A piece of news I hadn’t seen but which came in handy this weekend for watching my Patriots, DIRECTV somewhat quietly launched a pilot of its Sunday Ticket live streaming service for Manhattan residents at the beginning of this NFL season. For $349, Manhattanites who don’t have access to DIRECT either because their landlords don’t allow it or because of poor sight-lines can subscribe to gain access to Sunday Ticket and watch every out of market NFL game online.
Opening access to the service online without a pay TV subscription is a touchy subject, and at least initially users have to jump through some hoops to show they can’t otherwise get DIRECTV to gain access. On the one hand if viewers willing to pay for out of market games are unable to get them NFL and DIRECTV are leaving money on the table. On the other, NFL games are one of the last bastions of network bargaining power over retransmission rights so anything that could potentially take away from their TV broadcast ratings are a major threat so authentication is a big deal.
The price tag is steep, more than Sunday Ticket on satellite, but the service works. If they role this out on a larger basis next season it could really begin to have an impact. Even more interesting, if DIRECTV were to offer a more advanced broadband package for additional exclusive content (think channel 101) that could really be disruptive to cable operators.