As the NFL gets sued over Sunday Ticket, NBA offers à la carte games
If you're tired of bundles that force you to pay hundreds of dollars for games you'll never watch, two new developments might make you happy. First off, the NBA has announced that you can now buy individual games and team packages on its League Pass subscription, a fairly radical move that's likely to irk cable operators. On another front, DirecTV and the NFL have been slapped with a class-action suit claiming that the NFL Sunday Ticket violates antitrust laws.
By offering games à la carte, the NBA is trying to woo fans who don't want to pay $200 for an all-or-nothing bundle of 1,000 games. Since matches can be purchased over the internet, however, cable operators like Time Warner -- which paid the NBA $3.6 billion for cable rights -- may fear more cord-cutting. Cable companies have been mum so far on the news, but none have signed on with the NBA's new plan so far, according to Bloomberg. Many observers think that the move to game unbundling is inevitable, similar to how streaming from Netflix, HBO Now and others have put pay-per-view movies on life support.
Meanwhile, the NFL and partner DirecTV are battling an NFL Sunday Ticket lawsuit that may have significant ramifications. The antitrust suit alleges that "a Cleveland Browns fan living in California cannot watch the Browns play, except occasional games on network television, unless he purchases the entire package of League games from NFL Sunday Ticket." As such, it's seeking unspecified damages on behalf of affected fans who sign up for the class action. The NHL and MLB are embroiled in similar suits, and depending on the results, every major US league might be forced to take the same tack as the NBA.
