I am not a Seahawks fan. I will never be a Seahawks fan. At best, I couldn’t give a flying fuck about the Seahawks; at worst, I root against them, if only to return the schadenfreude some local friends and family members have enjoyed in rubbing the Seahawks’ recent success in my face.
One score and seven years since leaving my native Philadelphia, I remain a loyal Eagles fan. And any Seahawks fan who questions the depth of my unswerving loyalty doesn’t really deserve the designation “fan” at all. (Note: this is different from all you Packers fans and Cowboys fans who have no geographic or familial connection to your teams. You’re just assholes.)
Which brings me to my annual preseason rant: Why won’t the NFL let me pay to watch my team?
Yes, DirecTV offers a streaming only version of its NFL Sunday Ticket, but I’m not sure to whom—every zip code I plug in doesn’t qualify. And even if I did qualify, I’m not sure I’d be willing to pay $400 (plus tax, I presume) for 10 or so Eagles games (some are available broadcast, others I’ll miss due to other commitments), let alone the minimum $1,000 or so a year it would cost to fully subscribe to DirectTV and Sunday Ticket.
I don’t want to purchase every out-of-market game. I just want the out-of-market games of one team. My team. The Philadelphia Eagles. So why won’t the NFL let me stream my games legally?
Charge me a reasonable price for a high-quality stream of just one team—say, $200 a season, or maybe $15 a game—and I’ll happily pay it. But if the NFL continues to put its head in the sand and pretend expatriate fans like me don’t have other options, don’t blame us if we look to the black market.
Have you considered the “Buy a Slingbox for one of your friends in Philadelphia who is already watching the games” scenario, and decided it’s not strictly “legal”? Last I checked its legal and workable, but I could be wrong.
https://www.nfl.com/gamepass
And it doesn’t cost $200.
Sing up now, and you can watch a replay of yesterday’s game in which your Eagles beat my Packers. It might make up a little bit for that 2010 wildcard game in Philadelphia.
@2 Unless I’ve read their product description wrong, Gamepass only offers live gameday audio. The on-demand video streams are after the game is played.
The answer: because the NFL can do whatever the fuck it wants. And that includes profiting from it’s monopoly. And Cable Inc. is no better.
More proof that humans will never progress beyond tribalism.
Go pirate. They’ve figured it in already. The only reason content copyright holders like the NFL and NCAA continue to enter into these cumbersome distribution arrangements is market access. As soon as enough consumers are sophisticated enough to cord cut the leagues will dump the middle men and go direct to consumer with a la carte offerings globally distributed at lower cost via the intertubes with improved cash flow. Just a matter of time.
So why does the city of brotherly love have a professional football team? Or is the brotherly love thing all hype? I know some may find the phrase brotherly love a bit homo erotic, but speak to most straight women and they will gladly point out all the homo erotic parts of any professional football team including the Eagles.
Well we are still talking about the NFL that still has black out rules. Could be about money and power.
Go Lions I know it’s going to be a long season. Probably…well there is always the Thanksgiving day game. Always fun to watch the Lions win over a much highly rated team. Showing there may not be much difference between the worst and best team in the league.
I feel ya, Goldy.
I’m thinking that you can approximate the Philly experience here by going to the CLink on game day with your crew and fighting your way across the parking lot and back, just like what people do in Philly.
It’ll be like old times.
If Seattle had a City-owned broadband system, I’m sure they would have a solution for you!
The NFL Game Pass does stream video at HD quality, but only outside of the USA and Canada. A friend of mine in Seattle who is a Bears fan has used a VPN to take his internet to Paris and watch all the football he wants during the season. That costs $150-$200 + $30 for a reliable connection.
Can’t you just attend an area megachurch?
http://www.nflshop.com/Tim_Tebow_Gear
Then it would be free, on their big screens, through some sort of divine intervention. And you wouldn’t even feel guilty about not dropping some coin into the offering plate, being a progressive who expects others to pay for shit you want an’ all.
I feel for you. Due to the NFLs deal with Direct TV I’m shut out. I can’t buy DirectTV at any price due to my property being up against a fairly large heavily wooded hill on the south facing side.
I cut the cord long ago. I have MLBtv, MLStv and can pirate whatever is on ESPN so I do get one football game a week and all the DUKE basketball I could ever not want to watch.
http://www.macrumors.com/2015/.....game-pass/
Same problem with NCAA. I’ve subscribed for several years to hear play-by-play coverage of Kansas State football. They keep promising live HD video, but it never happens. Just the audio and the live Game Tracker.
Would radio be OK? If you get the Internet version of satellite radio, you can listen to the home radio broadcast for all the NFL games. For some reason, you can’t get the football games with the car radio version.
I know some may find the phrase brotherly love a bit homo erotic, but speak to most straight women and they will gladly point out all the homo erotic parts of any professional football team including the Eagles.
Hey! There’s nothing more heterosexual a man can do on a Fall afternoon than watch young muscular men in skin-tight uniforms jump all over each other and SCORE!
(Wait, what???)
Seriously, Goldy, I live in Seattle and get all of the NFL games. I guess living in the center of the city has some advantages. Why the NFL won’t sell product to customer, I can’t say. It’s not as if every fan still lives near his home town.