Poll: Will you pay $30/mo for Chicago Sports Network/Bulls Games?

[ChiTownHero1992]

Not a chance in hell (especally with this product NBA/Bulls both being terrible). I don't have antenna access but don't care enough to spend $30 monthly on yet another streaming service, just not gonna happen

[Betta Bulleavit]

I figured I’d bump this as this “could” be big news.

https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2024/12/11/a-marquee-chicago-sports-network-merger-is-reportedly-possible/

[HearshotKDS]

Late to the party, but No I will not. I dont catch enough Bulls games live to justify the price, and for the ones I do catch streams have been excellent in quality.

[mj234eva]

I wouldn't pay .99.

[kodo]

Is anyone using the app? How is it?

[Betta Bulleavit]

Is anyone using the app? How is it?

I’m not. But I have a few buddies that do and the sentiment is all the same. Why should we be paying to watch the Bulls on tv? Much less the Sox (whom only a fraction of the city is actually invested in) and the Hawks whom continue to be bottom 5 in the NHL.

[meekrab]

I thought this was a joke when my coworker told me about it. Like I actually laughed. CHSN is completely out of touch.

[Jcool0]

I thought this was a joke when my coworker told me about it. Like I actually laughed. CHSN is completely out of touch.

Its not just Chicago doing this. Probably 10 teams have there own streaming app. Pretty much every NBA and MLB team will be doing this soon. RSN are all going bankrupt.

[dougthonus]

I thought this was a joke when my coworker told me about it. Like I actually laughed. CHSN is completely out of touch.

Its not just Chicago doing this. Probably 10 teams have there own streaming app. Pretty much every NBA and MLB team will be doing this soon. RSN are all going bankrupt.

The idea of a team having a streaming app makes total sense. The price of $30 a month is the part that is hard to swallow. Especially when it is more than the cost of the app you can buy from the NBA which gives you all teams except for those pesky blackout rules.

[Jcool0]

I thought this was a joke when my coworker told me about it. Like I actually laughed. CHSN is completely out of touch.

Its not just Chicago doing this. Probably 10 teams have there own streaming app. Pretty much every NBA and MLB team will be doing this soon. RSN are all going bankrupt.

The idea of a team having a streaming app makes total sense. The price of $30 a month is the part that is hard to swallow. Especially when it is more than the cost of the app you can buy from the NBA which gives you all teams except for those pesky blackout rules.

Jazz+ is $19.99

Suns Live is $14.99

BlazerVision is $19.99

Pelicans+ is $15

ClipperVision is $20

To get just Bulls games is $19.99 to get Bulls/Sox/Hawks is $30.

[dougthonus]

Its not just Chicago doing this. Probably 10 teams have there own streaming app. Pretty much every NBA and MLB team will be doing this soon. RSN are all going bankrupt.

The idea of a team having a streaming app makes total sense. The price of $30 a month is the part that is hard to swallow. Especially when it is more than the cost of the app you can buy from the NBA which gives you all teams except for those pesky blackout rules.

Jazz+ is $19.99

Suns Live is $14.99

BlazerVision is $19.99

Pelicans+ is $15

ClipperVision is $20

To get just Bulls games is $19.99 to get Bulls/Sox/Hawks is $30.

Not sure what options CHSN will have long term, but anything that costs over $110 for the season (which is the cost of NBA's Team Pass) is the definition of price gauging, since you have barred the competing product from the market and then charged more than it. Same would be true of any other team charging more than Team Pass. $20 would be $140 if you wanted all of preseason (which you'd get on team pass) and needed early Oct through mid April.

That said, they offer the channel free OTA for the local market, but that isn't a viable option for many people.

It's a really weird mix of feeling completely gauged on one end but if you are fortunate enough having a totally free option on the other end.

[Jcool0]

The idea of a team having a streaming app makes total sense. The price of $30 a month is the part that is hard to swallow. Especially when it is more than the cost of the app you can buy from the NBA which gives you all teams except for those pesky blackout rules.

Jazz+ is $19.99

Suns Live is $14.99

BlazerVision is $19.99

Pelicans+ is $15

ClipperVision is $20

To get just Bulls games is $19.99 to get Bulls/Sox/Hawks is $30.

Not sure what options CHSN will have long term

That is the option. Places like YouTube, Hulu & even Comcast aren't going to be adding RSN to their services. They aren't really a revenue driver.

[dougthonus]

That is the option. Places like YouTube, Hulu & even Comcast aren't going to be adding RSN to their services. They aren't really a revenue driver.

I meant options on pricing. Ie, will they offer season by season pricing at a discount for a single team etc...

If they are charging more than league pass team pass then it is price gauging by definition, and to your point, they don't seem to be the only ones in that boat, but the NFL is already fighting this battle.

Not sure what will happen politically of course, a lot of times whether you win or lose those things has little to do with absolute right/wrong and more to do with who is an office and who those people are trying to please.

If I were to think about it on an extremely superficial level, I would say Donald Trump may not be great friends with the NBA and may be happy to burn them a bit. Of course that may be more the players than the owners, so may not get executed well. Also may be the case simply no one brings the suit or that the OTA presents enough of an alternative to fend off a suit.

[jnrjr79]

That is the option. Places like YouTube, Hulu & even Comcast aren't going to be adding RSN to their services. They aren't really a revenue driver.

I meant options on pricing. Ie, will they offer season by season pricing at a discount for a single team etc...

If they are charging more than league pass team pass then it is price gauging by definition, and to your point, they don't seem to be the only ones in that boat, but the NFL is already fighting this battle.

Not sure what will happen politically of course, a lot of times whether you win or lose those things has little to do with absolute right/wrong and more to do with who is an office and who those people are trying to please.

If I were to think about it on an extremely superficial level, I would say Donald Trump may not be great friends with the NBA and may be happy to burn them a bit. Of course that may be more the players than the owners, so may not get executed well. Also may be the case simply no one brings the suit or that the OTA presents enough of an alternative to fend off a suit.

What the heck would be the basis for a lawsuit?

[dougthonus]

That is the option. Places like YouTube, Hulu & even Comcast aren't going to be adding RSN to their services. They aren't really a revenue driver.

I meant options on pricing. Ie, will they offer season by season pricing at a discount for a single team etc...

If they are charging more than league pass team pass then it is price gauging by definition, and to your point, they don't seem to be the only ones in that boat, but the NFL is already fighting this battle.

Not sure what will happen politically of course, a lot of times whether you win or lose those things has little to do with absolute right/wrong and more to do with who is an office and who those people are trying to please.

If I were to think about it on an extremely superficial level, I would say Donald Trump may not be great friends with the NBA and may be happy to burn them a bit. Of course that may be more the players than the owners, so may not get executed well. Also may be the case simply no one brings the suit or that the OTA presents enough of an alternative to fend off a suit.

What the heck would be the basis for a lawsuit?

Anti-trust. Price gauging, price manipulation, restricting the marketplace etc..

[jnrjr79]

I meant options on pricing. Ie, will they offer season by season pricing at a discount for a single team etc...

If they are charging more than league pass team pass then it is price gauging by definition, and to your point, they don't seem to be the only ones in that boat, but the NFL is already fighting this battle.

Not sure what will happen politically of course, a lot of times whether you win or lose those things has little to do with absolute right/wrong and more to do with who is an office and who those people are trying to please.

If I were to think about it on an extremely superficial level, I would say Donald Trump may not be great friends with the NBA and may be happy to burn them a bit. Of course that may be more the players than the owners, so may not get executed well. Also may be the case simply no one brings the suit or that the OTA presents enough of an alternative to fend off a suit.

What the heck would be the basis for a lawsuit?

Anti-trust. Price gauging, price manipulation, restricting the marketplace etc..

CHSN certainly is not engaging in price-gouging.

Anti-trust doesn't make sense here. CHSN has expanded the options for viewing these teams: subscribe to a TV provider that carries it, watch for free via an antenna (from many different broadcast stations in the region), or pay for the app. Before, you only had option #1.

[dougthonus]

CHSN certainly is not engaging in price-gouging.

Anti-trust doesn't make sense here. CHSN has expanded the options for viewing these teams: subscribe to a TV provider that carries it, watch for free via an antenna (from many different broadcast stations in the region), or pay for the app. Before, you only had option #1.

Look, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know how or why people decide what is price gauging vs free market.

The case is not explicitly about CHSN but the NBA overall.

The NBA has a streaming app which allows you to purchase the rights to a single team for $110.

The NBA/Bulls are blocking local people for purchasing that service and forcing them into a difference service. If the Bulls are charging more for that service $140 for one team for the season and blocking you from buying that single team due to blackout rules, then you can argue that they are barring competition and price gauging (they are stopping a cheaper competitor (the NBA as a whole) from being in the market place.

I'm not suggesting they will get sued or that a lawsuit would be successful, just laying out why you may view this as both anti-trust (competition is being restricted) and price gauging (the competition has an established cheaper price that any non-local can buy).

The NFL is in a mess quasi-similar to this which is the only reason I bring it up as a risk, though I believe theirs was around not offering single team out of market games and forcing people to buy all of sunday ticket (or something similar). Looks like the most recent ruling was in favor of the NFL after the previous ruling was against them. https://www.nfl.com/news/federal-judge-overturns-4-7b-verdict-in-sunday-ticket-lawsuit-rules-for-nfl

[kodo]

The idea of a team having a streaming app makes total sense. The price of $30 a month is the part that is hard to swallow. Especially when it is more than the cost of the app you can buy from the NBA which gives you all teams except for those pesky blackout rules.

Jazz+ is $19.99

Suns Live is $14.99

BlazerVision is $19.99

Pelicans+ is $15

ClipperVision is $20

To get just Bulls games is $19.99 to get Bulls/Sox/Hawks is $30.

Not sure what options CHSN will have long term, but anything that costs over $110 for the season (which is the cost of NBA's Team Pass) is the definition of price gauging, since you have barred the competing product from the market and then charged more than it. Same would be true of any other team charging more than Team Pass. $20 would be $140 if you wanted all of preseason (which you'd get on team pass) and needed early Oct through mid April.

That said, they offer the channel free OTA for the local market, but that isn't a viable option for many people.

It's a really weird mix of feeling completely gauged on one end but if you are fortunate enough having a totally free option on the other end.

What CHSN is missing is the full season discount option (unless it has one?). Blazers are also high at $20/month, but the full season is $90.

Also the Blazers app has all games on demand (does CHSN also do this?), so it saves you from needing a DVR option. With the antenna a fan has no DVR capability without a $100-$200 wifi box + $50 storage drive + $5/month Plex Pass (or equivalent). With the increasingly small attention span and refusal of younger generations to sit down at a fixed location to watch a broadcast in real-time (and sitting through 50 sports betting commercials), even if they are in antenna range a live broadcast may be a dealbreaker.

The app probably may also make sense for someone who wants to watch the Bulls maybe just for the post ASG months. If the Bulls are doing well one season, a lot of people just hop on the bandwagon late. I think it needs to be at $15/month and under $90/full season including playoffs (hah).

But I'm curious what the actual performance of the CHSN app is. There's a lot of things out there that I think are stupid for the cost but people find it quite normal to throw money at, like the entire Starbucks business model.

[jnrjr79]

CHSN certainly is not engaging in price-gouging.

Anti-trust doesn't make sense here. CHSN has expanded the options for viewing these teams: subscribe to a TV provider that carries it, watch for free via an antenna (from many different broadcast stations in the region), or pay for the app. Before, you only had option #1.

Look, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know how or why people decide what is price gauging vs free market.

The case is not explicitly about CHSN but the NBA overall.

The NBA has a streaming app which allows you to purchase the rights to a single team for $110.

The NBA/Bulls are blocking local people for purchasing that service and forcing them into a difference service. If the Bulls are charging more for that service $140 for one team for the season and blocking you from buying that single team due to blackout rules, then you can argue that they are barring competition and price gauging (they are stopping a cheaper competitor (the NBA as a whole) from being in the market place.

I'm not suggesting they will get sued or that a lawsuit would be successful, just laying out why you may view this as both anti-trust (competition is being restricted) and price gauging (the competition has an established cheaper price that any non-local can buy).

The NFL is in a mess quasi-similar to this which is the only reason I bring it up as a risk, though I believe theirs was around not offering single team out of market games and forcing people to buy all of sunday ticket (or something similar). Looks like the most recent ruling was in favor of the NFL after the previous ruling was against them. https://www.nfl.com/news/federal-judge-overturns-4-7b-verdict-in-sunday-ticket-lawsuit-rules-for-nfl

Except none of this is true re: CHSN! The app is only one of three options to watch the team, including one that is free.. If your problem is NBA League Pass - I'm not opining there. Obviously all the leagues have their equivalent of it and the NFL Sunday Ticket lawsuit, while not ultimately successful, wasn't frivolous. My only point is there wouldn't be a viable antitrust case against CHSN given the various ways in which you can watch its content.

Relatedly, this is not price gouging in the legal sense of that term, even if you think it's a rip-off compared to League Pass. It also disregards that CHSN is an actual television network with production costs; League Pass is not, it's just licensing and redistributing content. Even if it were price gouging, price gouging is mostly legal, except for some states that forbid it for certain commodities after a disaster/supply disruption and the like.

The main gripe about CHSN is really just that people have Comcast or YouTube TV and they're mad that they can't see the network there. But this ignores that CHSN has tried to get those providers to pick up the channel, but the providers don't want to! This isn't CHSN being anti-competitive. It's just a lack of interest in its product.

[dougthonus]

Except none of this is true re: CHSN! The app is only one of three options to watch the team, including one that is free..

1: CHSN and NBA team pass are both streaming options which are owned by different legal entities
2: NBA team pass is the cheaper streaming option (presently)
3: NBA team pass is barred from competing in the local market due to the league and team colluding
4: Chicago based residents that want a legal streaming app are forced to pay more than non Chicago streamers due to the above collusion
5: OTA is not available to everyone nor is it an equivalent service to a streaming app (same could be said for fubo/spectrum)

Now these 5 points do not constitute a legal opinion on whether a lawsuit would be successful or whether damages would be significant enough for anyone to care or try, but they are true, so instead of saying "none of this is true" maybe "none of this matters" is more accurate (I'm not sure it matters, but I do think its true).

Relatedly, this is not price gouging in the legal sense of that term, even if you think it's a rip-off compared to League Pass. It also disregards that CHSN is an actual television network with production costs; League Pass is not, it's just licensing and redistributing content. Even if it were price gouging, price gouging is mostly legal, except for some states that forbid it for certain commodities after a disaster/supply disruption and the like.

The main gripe about CHSN is really just that people have Comcast or YouTube TV and they're mad that they can't see the network there. But this ignores that CHSN has tried to get those providers to pick up the channel, but the providers don't want to! This isn't CHSN being anti-competitive. It's just a lack of interest in its product.

I think the other area where you get into trouble with price gauging is when you are colluding with your monopolistic powers to do it which is the case here.

At any rate, it's probably nothing in the short term, and I've talked about it too much relative to what the likely risk is, but I do think this is a long term problem for the league.

In the end your broader point is that people whom were able to get this stuff effectively bundled into a service they had previously are now forced to pay out money which is why its an inflection point potentially that the cheapest route for them may be not be available. Whether the same collusion was a problem a year ago may also have been true, but it was so widely accepted and existed for so long there was no reason to argue about it, and it was largely bundled into something they were already paying for.

Now that you are forcing some people to pay effectively $360 more for the same service they used to pay (if you wanted all 3 teams) it creates a point where people may rethink "is this really okay?", and clearly people don't think its okay. People are incredibly pissed.

Again, maybe there isn't enough juice there for someone to try and squeeze the orange. Without multiple years of damages and with OTA as an option to say a huge group of the class had another option available, it is definitely plausible there is no case here.

Just laying out what troubles could exist and why.