Sports

[Bibio]

can people explain what's so exciting to them about watching sports like moto gp, snooker or football etc.etc.

i personally dont get it, its like watching paint dry especially cricket which is just as boring if not more so than snooker.

give me a reason to change...

[pookie]

No don't go changing

[johnnyrod]

It is entertaining to watch people at the top of their game, but otherwise I'm a doer not a watcher. Crciket, snooker, golf... zzzzzzz on all levels

[kaivalagi]

I can understand watching highlights for some sports, but I agree, most of the time watching in real time it's very very boring...

The only thing I find I can watch real time is sevens rugby, 7 minutes a side and fast paced, with a lot of countries playing over 2 days, that to me is doable.

[littleoldman2]

We live at a time when we are lucky that we are bombarded with cheap or free entertainment. I often have F1 free practice, build ups, pre shows on in the background and listen whilst doing other stuff. Today I will have on the moto go followed by F1. Only because the forecast on the hills is dire or I'd be out on the bike.
Cannot remember the last time I watched a film of a live drama on TV. Prior to January we often didn't have the telly on for 2 or 3 days at a time.
I don't like cricket and don't watch it on TV but as a young man living in Nottingham it was a good afternoon in the sun with friends and beer at Trent Bridge.

[Red ones]

Originally Posted by littleoldman2

We live at a time when we are lucky that we are bombarded with cheap or free entertainment.

This is one of my pet grumbles. Its not that cheap.
Take football as a (probably the most extreme) example. If you have subscription TV then you pay for the football whether to subscribe to the football channels or not. It has to be that way. The sums paid by the TV companies for the broadcast rights are higher than they can ever possibly recover from the subscribers, so they have to add some of the cost of the rights to everyone's package. They are squeezed on what they can screw out of advertising in a market where advertising is getting cheaper and cheaper, but even that cost comes back to you the consumer.
So I may only want to watch BBC1, ITV etc but I still have to pay for Premier League.

Is it any wonder that subscription TV sports packages are dropping in popularity and people are walking away from them?

To make even clearer, Premier League matches, if you can get a ticket, are often £30 - £50 although a lot fill on season tickets which can be £1,000, but half of the teams would make a profit without the ticket income (even with the running costs of the stadia). When challenged on the cost the clubs quote high running costs (I wonder if the ridiculous salaries have anything to do with that?). But if they turn a profit without the fans in the seats surely they can reduce the cost of the seats and still turn a profit. Nothing matches to the fan experience in the stands, the atmosphere, the sound, the spectacle etc, but the pricing doesn't encourage the visit.

Then there are sports that are better on TV. If you watch motor racing trackside, yes the sound, the smell etc, but the action is ALWAYS on the other side of the track wherever you are

[kaivalagi]

You don't have to pay for TV if you don't want (except for a BBC TV licence if that's what you watch), you can watch via freeview or via internet streaming (tvplayer app and the various channel based apps for catch-up), which is what I now do. I have fire TV boxes for streaming content and use Kodi on them to stream local media files I keep too.

[Talking Heads]

You either get a sport or you don't.
I really enjoy watching cricket, simple yet very complex.TdF is something I look forward to.I enjoy MotoGP, am not much interested in superbikes and have a real dislike of the TT, speedway I used to go watch Glasgow Tigers.
MotoGP I mostly watch the highlights show, if BT/Dorna did a pay per view option they would possibly have me as a customer.


youtube-dl is a handy cli tool for Linux.

[Red ones]

Don't start me on Kodi an TVPlayer. Is it just me or do they really have an awful UI?
Kodi needs a degree to find anything in less than 15 hours of searching. TVPlayer likes to stop if you don't press a button every nanosecond, do it encourages channel hopping like a frog.

[Bibio]

Originally Posted by Red ones

Don't start me on Kodi an TVPlayer. Is it just me or do they really have an awful UI?
Kodi needs a degree to find anything in less than 15 hours of searching. TVPlayer likes to stop if you don't press a button every nanosecond, do it encourages channel hopping like a frog.

your using the wrong skin for kodi then. yes the default GUI on kodi is shocking.

i love kodi as a media browser but i only watch local media as i use the netflix app and freesat on the tv for everything else.

back to watching sports.. i still dont get it.