For anyone that doesn't get the Spurs games as part of their local cable channels, I think NBA league pass is great. Now even if you're not home and you have a computer you can catch the games. I was already fuming over my work schedule when I got the mail telling me about NBA league pass broadband. I'm sure a lot of you have heard about it. Now one can watch NBA league pass games on the computer. I still don't know how but I guess when it's time I'll give it a shot.
Of course, not everyone has access to a computer when they're working, but if you do, I guess we just got a big break huh?
Great if you live in the US.
Absolutely pathetically HOUSE if you don't.
Why the doesn't the NBA make this service available to those outside the US? In Oz, we get virtually no NBA through any source (a few games a week on cable, which I don't have, is all).
NBA marketing, you suck.
oh shoot yeah that sux i guess. but hey im sure they'll eventually make it available outside of the u.s. too, it's just that they're doing this expansion gradually. Maybe next year... :-\
Yeah, you know what, I've written five letters to them about this, and the fact that a lot of overseas fans can't watch NBA because of poor overseas coverage, and NOT ONCE have they even bothered to reply.
It's not a technical issue - it takes more effort for them to block overseas IP addresses than it does not to.
The NBA talks a good talk about international fans, but in fact in a lot of ways they are full of sheeit.
As you can see, they've made me pretty angry.
Yeah, you know what, I've written five letters to them about this, and the fact that a lot of overseas fans can't watch NBA because of poor overseas coverage, and NOT ONCE have they even bothered to reply.
It's not a technical issue - it takes more effort for them to block overseas IP addresses than it does not to.
The NBA talks a good talk about international fans, but in fact in a lot of ways they are full of sheeit.
As you can see, they've made me pretty angry.
yea i know, i feel you. and i think there is no immediate solution to that, but i am very very sure that in the future the conditions for viewers outside of the U.S. are going to get better. One can tell because the international focus of the NBA is certainly growing every year. The NBA has already had regular-season games overseas. It wouldn't surprise me that maybe they even started having like a world cup of clubs throughout the world you know? That'd be something to watch hehe...
I just made my call yesterday. Even though exhibition games are available on LP, nothing will be on braodband until the regular season starts. I'm anxious to see how that will work.
Actually, I think you're wrong.
1. They could very easily improve service to overseas fans by simply allowing them to buy league pass over the net. I'd do that in a heartbeat, and so would millions of others.
2. I don't think they care about international fans so much as Chinese fans. There are 1.3billion people in China, and they get 40+ games a season on FTA TV. Who cares about the rest of the word when 2% of the Chinese population is more people than in the entirety of Australia?
Yeah I'm interested in that too.
Ruff (and other int'l fans) I don't get why the NBA doesn't offer it. They'd make a ton of money as there's fans everywhere willing to pay to get the games. I just don't get it.
Particularly odd with the league's rampant interest in promoting the game internationally.
maybe they are following the nfl's logic by limiting their all access market. less than 30% of americans have directv, yet that's the only place you can see every game.
thats because DirecTV forked over a ton of money for the rights. Today, NBA broadcasting rights are so expensive that noone outside the US can afford it. So us international viewers are ed. What I don't get is why DirecTV, which does offer NBA league pass in the states not offer it here in South America. I mean, they already have the rights I imagine.
The fact that it's not offered over the internet is absolutely crazy. The only thing I can think of is that the NBA is afraid of re-broadcast rights being violated (express written consent...) in locations where they have no recourse for punishing violators.
Yup, we don't get it either.
It's got to be an intellectual property rights issue, but sort it out already! Or at the very least reply to the letters your international fans send you on such an important issue.
Pull your finger out NBA - we want to watch your game, and we're willing to give you money, so take the cash and provide the service.
The Australian Football League broadcasts EVERY GAME over the net two hours after it is played for $39.95 a season. And the NBA can't work it out? Sheesh.
pff... even if thats true, some exposure is still better than none at all. You're telling me they are not offering the service elsewhere because people may watch it again without permission?First establish the market, THEN worry about people rebroadcasting anything.
Besides like Ruff up there said, they're already showing more games in China than anywhere else outside the US. Asia is copyright infringement heaven.
As it stands, the NBA sells TV rights to each country individually. If they offer league pass to the world, they'd lose a lot of leverage. Less leverage = Less money. And right now they make more money selling their product country to country than they would selling it via the internet.
But soon, within the next 1-3 years, they'll figure out a profitable format and games will be available live around the world. There's just no way they could hold out for much longer.
I don't know if that's the case, but that's the only reason I can see. And they don't care about people being able to see it without permission - they care about people making money off of it without permission. God forbid someone else makes a dollar off of exploiting NBA games - that would be the apocolypse to Stern. I don't agree with it - but I think that's why they are so slow to go international with league pass.
DAMN they are ing slow! Us foreign folk have been waiting for decades now!In fact, in the early to mid 90's us Argies got to see some NBA games. I think they were delayed, but they sure as were more than what we got now. My question is why can't they hurry the up, and get to selling the rights here in South America... we've had them before
With their TV audience in the US getting smaller and smaller by the year - they're gonna have to figure out something. When a Nascar rain delay kicks the Lakers-Cavs game's (or as Stern bills it - Lebron v Kobe) ass in the ratings... something is terribly wrong.
i know directv forked over a lot of money, the nfl could make way more money offering it on both satellite and cable. it doesn't make sense. the nfl isn't hurting for cash, but they are missing out on at least 40% of the population.
The NFL got $3.5 billion from DirecTV. For the NFL to make that up, they'd need to sell Sunday Ticket to 17.5 million homes.
That's not happening.
What the NBA miscalculated is that they lost a big chunk of fans in some countries over the last decade because of the difficulty of watching games. Hard core fans like me stayed on, but I know a lot of ex-NBA fans who switched to other sports because they were so frustrated by the lack of coverage.
As I said though, it seems China is the core NBA export strategy and the rest of us can just shut up. IMHO, poor business strategy. They could have the whole world watching if they gave us league pass! They are cutting thieir noses off to spite their face.
This is my biggest complaint with the NBA! I also wrote letter/e-mails and never got any reply.
While many of the concerns or reasons posted in this thread are valid, most of them are really easily solved.
But to me the best indication of how much the NBA cares about non-Chinese international fans is their deal with Google video. So they put the games on the google server a few hours after they are finished, they charge a fee that is a couple times more expensive than the LP for the whole season and despite these ridiculous conditions it is not available to anybody outside the US!?!?!?
If they can't do a proper job for recorded games (that no non US broadcaster is interested in showing), I'm not too optimistic that they'll ever figure out the live webcasts.
Very very true about the ex-fans! In our region people love good basketball, and used to follow the NBA religiously (many free national broadcaster were showing a game a week (yes only 1 game a week) and that was enough to have a solid fan base.
American football had NO fan base in Slovenia until a small private broadcaster started showing two games a week and a one hour NFL weekly magazine. It was on at the craziest times in the middle of the night - and it still created a fan base that now follows the NFL! We're talking about a sport that has absolutely no tradition in these parts of the world, can you imagine what it would do for the NBA since basketball is one of the most popular sports.
The truth is, the NBA's protecting the value of their TV contracts. Simple as that.
Follow me here. First, the NBA and its teams sell international, national, and local TV rights. They get big, big bucks from that. Then, they sell NBATV and NBALP on cable/satellite for much smaller bucks, so they don't want it to impact the big bucks they get from TV rights. So, they black out anything that would possibly compete with local or national broadcasts.
Then, they decide to add broadband Internet streaming of games to get even more $ from people. Oooh, wait a minute, they say. How do we do blackouts over the Internet? We have to know where subscribers are, so we can black them out selectively. How do we do that? Use some fancy IP-address-mapper thing? Come on, that can be spoofed. Hey, let's tie it to NBALP, and require that you have a valid cable or satellite subscription with a "verified" address/zipcode BEFORE you get access to broadband games! Yeah, that's the ticket.
See how it works?
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