I was presently surprised to find live video on the Amgen Tour of California app. I was able to watch the end of Stage 1 shortly after finishing our family's Mother's Day Celebration on Sunday.
Every day thousands of Americans unplug from cable and satellite. We did it last winter and the only regret I've had is losing out on some live sports. I can't say I miss anything else. There's so much to watch on Netflix, Hulu+ and, oh yeah, broadcast TV. Most of the local stations now have a second broadcast stream that carries old television shows and movies, etc. And there are there PBS's!
Sports is lagging behind somewhat, mostly due to antiquated television rights deals. Among the sports I follow, Major League Baseball seems to have done the best job, with some qualification. I am a firstly a Royal's fan and a Dodger's fan second. I can watch all the Dodger gams on MLB's subscription-based At Bat service. I usually watch on my iPad or stream to Apple TV. I can't watch Royals games. I can only listen to them thanks to the local market blackout. The Royals have no local broadcast deal - all games are on cable - so highlights of my favorite team are it.
The NFL has less of a problem. All the Chiefs games are on broadcast, though theoretically the threat of a blackout exists, though it has not happened for 20 years or so. Every home game sells out. You can pretty much watch dusk-to-dawn football on Sundays and that's enough for me.
Sporting KC, our MLS team, also sells out every game. They are reliably on local, broadcast TV. Big European matches are now broadcast in the US. Saturday's FA Cup was thrilling.
The NHL and NBA are irrelevant in my universe. I used to be a hockey fan, but drifted away after the strikes. This last one did it. I'm out of the habit and I just don't have time. I'm still stinging from the Kings moving to Sacramento and now the winds of change are blowing again - they appear ready to move to Seattle.
I could go on. I haven't even mentioned NASCAR (most races live on the networks) and the Indy 500, for me the biggest event of the year.
College sports is spotty, but it's still easy to be a fan. There are plenty of football and basketball games broadcast on regular television. Mizzou football games are a big enough deal to me that I will go to a bar to catch most or all of a game. The SEC has just announced a deal that will begin in 2014 that should allow me the opportunity to watch even more games, and from all devices.
That brings us to Cycling. Cycling is a sport, in my opinion, that was made for the iPad. I can watch video of the peleton and have a map and stats right there on the same screen. I hope we see more of this in coming years.
It's inevitable, of course.
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