ESPN3

Television services and online video discussion.
82 posts Page 3 of 9
by bmcdonnell » Fri May 25, 2012 7:34 pm
virtualmike wrote:
bmcdonnell wrote:Exactly the same boat. I just upgraded to Sonic at home and work and if I realized ahead of time I would lose ESPN I would have held off in one location.
Are you dropping your TV services from your old carrier?
Haven't had any TV services or cable since about '91.
by bmcdonnell » Fri May 25, 2012 7:35 pm
How much extra would you be willing to pay in order to have access to ESPN3?
Someone said $5/month, I'd be glad to go $10/month.

For now the benefit of high-er speed DSL, and not dealing with ATT is great. I guess we all come at this from different viewpoints. For me, if a competitor came into the market with service at a similar speed, but with ESPN added, I would jump at it at up to twice the Sonic price.

As I say, different views.
by virtualmike » Sun May 27, 2012 8:39 pm
bmcdonnell wrote:Haven't had any TV services or cable since about '91.
I guess I'm confused. How do you "lose" ESPN if you don't have cable?
by rcoaster » Wed May 30, 2012 4:28 pm
It looks as if bmcdonnell had the ESPN3 service through a previous Internet provider, not regular ESPN.
by virtualmike » Wed May 30, 2012 5:46 pm
OIC
by Jeff » Wed Jun 06, 2012 5:19 pm
Just to chime in...I would like to switch to Sonic.net (hate Comcast), but the lack of ESPN3 is a dealbreaker for me. I would be willing to pay an additional $10+/month for this.
by bkbooths » Sat Jul 07, 2012 2:13 pm

I would be very willing to pay for ESPN3 access. The sports I want are all on ESPN3. There isn't a good alternative to ESPN3 if you want to watch a variety of sports, women’s sports, or “unpopular” sports.

What I am struggling with is that sonic offers exactly the type of product that people like me want - solid internet service without having to go with a large, non-local vendor like Comcast or DirecTV. I don't want to have to pay $30/mo for DirecTV to get some popular games. I don't want to have to go with Comcast and am willing to get much slower bandwidth to avoid doing so. Additionally I disagree with the trend to offer sports only with the premium-plus packages and only in single venue options - what do you do if you want to watch something else like women's soccer or the world cup?? Given how much these TV options cost paying for the sports you want on an internet only venue is significantly less – isn’t there a way to market that?

I do, however, want to watch sports and show my family that there are more sports out there than baseball/basketball/football. There are NO locations to watch this on the internet except ESPN3. Until there are other offerings, not having access to ESPN3 is an extreme limitation to the sonic.net service.

I understand that you want to save users from the fee. I understand that it is an obnoxious pricing model. I also understand that to watch sports, which right now are limited to ESPN3, I have to abandon all the other good things your service offers. For those of us trying to support you as a local, conscientious businesses it makes the choice to switch to comast or ATT even more bitter. Is this issue alone enough to cause me to switch - yes. I am currently pricing out alternatives. Would I pay a monthly fee to avoid switching providers - yes!
by virtualmike » Sat Jul 07, 2012 11:04 pm
bkbooths wrote:Would I pay a monthly fee to avoid switching providers - yes!
If only you had to pay the fee, it would be fine. But I don't want to watch ESPN3; yet, if Sonic.net offered it, then I'd have to pay that fee, even though I would NEVER watch the channel.
by dane » Sat Jul 07, 2012 11:25 pm
virtualmike wrote:
bkbooths wrote:Would I pay a monthly fee to avoid switching providers - yes!
If only you had to pay the fee, it would be fine. But I don't want to watch ESPN3; yet, if Sonic.net offered it, then I'd have to pay that fee, even though I would NEVER watch the channel.
What if the fee was very low?

This is a challenging one for me, because many folks really, really want ESPN3, but we'd have to accept the terms where everyone is charged, which is just wrong in a number of ways. But having used a demo account, it IS a compelling product.
Dane Jasper
Sonic
by virtualmike » Sun Jul 08, 2012 12:07 am
dane wrote:This is a challenging one for me, because many folks really, really want ESPN3, but we'd have to accept the terms where everyone is charged, which is just wrong in a number of ways. But having used a demo account, it IS a compelling product.
Could it be offered on a tiered service level, similar to the way cable companies offer "packages"? That way, only those who want the service have to pay for it.

Otherwise, perhaps I could make the business case that a movie service should be offered, even though the fee would be charged to everyone. And someone else might make the case that a music concert service should be offered, and .... Where to draw the line?

It certainly puts you in a hot seat!
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