to search through every streaming service API for the show you want, provide a list of all streaming services that provide that show, allowing the user to select which one they want, and pay a subscription fee if needed or immediately stream the show from one already subscribed.

          Apple TV and, I believe, Google TV kind of do this already. It's not perfect or totally seamless, but if you really want to watch a show, you can search multiple streaming services at once through the UI. I think that only a few services, Amazon and Apple in particular, allow you to only "purchase" or "rent" single movies or TV series..

          Yeah, I forgot I've seen that in Amazon Prime video, I just don't like how they do it as IIRC it is rather unclear a video is locked behind another pay service until you are just about to play it. The slight difference I'd like to see is for this service to be provided by a company that doesn't require you pay full price for all their videos before you can use them to watch videos from other services, just a small service fee to aggregate all other services. I feel like that would make the service less int

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        That would be an interesting application to aggregate all streaming services into a single app. Provide the capability to search through every streaming service API for the show you want, provide a list of all streaming services that provide that show, allowing the user to select which one they want, and pay a subscription fee if needed or immediately stream the show from one already subscribed. Taking the raw stream from the selected provider and display it in the aggregation app. Just charge a small addit

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Ideally sports events would be available on all streaming platforms, on the basis of pay-per-view. Same price everywhere, steep discounts if you buy multiple events per month.

      Use whatever service you like, pay the same, no worries.

      Same for movies and TV shows.

    • I don't watch sports, but it's a crazy setup. You want to watch one NFL game that isn't available locally and your only choice, I think, is to pay $379 for an annual fee for streaming access.

  • THE problem is how to watch something without paying too much or having to buy 3 other things to get that one I want.

    • having to buy 3 other things to get that one I want.

      Surprise! This is ESPN. Your kids want Disney on the cable package? You have to have ESPN too. Just kidding - even if you want neither you still have to pay because putting it in the base package is the only way they'll agree to have the ABC feeds available. They've been doing this forever.

  • Hey, Entertainment SPorts Network, that sounds familiar.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by GlennC ( 96879 )

      Or Entertainment Sports Programming Network

      (dang, that was more difficult than it looks. Took me a couple of edits)

    • The leagues have a bidding war going and the big streaming services are paying big money. ESPN isn't going to spend that much. They'll just have to air another hot dog eating competition.

  • "If [TV Guide] did not exist, mankind would find it necessary to invent [it]."

  • It's called a Roku. They happily offer a directory of sports programming.

    BTW, we're seeing sports become pay-per-view, either subscriptions which include the disclaimer 'subject to local or national exclusions', thereby reminding you that the sports leagues etc, or access via streaming etc. that merely requires payment somewhere to some entity. will take your money *every* way they can.

    It was bound to happen. Feh.

  • Fuck ESPN (Score:2, Interesting)

    by e3m4n ( 947977 )

    Wife paid for ESPN+ so she could watch Wimbledon and the US Open and now they are withholding matches for the more celebrity players for ESPN3 which is NOT included in the ESPN+ subscription even though both content is in the ESPN app. Thats like when CBS All-Access started limiting your access to content. What part of the word All was too difficult to understand for these mouth-breathers. Seems like if you want. A bigger cut of the revenue stream and want to steer people to your (+) streaming service, you

    • I tried this with CBS. I even VPN shifted to try and act like I was in the right market. It was more frustrating and was costing me money. I decided to just go back to good enough free. At least then I could mostly watch my team every week. I'd rather of just paid for a quality stream but they won't let me.

  • There is a catch. At that catch will result in the annihilation of many middlemen jobs. I really don't care for ESPN and try to avoid it, so my solution also has the side effect of isolating ESPN Brand, instead of shoving in my every streaming face. I also reject "television" packages, I like my entertainments unbundled. To wit, here goes:
    1. Have a website, say, ESPN.com
    1a. Staff site with pundits and commentators of all kinds and media.
    2. Put all of your media there. (Seriously you work out the legals.

    • That makes WAY to much sense. Can't have that. I'd 100% pay for that service. They'd rather chase after some other kind of money while I don't pay them and still watch the games.

  • Perhaps I don't get the specific features of that new ESPN service. But sport event lists on a web platform with a listing of all kinds of channels where a user/viewer can view the announced content? That sounds quite familiar since at the very least ten years to me - maybe... just for football (european meaning), but I think I have seen something like that for all types of sport events. Just as one example for for such a service that I regularly use since many years: http://www.fussballgucken.info... [fussballgucken.info] - sho

  • 506 Sports does a good job of mapping/charting when/where football games will be shown in the US. I've found it to be very helpful as someone who has collected 3 NFL teams with the places I've lived.

  • On behalf of non-sportsball-fans... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...who spent years and years having the things WE wanted to watch preempted by your sports crap with little to no promise of a chance to see what we were missing again, no streaming, no on-demand, nothing:

    Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!

    You poor, poor babies. :P

  • Seriously is this just a lazy way for ESPN not to fix their UI in the app? Take for example, ESPN has all the college basketball games during March Madness. The only way to find a replay of the game, you wanted to see is to scroll left, left, left, left, until you find it. Bear in mind your "Favorite" team setting means nothing. Using the Search function means you could get the five minutes of "Game of the Day” talk by the broadcasters instead of the game.
  • ESPN should have provided an API not an App. That way a third party could find what you wanted on ESPN, Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, ... and presented options.

  • On a Roku under the "sports" heading it lists games, and the channels/apps that are carrying each. You scroll thru and select which game, and which channel/service you want it to tune to. done.

  • Oh, it can't show outside of ESPN networks? :P

  • Flip through them and find what you want to watch. That's how we did it in my day.

    Now get off my lawn, kid.

  • I'll just pirate all my sports because they make it nigh impossible to just watch your team play a fucking game. Screw them! I still see ads anyway, so I can't see how they are losing out.

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