Sports on Internet TV

Where are the sports on Internet TV?

I'm a huge fan of Internet TV. I cut the cable back in 2006 and haven't looked back. My family and friends will tell you that I've tried to get all of them to try Internet TV with very little success.

One of the key things standing in the way is the lack of sports on Internet TV. When I start talking to someone about watching Internet TV, one of the first questions I ask is if they are sports fans. If they are I slowly back away.

With all there is to love about Internet TV, there are still very few sport games available to watch. This is significantly holding up the adoption of Internet TV by mainstream audiences. For some reason the major sports franchises have been slow to adopt the Internet. Just as movie viewers needed Netflix to bring Internet movies into the living room on the big screen, sports fans need the franchises to dot he same for their favorite teams and favorite sports.

It is starting. I applaud MLB for being the first sports franchise on the Apple TV. They have done amazing things with MLB.com and are leading the charge. After MLB, the sports with smaller audiences have been quicker to adopt the Internet. NHL and MLS have made good use of the Internet to bring games to audiences. NCAA has also brought March Madness to thousands of fans over the past few years. Things are starting to move very slowly.

I was going through some old VHS tapes and noticed that sports fans collect recordings of their favorite teams and their favorite games. There are classic games like the 1997 NCAA Basketball Championship and the 2005 NFL Playoff game between the Steelers and the Colts. Every fan has a number of their favorite games that they can watch over and over and over again.

There is a huge demand for this, if anyone were to figure that out they would see that there is a huge opportunity for this as well. Imagine having the original HD broadcast for your favorite game on a Blu-Ray or a touch of a button away in your iTunes purchases.

There is movement along these lines. Current seasons of MLB, NBA, NHL and NCAA games can be found in the iTunes Store. When you dig deep enough, you can find these games. Some of them are still only available in SD. NFL seems to be dragging their feet on this one. They must not know tht their fans are buying Smart TVs and set top boxes to watch Netflix and other online streaming content. So far you can only get Preview shows and Highlights of NFL games.

The real money will be made in the classics. The historical games that many of today's viewers missed when they happened. These are the games of legends. They are the clips that you see year after year in highlight films pre-game shows and Post-game wrap-ups. Millions of fans will want to own a commercial free, high quality copy of these games. It will create a continuing revenue stream for the teams that even the marketing department from Star Wars would envy.

I'm not much of a sports fan myself. While IU basketball games played while I was growing up, I was usually on our Apple II computer playing Load Runner or trying to build an AppleWorks database. In the end I was hours of television for free, on demand, and podcast episodes on the niche topics that I'm interested in, which no TV studio executive would agree to include their programming schedule. I get what I want, when I want it, and spend less time since each episode is typically shorter than broadcast shows.

So what's my point? (You may have missed that this will be mostly a blog of rant sand random thoughts which are pretty much pointless.) There are two things to come away with from this post. If you're a sports fan and interested in money, find a way to digitize old games and legally sell them through the Internet. I would start with the iTunes Store.

Second, if you enjoy watching TV and are too busy or dissatisfied with the programming you're paying for, cutthroat cable. It is easier than you think. You'll thank me later. Also stay tuned to this blog. I'm passionate about this topic and will have much more to say about this in the future.