Online coverage in other countries

[spacejammer]

Hi I just been catching up on last night's Eagles@Scorchers game and although we may at times complain about some of the issues with the coverage.

It made me think back to my 1st season in 2011/12 where all we had for BBL TV coverage was one game on Sky a week and even that was never Live (apart from finals) and shown acouple of days later the following week.

I suppose having the access to watch all my teams away matches as well as any other teams games is quite a privilege.
When I think back to the clean sweep back in 2011/12 it would have been fantastic I could have watched the away games we had down in Worcester and Plymouth etc... instead of just following stat cast or having to be there.

It sort of made me wonder if any other domestic leagues in Europe do similar coverage to what the BBL does by putting the games on YouTube in order to grow the league?

[LTfan]

I’m sure I’m not alone in remembering having to wait until the scores were in the newspaper the following day, so compared to that it’s quite amazing what we’ve got these days.
Obviously that’s partly due to the times we now live in, but it’s also partly due to the efforts of the BBL so full credit to them for that.

I can think of multiple leagues across the world that stream every game via a subscription service, but can’t immediately think of any leagues that have or had streamed all games for free on YouTube.
It should be acknowledged that in all likelihood this is just part of the BBL’s bigger plan – stream all games for free on YouTube to build an audience and then move them to a subscription service. The big question is for how long are they happy to run the YouTube coverage at a financial loss to them before they move to a subscription model, and is that enough time to build a big enough fanbase to make a subscription model profitable.

[spacejammer]

Nov 28, 2023 9:42:15 GMT LTfan said:

I’m sure I’m not alone in remembering having to wait until the scores were in the newspaper the following day, so compared to that it’s quite amazing what we’ve got these days.
Obviously that’s partly due to the times we now live in, but it’s also partly due to the efforts of the BBL so full credit to them for that.

I can think of multiple leagues across the world that stream every game via a subscription service, but can’t immediately think of any leagues that have or had streamed all games for free on YouTube.
It should be acknowledged that in all likelihood this is just part of the BBL’s bigger plan – stream all games for free on YouTube to build an audience and then move them to a subscription service. The big question is for how long are they happy to run the YouTube coverage at a financial loss to them before they move to a subscription model, and is that enough time to build a big enough fanbase to make a subscription model profitable.

Exactly I mean love or hate 777.
Whilst I understand everyone can be critical of the coverage at times.
To be able to have access to games for free now compared to 10 years ago I think is brilliant.
And even better that it is free as well.

Would I pay for the coverage would depend on the price.
If it was me I would maybe pay a small fee to have access to all my teams Away matches since that is what I usually watch the the YouTube for.

But I think it will be a long time before that happens unless the ownership changes and they decide to go for a pay wall option like Netflix.

Although like I heard on the BBL Show a few seasons back.
At the moment if their trying to grow the league then putting it behind a pay wall will make it less likely to attract new fans.

[LTfan]

Yes, it’s getting the balance right… they can’t put the coverage behind a subscription until there’s enough people happy to pay for it, but they can’t continue providing the coverage for free at a financial loss forever either. At least the YouTube coverage has some advertising now, so that’ll provide some income. They’ll still be operating at a loss, but it might enable them to keep the free coverage going a little longer, and thus continuing to build up a decent fanbase doing so.

I’d actually be happy to pay £10-15 a month for access to all games now, but I’m already a committed fan so that probably doesn’t mean much to them and their plan.

I’ve mentioned this before, but this is one area where the BBL is miles ahead of the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) – which I think are about on par generally in this country. The BBL currently offers centralised, consistent, quality coverage of all games for free on YouTube. Some coverage is also broadcast on Sky and in the US, albeit on local relatively niche networks. Whereas the EIHL currently offers coverage that isn’t centrally hosted and is only available via each teams website and that is produced in-house (and is therefore somewhat inconsistent). They also charge £15 per game. Some coverage is broadcast on Viaplay, not sure if there’s any international output.

[dexter]

I would probably pay £10 per month. However I definitely watch more BBL by it being on YouTube. If it switched to another platform I would watch it less, even though I'm paying for it, then down the line I could decide it's not worth it.
Most games on the BBL YouTube channel get about 5k views. You wouldn't get that many if it wasn't on YouTube. But let's say there are 5000 people who would pay £10 per month, divided between 10 teams. £5k per month per team. It think it's way too soon to take it off YouTube.

[LTfan]

Nov 29, 2023 10:30:19 GMT dexter said:

I would probably pay £10 per month. However I definitely watch more BBL by it being on YouTube. If it switched to another platform I would watch it less, even though I'm paying for it, then down the line I could decide it's not worth it.
Most games on the BBL YouTube channel get about 5k views. You wouldn't get that many if it wasn't on YouTube. But let's say there are 5000 people who would pay £10 per month, divided between 10 teams. £5k per month per team. It think it's way too soon to take it off YouTube.

Agreed. Also, your calculation of £5K per month per team doesn't include the actual production costs. In reality, if everyone currently watching for free were happy to pay £10 a month (which, lets be honest, they wouldn't be) you'd probably only cover the production costs. I don't think there'd be much, if any, profit for the league or teams. 

So the question is how long are the league happy to cover the costs of providing this coverage for free? And will that be long enough to establish a big enough fanbase who would be willing to pay for the coverage going forward?

As you say, there's still quite some way to go...