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Comment by aroch | Hacker News Reader

There's no pro team with several hundred miles of me. I know why blackouts exist, and they make sense to a degree in larger cities/areas near a team. However, if we're going to be honest, they have no problems selling tickets to games people actually want to go to. Assuming I had a more flexible work schedule, I would try to go to a few Steelers games (Which would, basically, force me to fly there...I wouldn't relish the drive).

I don't even care about not getting all the games for every team, let me pick a set of teams (say 3-6) and get all their games live. Hell, I'll even take a pick of two teams for live streaming. I already subscribe to NFL network's streaming service for game replays, but there are some games -- like for the teams I support -- that I want live.

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I've never understood this mentality. If a company (in this case the NFL) doesn't want me to be their customer then I simply won't be. For example, I like watching the Sabres (hockey for the uninitiated), but only a couple games a season are available to me. Therefore, I have stopped watching the games and they don't receive any of my money in the form of merchandising or ad revenue because one fewer set of eyes are watching their ads.

The basic logic is simple: the league makes vastly more revenue per viewer from people in the stadium (ticket sales, concessions, etc.) then from people watching remotely (TV, streaming, etc.), so it can afford to lose lots of TV, streaming, etc. viewers if doing so avoids losing a small number (or a small share of the revenues from) in-stadium audience.

> If a company (in this case the NFL) doesn't want me to be their customer then I simply won't be.

Sacrificing low-revenue customers to preserve revenue from high-revenue customers isn't exactly a novel business model.

That's what NBA League Pass offered last year. You pick a couple of teams and you get their games. I happily paid for it and will do so again this season.

The NFL has driven me crazy with not adopting a similar model. I can't get DTV at my home (condo), I don't care about the local teams, and paying for the whole league wasn't available on my local provider. They had a PS3 streaming option last season but I read it didn't work reliably so I didn't bother. Like you, I'd happily pay to follow a few teams teams + Red Zone. Luckily, as someone above posted, there's a great deal for $99 this season to purchase Madden and get Sunday Ticket included. I jumped all over that!

NFL offers a fantastic service, similar to the one you want, called gamepass. There is a catch (of course!), you just need to be in an international market.

Its been a few years since I moved to the US so my memory is probably a little spotty but I seem to recall all games, live, HD with the ability to replay on demand (like gamerewind). You could also have the feed use the audio from teams radio network instead of the TV commentary. Man, I really miss that feature!

> NFL offers a fantastic service, similar to the one you want, called gamepass. There is a catch (of course!), you just need to be in an international market.

I know, on top of that when I spent time in Switzerland I found out they get all the NFL games for free, live on TV. I've never understood why.

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