NASN have decided to **bundle their package with the other Setanta sports packages on Sky, and this will mean an increase of £3 per month for people who may have only subscribed to NASN for US sports and don't want the other channels which let's face it, are mainly weekend channels, and offer European and Scottish football (i'm a Scottish football fan, but i DONT want the Setanta channels, i think they are poor!!) Whether this is to help fund a new ESPN deal, no one knows, but i do know it ISNT popular!
So is this a big mistake by NASN? Personally i think they might just live to rue this one - when NASN started it was seen as a god-send to a lot of people who didnt want Sky sports, and were very happy to see a channel concentrating purely on US sport, so surely bundling a channel with non-US sports channels will only irk such people. Also, you have to consider that certain people (myself for one) really only subscribe for the one sport - surely people such as that are not going to be happy shelling out another £3 per month just to watch that one sport ... outlets such as MLB.tv will become far more attractive, especially as high speed broadband is so much more common these days. NASN also seem to forget the whole financial aspect of having to raise another £3 per month, especially given the high level of following US sports have amongst students, etc. I'm not really convinced that they have thought this through properly!!
Over a year ago i made a suggestion to NASN that was treated with the usual standard uninterested email reply - i suggested that they should consider offering 'season ticket' packages for people only wishing to sub for one sport: the example would be me wishing to sub for the baseball season. They could charge me a set amount per month, say £10, and i would tied into this contract for the length of the ball season, so NASN would get £70 from me. Surely this is better than trying to tie me in for a whole year at £14 per month, because let's face it, im NOT gonna pay that £168 per year charge when im only interested in Baseball - i'd go to MLB.tv instead! So there you have it - £0 or £70 - which would be best for NASN? You do the maths!!!
It will certainly be interesting times ahead to see how this situation develops. I will be ok for the mo, as i can still sub monthly (and cheaper) on Cable, but i can only see this price increase succeeding for NASN if good old shoulder shrugging British apathy takes over as usual, and people just accept it! I would love to be a fly on the wall if the cancellations start flooding in!
** It should be noted that this only affects Sky customers from what i have heard so far - Cable customers are unaffected by this change ... for now!
3 comments:
Just discovered your input. I had e-mailed NASN as follows:
I note your subscription price increase. I subscribe to North American Sports Network to see American sport not otherwise accessible (and put up with the excessive coverage of college football and NASCAR) in order to watch MLB in particular. I strongly object to paying more for five channels of European sport which I will never watch. You have me over a barrel, I'm very much looking forward to the WBC, but I wish to register my protest.
... and got standard e-mail telling me they can't split and extolling Sentana. They have been advertising the World Baseball Classic which has now started but no sign. Another great irritation is repetition and lack of scheduling info, for instance
Tim McCarver whom I love but they never tell you whom he's interviewing so you don't know whether you've already seen it. If Five stop their coverage of baseball we'll be really lumbered.
Bastards!
As much as much as i understand your comments and other American sports fans about this bunddle, i do feel many of you are being very short sighted on this. Obviously a price rise is never nice and for those that can now not afford the subscription, it's very annoying. But i do feel that in joining Setanta this will be for the better of NASN.
For one Setanta is a serious player now in Sports rights (I'd put serious money on them gaining some Premiership rights in 2007), with a vast amount more subscribers then NASN could ever of imagined of getting. Not only does this mean long term finanical securiety for the channel but also the finaical backing to go after even bigger rights deals. Recent evidence has already proved this to be happening, ie look at the recent NHL and MLB deals they have signed. Both multi million and far reaching deals, more then they would ever of been able to do in the past.
Finally, i can almost guarantee that extra NASN content will now find it's way on to Setanta channels, in affect a NASN 2 channel. This will result in extra programming and extra live games, in a way better value.
I can understand that most NASN subscribers have no interest in sports shown on Setanta (i'm one of them). But i see this as an exciting move for NASN which is going to see them really enter the big leagues of sport networks.
Quelle est la taille de la source de ces grandes données? google Quelle quantité de données puis-je obtenir, car je soupçonne กูเกิล que ce contenu substantiel a été supprimé de la base de données?
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