Max (formerly HBO Max) adds sports tier including Turner NHL games

[rojac]

Starting on Oct. 5, the Max streaming service will offer an add-on sports tier that will feature NHL, NBA, MLB, and March Madness games from TNT, TBS, and TruTV amongst other offerings. Apparently, it will be free through February to Max subscribers and as a $10 a month add-on after that.

Max Adding Live Sports Tier; $10 Monthly Service Will Be Included At No Charge For Existing Subscribers Through Next February

Making good on years of corporate executive promises, Warner Bros. Discovery is officially adding a live sports tier to Max next month.

deadline.com

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[NextBigThing]

AEW pro wrestling will also be on it. If you’re not familiar it’s a pro wrestling promotion with a sports like feel. Not goofy WWE garbage. Wednesday nights at 8pm EST 7pm central on TBS.

 

[awfulwaffle]

AEW pro wrestling will also be on it. If you’re not familiar it’s a pro wrestling promotion with a sports like feel. Not goofy WWE garbage. Wednesday nights at 8pm EST 7pm central on TBS.

Are you certain about that? The announcement excluded AEW, and I saw this:

Did WBD just make the move that will eventually lead to AEW streaming?

AEW on Max? Looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer to see if it happens.

wrestlingjunkie.usatoday.com

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Yay, the slowest and least user-friendly streaming platform that I'm subscribed to will have games that I never watch on it.

Seriously, finding out that a game I want to watch is being broadcast streaming-only all but kills my interest in watching.

 

[Chileiceman]

Yay, the slowest and least user-friendly streaming platform that I'm subscribed to will have games that I never watch on it.

Seriously, finding out that a game I want to watch is being broadcast streaming-only all but kills my interest in watching.

These wouldn't be streaming only games, they'd be ones that are airing on TNT. It's an option for cable cutters.

 

[awfulwaffle]

These wouldn't be streaming only games, they'd be ones that are airing on TNT. It's an option for cable cutters.

Beneficial for me. I split Youtube TV with a couple buddies during football season. So having Max for any games for NBA/NHL that are on TNT when we're not splitting it is a huge bonus. Am I willing to pay $10 extra though? We'll see, as the teams I am a fan of aren't on those channels very often. Might be something beneficial for playoff time for sure though.

 

[jkrdevil]

Are you certain about that? The announcement excluded AEW, and I saw this:

Did WBD just make the move that will eventually lead to AEW streaming?

AEW on Max? Looks like we’ll have to wait a little longer to see if it happens.

wrestlingjunkie.usatoday.com

Does AEW fall under the WBD Sports umbrella? Wrestling isn’t actually sports, it is scripted programming.

 

[joelef]

Does AEW fall under the WBD Sports umbrella? Wrestling isn’t actually sports, it is scripted programming.

So is the nfl

 

[Poppy Whoa Sonnet]

This is all too confusing for the average consumer

 

[Barnum]

This is all too confusing for the average consumer

The only thing to understand is this move is to take more money from you. That’s it. They keep branching off little subset stations and making you pay more for it.

 

[Masked]

AEW pro wrestling will also be on it. If you’re not familiar it’s a pro wrestling promotion with a sports like feel. Not goofy WWE garbage. Wednesday nights at 8pm EST 7pm central on TBS.

Wut? It does not have a sports like feel. It's just WWE garbage but with the wrestlers less concerned about working safe and a more WCW booking style.

Assen na yo!

 

[tarheelhockey]

Yay, the slowest and least user-friendly streaming platform that I'm subscribed to will have games that I never watch on it.

Seriously, finding out that a game I want to watch is being broadcast streaming-only all but kills my interest in watching.

Am I willing to pay $10 extra though? We'll see, as the teams I am a fan of aren't on those channels very often.

This is where the tribalism of the NHL becomes a problem for national broadcasters. In other sports the big national broadcasts are the unmissable event. In hockey, national broadcasts are an annoyance that disrupts the local team’s schedule.

I’m not sure there’s a good solution for this from a national broadcast standpoint. There simply is no such thing as the regular season NHL game that all fanbases want to see.

 

[oknazevad]

This is where the tribalism of the NHL becomes a problem for national broadcasters. In other sports the big national broadcasts are the unmissable event. In hockey, national broadcasts are an annoyance that disrupts the local team’s schedule.

I’m not sure there’s a good solution for this from a national broadcast standpoint. There simply is no such thing as the regular season NHL game that all fanbases want to see.

Same with MLB. In many ways it's even worse there as the double number of games makes the local broadcasts feel really strongly part of the team identity. Hell, the number of people who complained about the midweek YouTube day games last couple of years was funny. Those games were free, so it's not like they could complain about the price. And people who complain about paying for streaming while acting like cable is free really makes me laugh.

 

[SJSharksfan39]

Sounds like this will help those who use the Fubo streaming service. One of the reasons Fubo was out for me was because they didn't have TNT or TBS. This seems to solve that problem.

 

[jkrdevil]

Same with MLB. In many ways it's even worse there as the double number of games makes the local broadcasts feel really strongly part of the team identity. Hell, the number of people who complained about the midweek YouTube day games last couple of years was funny. Those games were free, so it's not like they could complain about the price. And people who complain about paying for streaming while acting like cable is free really makes me laugh.

NBA is really the only pro league that has a big feel for national regular season games, a big part of that is TNT’s production quality.

NFL and college sports all the games are national broadcaster games (though there are tiers).

MLB midweek games take place at the same time as 14 other games so viewers will opt for local games. Fox weekends games are regionalized. Sunday Night Baseball used to have that feel, but the production churn has dampened it. Plus with baseball by the time Sunday Night roles around the teams have just played each other 2/3 times in the days prior. Baseball has so many games that bug regular season games don’t exist for the most part.

For NHL, TNT on Wednesdays could have that. But the “b” package limiting times that can take top teams hurts the schedule. ESPN has a better slate of games, but they all occur on busy nights of the schedule (see baseball effect). And their production is terrible. I don’t want to watch a nearly 60 year old Buccigross call my team playing like he is a pre-teen.

 

[joelef]

People want stuff for free when it really isn’t. Netflix gave to many people delusions.

 

[awfulwaffle]

People want stuff for free when it really isn’t. Netflix gave to many people delusions.

Or, call me crazy, would prefer to see everything on one platform. Cable/Satellite used to be that way, but it just got too expensive. Now, we are running into the problem with streaming because you need 5 different subscriptions to be able to watch what you want at this point. MLB has what, Apple+, peackock?, espn, tbs, fs1. It's absurd.

 

[Reality Check]

it’s a pro wrestling promotion with a sports like feel. Not goofy WWE garbage.

 

[joelef]

Or, call me crazy, would prefer to see everything on one platform. Cable/Satellite used to be that way, but it just got too expensive. Now, we are running into the problem with streaming because you need 5 different subscriptions to be able to watch what you want at this point. MLB has what, Apple+, peackock?, espn, tbs, fs1. It's absurd.

No one is forcing you to get all of those . So you prefer monopolies? I thought monopolies were bad?

Or, call me crazy, would prefer to see everything on one platform. Cable/Satellite used to be that way, but it just got too expensive. Now, we are running into the problem with streaming because you need 5 different subscriptions to be able to watch what you want at this point. MLB has what, Apple+, peackock?, espn, tbs, fs1. It's absurd.

.
It’s called competition.

Or, call me crazy, would prefer to see everything on one platform. Cable/Satellite used to be that way, but it just got too expensive. Now, we are running into the problem with streaming because you need 5 different subscriptions to be able to watch what you want at this point. MLB has what, Apple+, peackock?, espn, tbs, fs1. It's absurd.

Yes and cable/ salite being a monopoly it was make it so expensive in the first place.

 

[awfulwaffle]

No one is forcing you to get all of those . So you prefer monopolies? I thought monopolies were bad?

.
It’s called competition.



Yes and cable/ salite being a monopoly it was make it so expensive in the first place.

No, nobody is forcing anyone to get them all. But I'm just saying, if you are a sports fan, you need to now subscribe to streaming only services(apple+, Amazon prime video), instead of everything in 1 package. That's bad for the consumer because now, your streaming services that were cheap, have only increased in price, then if you want access to everything, it costs the consumer more than just regular cable used to for the most part.

There is going to be a time in the future where the tv money going to these professional sports is going to hit a ceiling, and maybe even drop. It's going to be fun to see what the leagues do.

 

[mouser]

I used to have Directv, could see every single football game for my B1G alma mater on one of the major channels or Big Ten Network.

Switched to Fubo last season, still received every single game from my alma mater across all the different networks.

Now this season couldn’t watch my school on Fubo last week because the game was exclusively carried on Peacock.

 

[eddygee]

No, nobody is forcing anyone to get them all. But I'm just saying, if you are a sports fan, you need to now subscribe to streaming only services(apple+, Amazon prime video), instead of everything in 1 package. That's bad for the consumer because now, your streaming services that were cheap, have only increased in price, then if you want access to everything, it costs the consumer more than just regular cable used to for the most part.

There is going to be a time in the future where the tv money going to these professional sports is going to hit a ceiling, and maybe even drop. It's going to be fun to see what the leagues do.

Alot of truth in that in fact its already happened. Its just been covered up slightly by the Streamers entering the room albeit as of yet not the type of money that the leagues would e saying would be splashed. The big streamers have so far been very strategic in the money they've spent. They haven't just been grabbing sports and spending like drunken sailors. So far Apple has gotten MLB and MLS and Amazon/YouTube TV have spent money on a cpl NFL packages that have supplemented existing deal revenues for those packages but it's NFL.

There's been a real underlying concern that the much anticipated big streaming revenues that would come and alleviate shrinking tv revenue which paid the old ever increasing deals won't materialize. NBA which was largely considered safe and would get its own NFL type of 4x deal has had that project cut in half.

 

[Bonk]

No one is forcing you to get all of those . So you prefer monopolies? I thought monopolies were bad?

.
It’s called competition.



Yes and cable/ salite being a monopoly it was make it so expensive in the first place.

We've had DirecTV, Dish Network and cable for a long time. Three options by definition isn't a monopoly, it's an oligopoly.

Where's the competition when random streaming services gain exclusive rights to games?

 

[varsaku]

I used to have Directv, could see every single football game for my B1G alma mater on one of the major channels or Big Ten Network.

Switched to Fubo last season, still received every single game from my alma mater across all the different networks.

Now this season couldn’t watch my school on Fubo last week because the game was exclusively carried on Peacock.

This was bound to happen as cable is collapsing. Each service is scrambling to establish a stable subscriber base before the Cable gravy train completely stops. Streaming is not as lucrative unless you have a large subscriber base like Netflix. Disney is learning this the hard way. Leagues are capitalizing on this desperation from streaming services to get exclusive content to draw subscribers. Without this desperation, the exclusive streaming deals wouldn’t be this lucrative.

 

[jkrdevil]

Thumbing through the schedule I noticed they added the Heritage Classic to air on TBS. Wasn’t on the original TNT / Max schedule.