ESPN For iOS: Restrictions Galore

Why do people put up with all of the costs associated with enjoying sports?

I'd stay out of this, except for the fact that ESPN is now insisting that ISP subscribers who are not interested in their content should be subsidizing their company.

A: Because they are FANatics.

I have no interest in professional sports and if those organizations want to take every last dime their fans have so be it. As long as I am not asked to subsidize them in the form of tax breaks, welfare payments (because they spent it all on sports programming) and other subsidies I am fine with it.

Entertainment that I enjoy I pay for and I expect no one else to pick up the tab.

I can't tell you how much that angers me. Why can professional sports teams get away with being the worst welfare queens on the planet? These teams are worth billions and yet they insist that people who have no interest in sports pay for their stadiums.

If I had my way, every event at a venue that was subsidized with even one penny of taxpayer money would be required to give free seats to anyone who paid taxes during the time the venue was subsidized. Why shouldn't taxpayers get something for their money?

And man... I would drop ESPN in a heartbeat if I could get a discount for doing it.

I feel the same way about municipal fiber and people that stream old "B" movies. Do it just don't expect me to pay for it.

A) Municiple fiber projects are voted on by etiher voters or elected official that are well ELECTED by the people. So real;ly your comlaint is not vaild.

B) You're not paying for anyone's streaming of "b" movies.

Are these the same elected officials who are on the take; the same ones at the state level who vote down municipal fiber.

I could go into great detail on all the things each of us pay for and never use or care about such as stadiums. However, it is done to keep each other happy.

As for ESPN, you will find many other channels that are not sports channels that get a mint in order to carry them as well. Also keep in mind that Cable and Satellite is what it is because of Sports Fan.

I could list many channels that many others watch that I would gladly dump and drop my bill.

If they really are fans, go to the stadium and watch the game there...

In New Jersey/New York they are sold out. Do you have any Giant tickets?Really; municipal backbone? Municipal fiber cherry picks and only serve a small area. Nothing in New Jersey comes over municipal fiber. If a town government in New Jersey was going to give a contractor millions to run the third broadband cable it would make for some great entertainment; I have never been to a tar and feathering.

No, I only have normal sized tickets.

The Giants and Jets just built a new 1.6 billion dollar stadium. Not one cent of government money was used. The NFL lent them $700 million; they know where the money is. I wonder if that had anything to do with the Super Bowl coming to New Jersey in the dead of winter? Things get done without government money if they make sense.

I can't do that for penguins and steelers games because they are sold out. My favorite college team is the wvu mountaineers but I can't make it to the stadium because I am not off on saturdays so I watch it on dvr.

Because sports are the kind of thing you can spend as much or as little as you like.

I love college football, but I spent $0 last year (marginally) to enjoy it - watched all the games on TV on channels I already subscribed to.

I will say too on a tech site like this its easy to look as ESPN and moan about how everyone is paying for it whether they watch sports or not - which is true - but overlook the massive numbers of people for whom ESPN is the primary reason to have cable, and they are effectively subsidizing all the other channels. I tend to think the subsidies cancel each other out. Maybe Alabama is just too football crazed, but as an example our first satellite dish in the mid 90s was gotten solely so we could watch ESPN without having to go somewhere else during football season.

Amen to that. It absolutely goes both ways...The only reason I have cable is ESPN and the RSNs. Yet I have to pay for 150 additional channels full of complete nonsense I don't need or want. If you don't want to "subsidize the sports fans," cut the cord and go to Netflix, Hulu+, and Amazon OD. I would do the same if it weren't for archaic blackout restrictions...

Do you have any hobby or recreation that costs money?

For the price of a single game ticket to watch my favorite team, it easily pays for an entire football season of ESPN subscriber fees. And that's just a single game ticket.

I have many, but I pay for them out of my own pocket. I do not expect or insist that other people pay for my fun.

Because many things wouldn't be built or produced if only those people that explicitly made use of it paid for it.

Enjoy taking a walk in a public park? I presume that you are writing a check to your local government to pay for my portion of taxes because I don't and don't think I should pay for your enjoyment.

Did you drive a car to work today? I think all roads should be toll roads since you should only have to pay for what you actually use. I shouldn't have to pay for a road/highway/interstate that I'm never going to take.

Did you read the Money section of USA Today this morning? Why should I have to pay $1.50 and get an entire section that is of no interest to me just because you might be interested in it.

Sure if I had a choice I would only subscribe to the channels that I want to watch, or better yet make all channels PPV. Want to watch an episode of SpongeBob? That's only $.0003. MNF? $.02 for 4 hours. Pawn Stars? It's a bargain for last week's top rated series at only .00015 an episode! My entire cable bill for the month could be paid for with the change from my morning coffee! However it's not reality, and we all pay for channels that we have no interest in watching.

There is a reason why EPSN can demand the subscriber rates that they charge and cable companies pay it. Ratings. There's ~60.4m cable tv subscribers as of Sept 2010. Average household size is 2.6. So that's ~157m eyes watching TV, give or take a few. The average viewer numbers of ESPN MNF in 2010 was 14.6m. So almost 1 in 10 eyes watching TV watched MNF regularly. No other programming even comes close to that number for cable television. TNT is the only network that even provides a glimmer of competition to ESPN when looking at non-sports programming and it's at 1/2 the number ESPN is at.

Roads and public safety are not in the same class as entertainment. You may not use the roads but every thing you do use comes to you because of roads.

Last year I wanted to watch the Tour De France. So to watch that one event that lasts for one month Cablevision required I buy a bundled channel package, a converter box and remote at a cost of nearly $30 a month more. Now I did buy it but I had a choice no one held a gun to my head. Let business be business especially when it comes to unimportant things like entertainment.

Same for municipal fiber.

You may not use the fiber, but all communication comes to you through it.

Disney is the absolute worst for milking their customers for every nickel they can get. And as long as people MUST have ESPN and their other sports channels, they will pay thru the nose for it.

I wouldn't mind, but the blackouts suck with home games.

So it basically works on Tuesdays from 3:00 - 4:30am and only if there nothing to watch. Sign me up.

This is par for the course for every VOD service. the blackouts (besides MNF) arent even ESPN's fault. the NFL/MLB/NASCAR/etc own exclusive digital broadcast rights to their games and even those contractually cant be displayed to people in the market of the team. MLB At Bat '11 requires GPS enabled to stream video (as well as MLB.com season pass) and blackouts games for your home team.

it completely sucks, but it's not ESPN's fault...

I bet this is why some sports bars keep the ole big turning satellite dish around.

Blackout? no problem point the dish at another bird and pick up the west coast feed.

I have FiOS internet and am pissed I have to get their damn TV service to use this

Nevermind.

I'm curious why Comcast isn't included in this list. I'm currently a Comcast customer and I know we do have access to ESPN, ESPN2, & ESPN3. Using the ESPN app on my Xbox goes through ESPN3 (which states select providers have access). So i'm not sure why Comcast customers don't get access to this.

This app sounds handy especially since I'm a sports fan, so it's a little aggravating not being able to have access to it just because of our provider.

:shrugs:

All of these content providers are threatening broadcasters if they deliver content to anything other than a home TV. Isn't this exactly what a Slingbox does?