As a huge American football fan, I don't want an ESPN streaming service. Cut out the middle man, give me an NFL games streaming service. The NFL could be innovative and do this now, but like ESPN they will ride out the cable model until something needs to be done financially. And with no competition, I guess that's the right thing to do for them. But it sucks to be a fan without cable.
The NFL already has the most amazing streaming service for games. It's called NFL Gamepass. If you attempt to look it up from a US-based IP address this is what you see:
http://i.imgur.com/oIfBq0f.png
The online app itself is amazing. You have access to stream any game live on game days, and any previous game (including playoffs and super bowls) going back like 4 years. It also includes the Scott Hanson version of NFL Redzone (not the bootleg DirecTV version). No commercials. No blackouts. Multiple stream quality controls. Options for home/away team radio broadcasts. In-app "quad-box" split-screen. It's the best football-viewing experience possible.
I bought the special anniversary of Madden a year or two ago that included access to DirecTV's streaming service; it's garbage. I sold my access on eBay as soon as possible. The NFL Gamepass service may try to shoo away US-based visitors, but they'll happily accept a US-based address and credit card. Fire up a cheap VPN (only necessary for initial login) and you're set.
What's insane is that a few years ago, they offered Gamepass for FREE in certain countries. So with the right VPN location you didn't even have to pay for it. They stopped that though, and I'll happily pay them money for it, even if I have to trick them into allowing me.
I knew about this service, but didn't know I only needed the VPN for signup! I didn't think streaming from "another country" would work, great to know I only need that to set it up. It is pretty expensive though, wish they had a plan to only watch one team. But better than nothing, I guess.
Yea, you just need to be VPN'd to log in. Once it has an auth cookie set, it stops doing any geo-IP-enforcement. Even if they enforced it during streaming I would still try it. The quality options range from like 800kbps to 4500kbps. I'm sure certain VPNs can provide high-ish bandwidth.
It's ~$200 USD per season, but Sunday Ticket is $350 and even a modest cable subscription pushes $50/mo, so it seems fair to me. They actually have a "follow your team" option, but it's only ~$30 less and only covers the pre/regular season.
I really can't endorse the service enough. It's a cord-cutters dream, and one of the few online streaming services where non-Americans are much better off.
You're likely correct that the NFL will ride out the end of the cable era.
However, MLB has shown it can be done right now, and done very successfully. MLB league revenue is about $9 billion vs $11 billion for the NFL, so the businesses are comparable. Yet MLB has built a juggernaut in the MLBAM subsidiary, with perhaps a billion in revenue for 2015 and ~$300+ million in operating income.
To put that in perspective, Netflix had operating income of $400 million for 2014.
The NFL is making a huge mistake in not building out a comparable platform to MLBAM. They're going to be running from behind as cable goes down.
AFAIK, local MLB games are still subject to streaming blackout, lest they hurt the local (often team-owned) sports networks' massive revenues.
Since, as you rightly point out, they're the vanguard here, when MLB figures out (contractually, presumably, not technologically) how to get local games streamed, that will be a watershed moment.
My issue is more with DirecTV than the price of SundayTicket. I'm not going to go without Sunday Ticket as some sort of minuscule protest to DirecTV+NFL.
When there's a non-DirecTV option, thats when I will vote with my wallet.
My recollection is that the NFL just renewed their deal with DirecTV for something like 8 years last year. So depending on the actual terms of the deal, as far as streaming exclusivity on the Internet, that might not happen for a while.
