OneSoccer

[fil]

That doesn't make much sense then, other than cutting down the amount of apps you have and slightly more convenience.

[narduch]

1 minute ago, fil said:

That doesn't make much sense then, other than cutting down the amount of apps you have and slightly more convenience.

Prime has a bunch of apps like that 

[fil]

Not impressed with this new era of streaming...

[narduch]

6 minutes ago, fil said:

Not impressed with this new era of streaming...

I hate to admit but for a soccer fan Fubo is probably the best value.

DAZN is more expensive 

[Watchmen]

1 hour ago, narduch said:

I hate to admit but for a soccer fan Fubo is probably the best value.

DAZN is more expensive 

Depends on which leagues you prefer. DAZN is great value if you're a Bundesliga fan, with the European tournaments as well.

[narduch]

2 minutes ago, Watchmen said:

Depends on which leagues you prefer. DAZN is great value if you're a Bundesliga fan, with the European tournaments as well.

Myabe I'm cheap but I disagree that $24.99 per month is great value for just that.

I'm not interested in NFL

[Watchmen]

2 minutes ago, narduch said:

Myabe I'm cheap but I disagree that $24.99 per month is great value for just that.

I'm not interested in NFL

Sure, I get that. I just meant it's worse if you're trying to do EPL/Serie A and watch the European competitions, since it effectively doubles the price. But we're definitely a long way from when DAZN first snagged the EPL and Champions League and offered them at a low price ($50 I think?).

[Cheeta]

34 minutes ago, narduch said:

Myabe I'm cheap but I disagree that $24.99 per month is great value for just that.

I'm not interested in NFL

Have to admit, it cuts into my beer budget.  Which itself is probably a good thing but point stands, could get better value for that money if I parked it elsewhere.

[red card]

10 hours ago, fil said:

Fubo network is coming to Amazon prime in Canada. Not sure if this includes OneSoccer 

 

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240815674134/en/Fubo-Sports-Network-Canada’s-Home-of-the-Premier-League-Now-Available-on-Prime-Video-Channels-in-Canada

It's only their Fubo Sports Network which shows the Prem, Serie A, Coppa Italia and various niche fight leagues/poker. So, good for people who want a skinnier bundle.

 

Fubo got good news in the US today as a judge has put an injunction on the planned Aug. 23 launch of Venu, a sports streaming platform bundling 14 channels from ESPN, Fox and WBD for US$42.99/month. Decision will be appealed.

Fubo's case was that Disney, Fox and WBD leverage their control of sports to force rivals into carrying pricey, unpopular channels as a take-it-or-leave-it condition of licensing sports channels.  These anticompetitive bundling requirements lead to increased costs for consumers because they’re forced to pay for content they don’t watch. They cited their Canadian service which does offer skinny sports bundles. But when Fubo asked for the same Venu bundle, they were refused.

Judge agreed with Fubo that the launch of Venu was an existential threat to Fubo's business and it would lead to Venu free reign to raise prices.

Disney, Fox & WBD counter was that Fubo adds little value. Fubo did not invest billions of dollars to build infrastructure. Fubo did not risk billions of dollars to acquire content and then billions more to turn that content into programming. Fubo thus remains an undercapitalized startup with minimal differentiation that acts as a middleman aggregator of content.

https://frontofficesports.com/judge-injunction-fubo-venu/

[narduch]

Our country is a joke. 

 

 

[narduch]

Response from Scott Mitchell:

https://northerntribune.ca/rogers-crtc-onesoccer-scott-mitchell-appeal-response/

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

^^^A take from Reddit I found thought provoking as much as anything else:

My understanding is that the difference between the $12 million being sought and what was mediated was being allowed access as a speciality channel rather than on the basic sports package. Not sure there was necessarily a direct cause and effect relationship between the mediation not being what they had hoped and Mediapro subsequently rushing for the exit because there has been talk that Onesoccer's main champion in a Mediapro context being ousted from the company was the main reason.

The last bit is probably overstating things on the bankrupcy angle given there are cheaper alternatives (e.g. what the USL used to do on Youtube with Ottawa Fury games) but it definitely looks like Rogers delayed filing this appeal to make things as awkward as possible for CSB as to how they are going to finance Onesoccer next season at its current level of operations after Mediapro's exit in the hope that they will simply pull the plug at this point.

Edited August 28 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[red card]

From Rogers view, since cord cutting became a mega trend, they haven't been adding net new channels unless it is premium priced, they bought the channel, were paid by the channel to carry it or channel was a mandatory CRTC carry.

Paying carriage fees such as $1/sub/month (as suggested by MediaPro CEO) to OneSoccer would also enable another competitor for rights that SN World currently holds or would be interested in. 

Besides CRTC saying on June 28th that OneSoccer was owned, operated and controlled by Canadians, Mitchell basically rebukes Rogers view based on a Medipro release and a Star article that OneSoccer wasn't Canadian: 

Mediapro ran day-to-day operations and provided other services for OneSoccer, this was done on behalf of and under the direction of Timeless. At all times Timeless retained the authority to make strategic or organizational changes. Therefore, the service was always controlled by Timeless. Indeed, after the finding of undue preference against Rogers, Mediapro and Timeless parted company, although Mediapro is required to provide production services for one year.

Mitchell also cites various other channels with non-Canadian CEOs including Rogers itself and recently approved News Forum were still given standing by the CRTC. 

It's also shows CanCon rules are a bit convoluted. OneSoccer's programming is largely Canadian content but if ownership is considered foreign, it may have no standing with the CRTC. Other than news channels, Rogers owned channels are anchored by non-Canadian programming but get standing with CRTC. Plus, there are plenty of foreign-owned channels from CNN to NFL Network that are on basic plans (in part because Rogers may have gotten a cut of their carriage fees). 

 

[narduch]

2 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

^^^A take from Reddit I found thought provoking as much as anything else:

My understanding is that the difference between the $12 million being sought and what was mediated was being allowed access as a speciality channel rather than on the basic sports package. Not sure there was necessarily a direct cause and effect relationship between the mediation not being what they had hoped and Mediapro subsequently rushing for the exit because there has been talk that Onesoccer's main champion in a Mediapro context being ousted from the company was the main reason.

The last bit is probably overstating things on the bankrupcy angle given there are cheaper alternatives (e.g. what the USL used to do on Youtube with Ottawa Fury games) but it definitely looks like Rogers delayed filing this appeal to make things as awkward as possible for CSB as to how they are going to finance Onesoccer next season at its current level of operations after Mediapro's exit in the hope that they will simply pull the plug at this point.

This reddit post doesn't make sense.

The mediators job wouldn't have been to asign a value to One Soccer's rights.

Only thing the mediator can do is uphold the contract between the 2 parties.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

^^^easy enough to read the original ruling:

https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2023/2023-94.htm

My understanding is that Timeless was set up by CSB so that Onesoccer could still be operated by Mediapro and generate the rights payments from the ten year broadcast deal signed in early 2019 while exploiting a loophole in the legislation as to what represented a Canadian entity in CRTC terms. What Mediapro wanted in order to be able to justify the scale of their investment in CanPL, CMNT, CWNT and Canadian Championship rights was to be treated in a similar manner to Sportsnet and TSN and be on the Rogers basic cable package. Onesoccer had to be viewed as a Canadian-owned entity through Timeless to achieve this. The basic cable angle is where the $12 million number comes in. The ruling didn't mandate that and only instructed Rogers and Timeless to come up with a remedy to the issue of undue preference. Rogers is still trying to torpedo the validity of this original ruling, which might have landed Onesoccer some limited speciality channel level of access on Rogers next season.

Edited August 29 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[narduch]

15 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

^^^easy enough to read the original ruling:

https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2023/2023-94.htm

My understanding is that Timeless was set up by CSB so that Onesoccer could still be operated by Mediapro and generate the rights payments from the ten year broadcast deal signed in early 2019 while exploiting a loophole in the legislation as to what represented a Canadian entity in CRTC terms. What Mediapro wanted in order to be able to justify the scale of their investment in CanPL, CMNT, CWNT and Canadian Championship rights was to be treated in a similar manner to Sportsnet and TSN and be on the Rogers basic cable package. Onesoccer had to be viewed as a Canadian-owned entity through Timeless to achieve this. The basic cable angle is where the $12 million number comes in. The ruling didn't mandate that and only instructed Rogers and Timeless to come up with a remedy to the issue of undue preference. Rogers is still trying to torpedo the validity of this original ruling, which might have landed Onesoccer some limited speciality channel level of access on Rogers next season.

You are confusing the CRTC ruling with the separate legal dispute between CSB and Mediapro

[narduch]

There is really no other way to look at this and not see Rogers as the villain here.

Remember Rogers and Bell both really don't give a shit about Canadian soccer. Guess some people will be happy when we return to the bad old days of 2018. They are almost rooting for it

[Ivan]

I know TSN are owned by Bell, but aren't they somehow owned/controlled by ESPN?  How does that differ from the Timeless/Mediapro relationship?  

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Maybe it's less than a 50% stake? The backdrop to this is that Mediapro massively overpaid for the rights package from CSB in much the same way as happened with Ligue 1 in France. The number of streaming subscriptions wasn't even close to being enough to cover the bills in both contexts. Mediapro took longer to bail out on the deal in a Canadian context because they were hoping to use the CRTC appeal mechanism to get onto basic cable packages. That would have brought in some serious coin from Rogers. Didn't happen and perhaps not coincidently they are about to exit from the scene where Onesoccer is concered. The speculation from most is that Rogers filed the appeal of the CRTC's ruling from last year as a stalling tactic on even having Onesoccer as a speciality channel in the hope that CSB pull the plug financially and stop pestering them about it.

Edited August 29 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[narduch]

29 minutes ago, Ivan said:

I know TSN are owned by Bell, but aren't they somehow owned/controlled by ESPN?  How does that differ from the Timeless/Mediapro relationship?  

Believe they only own 20%

[Kent]

One Soccer isn't Canadian enough to get onto Canadian TV, despite it's main content being Canadian Premier League, Canadian Championship, and Canadian national teams, with I am sure the vast majority of people involved in doing the work all based in Canada.

But NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, etc all have no problems getting onto Canadian TV.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Welcome to the NFL kid. TSN being on the basic cable package is used to prop up the broadcast deal that helps keep the CFL afloat and there's never any shortage of people telling us how vital that is to national unity despite relatively few people under 50 having much of an interest in it. Soccer is likely still viewed as something foreign that is enough of a threat to the one true holy and apostolic Canadian form of football by enough influential people that it was never going to be given a slice of the action even if, ironically enough, it was a Hamilton Ticats exec that was pushing for it. The real problem though is that if the webstreaming angle and overall interest in the league had been going as well as they had initially hoped they wouldn't have had to worry about Rogers and the rest of the "legacy media".

[jonovision]

4 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Welcome to the NFL kid. TSN being on the basic cable package is used to prop up the broadcast deal that helps keep the CFL afloat and there's never any shortage of people telling us how vital that is to national unity despite relatively few people under 50 having much of an interest in it. Soccer is likely still viewed as something foreign that is enough of a threat to the one true holy and apostolic Canadian form of football by enough influential people that it was never going to be given a slice of the action even if, ironically enough, it was a Hamilton Ticats exec that was pushing for it. The real problem though is that if the webstreaming angle and overall interest in the league had been going as well as they had initially hoped they wouldn't have had to worry about Rogers and the rest of the "legacy media".

If you had to guess, what do you think is the average viewership for CFL games on TSN this year?

[MtlMario]

33 minutes ago, jonovision said:

If you had to guess, what do you think is the average viewership for CFL games on TSN this year?

He will not answer you, just like he does not answer my questions when it does not suit him.

[Aird25]

4 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Welcome to the NFL kid. TSN being on the basic cable package is used to prop up the broadcast deal that helps keep the CFL afloat and there's never any shortage of people telling us how vital that is to national unity despite relatively few people under 50 having much of an interest in it. Soccer is likely still viewed as something foreign that is enough of a threat to the one true holy and apostolic Canadian form of football by enough influential people that it was never going to be given a slice of the action even if, ironically enough, it was a Hamilton Ticats exec that was pushing for it. The real problem though is that if the webstreaming angle and overall interest in the league had been going as well as they had initially hoped they wouldn't have had to worry about Rogers and the rest of the "legacy media".

As I'm sure you're well aware, their strategy elsewhere in the world has always been to produce content and sell it. They only created the app after running into delays and resistance from Canadian media. I doubt it was ever the plan to go that route, but we're incredibly kind to our monopolies in this country. Regardless, to suggest that they wouldn't pursue tv if subscriptions were higher doesn't make any sense. Getting into as many households as possible is quite literally the objective and thats a very obvious avenue, no?