For those who haven’t heard, NFLstreaming.blogspot.com is no longer active. The site, which offered links to various SOPCast broadcasts of NFL games across the country, was allegedly killed by NFL goons, who got wind that football fans without DirecTV might actually be trying to follow their favorite out-of-market teams.
How did it happen? P2P message boards are pointing the finger at Jacksonville radio sportscaster David Lamm, who allegedly called the NFL to ask about whether SOPcasting was legal (no, it’s not…and anyone with half a brain knew that already). Supposedly, once the NFL was told of the URL, they sent a cease-and-desist order to SOPcast, demanding that no NFL games be sent on the network. So the great P2P experiment is dead after only three intermittently successful weeks of existence.
It’s remarkable to see the speed with which the NFL acts to keep fans from watching their favorite teams, isn’t it? From the SOPcast crackdown to the prohibition on internet video to the banning of individual television cameras from the sidelines, the league really does its best to limit the supply of football to the people most interested in it. My humble suggestion would be for the NFL to get its head out of its ass, and work on a permanent solution to letting football fans who can’t access DirecTV have a choice in which games they watch.
UPDATE: For those of you who don’t know what SOPcast is, it’s a software client which allows for people to stream live video from their computers to others. It’s sort of like Bittorrent, for those who have used that particular technology. As mentioned above, the streaming of copyrighted content isn’t legal, but we’re also talking about a service that was being used by MAYBE 500 to 1,000 people at most. It’s still remarkable how fast the NFL moves, even for something involving so few people (and so few video streams…we’re talking one or two poor-quality video streams per game here). The availability of an easily-accessible NFL Sunday Ticket equivalent for non-DirecTV users would keep this sort of thing from happening in the first place.
If Goodell has his way you will only be able to watch the NFL under a blanket, with the lights off in your locked apartment…just as long as it is on an approved network that pays its sponsorship fee.
Here is a little food for thought Rog: 500 people watching in their mom’s basement isn’t really costing you revenue and isn’t helping you grow your fan base. Also it makes you look like a d*ck.
What a farce.
It’s not bad enough that I have to sit through (mostly) only 2 games per afternoon in the NYC market, while throwing money to my provider Cablevision to also not show me NFL Network. Really puts my new HDTV to great use.
And now I can’t even follow my hometown Lions online during the other games. Instead I’m forced to pay $10 a month for spotty internet radio.
The NFL needs to call up their good rich friends at MLB and ask them how they turned MLB Advanced Media into their most a billion dollar enterprise in a few years. I watched hundreds of MLB games online this season and I happily paid only about $15 a month.
I’d easily pay the NFL $10 a week so I could watch a decent broadcast of the Lions game online. I’m sure their are thousands of fans just like myself who would do the same.
Hey NFL — get this going!
It’s the same crap the NFL has pulled with local TV reporters and web-based video. They don’t allow local TV to shoot game footage on their own, forcing them instead to take footage from a “pool camera”. And who can forget this summer when the NFL decided to arbitrarily limit online news sites and blogs to 60 seconds of video a day, which then has to be deleted 24 hours later?
I think the operative word here is “hubris”.
If anybody wants to trade teams, you can have the AZ Cardinals. :p
What a shame. My sole savior of boring sunday evenings is gone. Guess how many NFL games they show in Finland per year? That’s right.. only the superbowl. OK, there’s some available thru satellite, but getting a satellite dish just for one or two games that air in the middle of the night seems too much for my wallet..
VH, you should look into Yahoo Sports.
Thanks a bunch NFL. It’s not just americans who use SopCast/TVU et al. You constantly moan about wanting to grow your international fanbase yadda yadda but those of us trying to watch it abroad, and briefly at least beginning to get interested, now just think you suck. Very very well done. Idiots.