Alexander: How many streaming services does a sports fan need?
The world according to Jim:
• If his music career and judge’s role on “The Voice” somehow stalls (not likely), maybe Snoop Dogg has a future in basketball commentary. He was hilarious on Peacock’s broadcast of Clippers-Warriors Monday night, especially his running patter as Golden State coach Steve Kerr was arguing himself into an ejection.
Then again, did you see and hear it live? Or have you resisted paying for Peacock, Netflix, Amazon Prime, or any of the other streaming services that have plunged into sports coverage?
And do you wonder if the old cable TV model – paying a lot for a few channels you’d watch and a lot of channels you wouldn’t – is any more expensive than paying for five or six different streaming channels just to watch all of the programming (including sports) that you want to see? There’s not much distinction between the platforms any more. …
• Cutting the cord still shuts you out of certain attractions. The Dodgers and Lakers, for example, remain tied to Spectrum for the next few years, and if you want to stream those channels it seems you’d better have a Spectrum account to start with.
• But the announcement that multiple teams, including the Angels, are ditching FanDuel Sports Network and its parent company, Main Street Sports Group, should be setting off an alarm, and not just if you’re an Angels fan. FanDuel also carries Clippers and Kings games, and by the looks of it Main Street Sports is close to going out of business if it doesn’t get rescued. One potential buyer, England-based DAZN, already appears to have backed away.
The implied promise is that the teams and leagues will figure something out. They’d better. …
• But let’s face it: We as consumers have been spoiled over the last few decades with the ability to watch every game of every team – from Prime Ticket carrying Lakers and Kings home games on cable in the early 1980s to augment Channel 9’s road game coverage, and eventually Fox Sports West’s channels airing Dodgers, Angels, Lakers, Kings, Ducks and Clippers games regularly, to now.
Those of a certain age might remember an era, in the 1960s, when the Dodgers scheduled only nine TV games a season – all of their games in San Francisco – while the Angels’ 20 telecasts a year were considered, well, heavenly. …
• As we wrote before last season, when the Ducks moved their games to Channel 13 and the free Victory+ streaming service, they were smart in getting ahead of the trend back to over-the-air telecasts, with an eye toward attracting more eyeballs. Visibility, believe it or not, can be more valuable than rights fees. …
• Meanwhile, streaming services’ exclusivity agreements with various leagues have meant that when your team is on one of those national games, if you don’t have that service you’re left out. The one exception is the NFL, which mandates that when Amazon Prime or Netflix carries a game, it’s also shown on over-the-air outlets in the local markets. Why can’t other leagues do so? …
• Until that blessed day arrives, to see every one of your favorite team’s games right now you have to subscribe to cable plus a cornucopia of streamers.
That includes Peacock (NBA, MLB, NFL, WNBA), Netflix (MLB, NFL), Amazon Prime (NBA starting Jan. 16, NFL, WNBA), Apple TV (MLS, MLB), HBO Max (NHL games aired by TNT), Hulu (NHL), Paramount+ (NFL games shown by CBS) and ION (WNBA), plus the ESPN+ service (mid-major college basketball, including the Big West).
Or you could listen to the audio streams. I think those are still free. …
• This week’s quiz: The biggest moment in the first decade of the L.A. Kings’ existence was taking the Boston Bruins to a seventh game in the 1976 playoffs. What was so memorable about Game 6 at the Forum? Answer below. …
• We used to poke fun at the SEC’s motto, “It just means more,” by saying it translated to “We will not be outbid.” We didn’t realize how true that apparently was.
Consider that the self-styled dominant conference in college football hasn’t placed a team in the national championship game the last three seasons, hasn’t won one since Georgia knocked off Alabama in January 2022, and amid the NIL revolution had five teams eliminated in this year’s 12-team field and had a 2-7 overall record in this bowl season. …
• Here’s the way one Power 4 program offensive coordinator, speaking anonymously, described the phenomenon in a story in The Athletic:
“The reality is this, there were some very famous, very successful coaches that were having a lot of success when the NIL was illegal. Well, now NIL is legal. I saw what (former LSU head coach Ed) Orgeron said about how now you can walk through the front door with the money. Well, now the players are going everywhere.” …
• And this, in the same story, from a Big Ten assistant: ““Hard to ignore the fact that when everyone got to pay players, it leveled the playing field immediately. They can deny all they want, but that’s a fact.” …
• Bob Pulford passed away earlier this week at 89. And while most of his hockey history was with the Toronto Maple Leafs as a player – winner of four Stanley Cups, including the last won by the Leafs in 1967 – and with the Chicago Blackhawks as a coach and general manager over three decades, the Hockey Hall of Famer (inducted in 1991) also had a key role in the early history of the Kings. He was a player for two seasons (captain in 1971-72) and their coach for the next five, winning the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year in 1974-75 and turning a laggard franchise into a playoff regular.
• There was this, too: He went from a city that lived and breathed hockey to one where the game was still an afterthought, and he picked up on the necessity of selling his sport in this market. Part of that included the willingness (and patience) to do one-on-one postgame interviews with a college kid still trying to learn this job. Thank you, Pully, and rest in peace. …
• And it’s worth noting that his son-in-law – a fellow named Dean Lombardi – also turned out to have an outsized influence on the Kings’ franchise, with two Stanley Cup banners to show for it. …
• Quiz answer: Those ’75-76 Kings, an 85-point team, had no business going toe-to-toe with the Bruins, who amassed 48 wins and 113 points. Facing elimination, the Kings fought back from a 3-1 third-period deficit in Game 6 on Mike Corrigan’s goals. And after Butch Goring scored the game-winner at 18:28 of overtime his teammates lifted him to their shoulders and carried him off the ice, something I’d never seen on a hockey rink before or since.
The fairytale was short-lived. The Bruins won Game 7 in Boston, 3-0.
jalexander@scng.com