im not a sports guy, so i was able to "cut the cord" before that was even a phrase. but if you look at the demos of people who still pay for cable subscriptions, it's guys who watch the shit out of live sports events.

a few huge streaming companies have managed to negotiate some rights and i think amazon has been aggressive, but it's still a cluster fuck of local market blackouts, pay per view, and "season passes" or going to somebody's house or a bar that "has the game".

and many still get all the TV ad breaks and bullshit "sponsored by crypto & pampers" pseudo commentary, the constant ads overlayed during the game. it's an insane user experience to witness, objectively.

and then some non event interrupts some shit they are gambling on (because remember, online sports gambling is backstopping all this) to say nothing happened.

and remember, because their access to the live feed is so tightly controlled, they often lack the ability or even potential to be watching on some direct/uninterrupted feed not subject to the parent company's desire to gin up controversy for some national non-event.

watching that old guy in a clip keep eating during the hoopla captured the real vibe so much more than all the c-list celebs and influencers trying to have their "i almost got shot in my tuxedo" moment taking crouched down selfie clips and hoping to sell the footage to some outlet and jumpstart their career as a brave culture war correspondent.

[–] krolden@lemmy.ml 15 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's my civic duty to hook all my fam up with pirated IPTV streams of sporting events

[–] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 3 points 4 days ago

i remember back a bunch of years ago, i was broke and working with a bunch of broke people in some shit pay rural job. the only thing i splurged on was decent internet in my fucked up illegal "apartment"/housing situation. they were all super bummed because there was no way to watch this different market/live sporting event besides driving 45 minutes to some overpriced bar where we weren't even sure they would even put it on, because there was a different game on.

so i found some shitty https-based pirate stream and had people over to watch in my shitty cramped space, because i could output it to this old 35" TV, and they brought over a bunch of food and got me stuffed/wasted: all the cheap beer i could drink. you'd have thought i parted the red sea.

[–] supdawg813@hexbear.net 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I have to rant tangentially about this for a moment cause I'm not even a sports fan but recently had the displeasure of being in the room when someone put on a basketball game. It was like the NBA hired the same team that does all slot machines to do the production for their games. All the artificially produced audio was just really off-putting, it felt so plastic and fake and less about the sport or the players than just manipulating the lowest-common-denomenator of viewers into paying money for the experience.

The chants, which were usually the same one or two on repeat, didn't have anything to do with what the players were doing, didn't have anything to do with the region's audience (as in, a Lakers audience would probably have different chants than a Pistons audience), and the audience very clearly was not actually behaving in line with any of the audio cues. Not even the shoe squeaks were real, which ironically enough is probably cause you wouldn't be able to hear the real ones over all the produced bullshit. Not that I really give any fucks to hear them but NBA very clearly considers them part of the experience they are aiming to conjure.

I don't know why anyone still watches it. I could have been watching someone play NBA 2K and had the same experience.

[–] Wakmrow@hexbear.net 3 points 4 days ago

Sports fucking suck to watch. I used to love watching sports. I often just mute the thing and follow a live thread.