just another money grab

they know some customers will drop but they hope that the added revenue from those who stay is greater than those who leave

Between the NCAA and the broadcast companies school sports is almost sure to fall apart during the upcoming recession. The big companies are betting that we are all boiling frogs. I went through this conversation over season tickets. I live in a building with several people and we cut the cable for content in 2021 and Youtube made it make sense.

I made deals for Content of interest. As is the way, those deals are often looking worst because of
1. Vendors bundling more titles and raise a bundle price
2. Scam Sport companies.

I am a member of the "I want less and I want to pay less" clan.  The IWLAIWTPL people.

I got a message when I tried to kill an hour watching the first game of the women's soccer team against AU. ESPN popped a billing message letting me about their yearly charge increase of 9%. I guessed they figured out that I haven't been to Disneyland in over the past 30 years, so we can soak him.. Didn't they know that I had given eggs last year for my ESPN+ last year?

I would seriously suggest that large companies make terrible mistakes in judgement that they rue within years. As GWU and other universities who are not truly benefiting from the sports interest, The door opens. From the land that brought use open source software, we can get fair on demand content. They could take back their content and use a bit of the interest on their endowments to fund a large money maker. The System could be use to make online education more efficient. What's more, universities could expand in what the specialize. As they breakout from traditionally education into trades. They could teach Electricians and Plumbers and augment these with actual physics classes. This could vault into the leading position in education.

If a network as the old ESPN was a few years ago, non big 5 conferences and schools would be vacuumed up.

I would love to see GW lead a true revolt, bringing back the days where our classmates were leading the country into the Internet bubble (bad joke). The key advantage is that the play would create a growing number of eyes. The only way in would be through a straight pay for items not bundles.



 

Last edited by russianthistle (8/20/2025 12:47 pm)

Don't yet want to be a cord cutter, though who knew we would have 300 channels--and often nothing
to watch?
  ESPN+ is worth the cost only in sports seasons we want to watch. At whatever hiked up rate it is, it's still
worth it for now. They've gotten us used to watching most GW games, no matter where they are.
   That access was unthinkable at times when you were lucky to find a sports bar where you can see us (consigned to a far corner from the main TV and after 20 calls, often giving the wrong information by the bar/restaurants receptionist and staff who often knew little about sports and nothing about GW.
    So if you're willing to part with $150 a year or whatever it is (and take a chance on a sloppy or disappearing feed at times, along with some announcers who are bigtime homers and may still be in college), we've been sucked into this system. And happily, in a way.
     But as GWmayhem points out that if you do have cable, there's no way you want to pay $30 or $40 a
a month.
   Of course, they could raise their cable rates a little bit and go the HBO Max model where it is free to HBO cable subscribers. But that would be too much sense and decent for the non-cord cutters.