Cable Crunch

 The best part about Cable TV, or over the air TV, anyways, is the ability to flip channels. As we sit here now, I am flipping from the Twins game to Monday Night Football, all with the press of a button. That is right now the last best thing about over the air TV, the ability to toggle through live events easily.

Sure, if you have more than one screen, or multiple apps completely eviscerating your CPU, you could watch a bunch of events with a simple flip of a button or what have you. On college football Saturday's it would be a challenge to have several ESPN versions running, in addition to Fox Sports, Youtube or whatever college games are going to be on. And during the postseason, I would want MLB.TV up and running as well...

With Bally Sports about to collapse, the Minnesota sports teams are going to be free agents. The only local area networks that I can think of that might be able to secure the rights to keep local sports on air locally are things like 45, WFTC or the CW. Don't count out the CW, which has purchased the rights to LIV and Inside the NFL. They are making a sports play, and local sports rights might be next.

But then the Loons and the rest of MLS have gone to Apple TV. I can't imagine other sports will be different. We already have Amazon, Peacock and ESPN taking pro sports online. There is a decent chance local sports are taken out of locals' hands, as with the MLS. With TV deal money already becoming limited, the inability to tap into local interest seems like it could be ruinous for the non-NFL leagues.

The next few years are going to be tough for sports fans, especially those like me, who like to watch a quantity of sports, as we adapt, and will be forced to pick and choose what it is we want to enjoy.  The rest of the TV world was subsidizing sports ans forever, so I guess turnabout is fair play.

The next best thing about Cable TV was the array of channels that I can turn on and leave to take in idly.  Law and Order marathons, cooking shows, weather, things like that. Now, there is plenty of 'free' live television, or subscription television, like FreeVee, Peacock and Paramount +. You can leave it on for hours without having to be invested in anything, and it's great.

If only there was a platform that could aggregate all the live sports for us now. I don't think that's going to be happening, though. And that's a bummer.