Rumor: Clippers Streaming TV Station Coming?

If a new Clippers TV internet-only station arrives, it will likely strike another blow to cable, especially in the Los Angeles area. I'm just not sure how that will work since the NBA already has its own League Pass product, and whether Ballmer would be authorized to create his own Clippers station that streams games live.

Hope it happens real soon. Getting ready to to cut the cord here in the next month...unfortunately it won't happen that soon, LOL.

would be nice if you lived outside LA. But it could also be a way to drive up the TV rights.

Living in SF, this would enable me to potentially save money and not have to buy league pass...

I hope this is just a negotiation tactic. It would be great for fans out of the area, but for me and others that watch on Prime Ticket it would mean having to now pay to watch, which is extremely irritating. I know it's a business, but seems like Ballmer is jacking prices on everything - I saw the new merchandise and they had $45 T-SHIRTS!!

Ouch- for a plain old shirt? That's crazy. Those of you who are cable subscribers I don't think the negotiations are dead yet- didn't Time Warner pay like $100 mil for....

Prime Ticket is the main reason I pay $110 a month to TWC! If this happens I'd only have to give them $40 for internet! I watch most things on my apple TV anyway!

I would love to have this option. I already cut cable as our household hardly watched any of the bazillion channels that were part of the damn bundled package I had to get just so I could watch the Clippers. Wouldn't have been so bad if the cable company had fair prices, but their constant jacking up of prices for every little thing was beyond annoying. NBA League Pass blacks out local games so that is a joke if I wanted to watch Clippers' games live. Thinking of signing up for Sling TV as it has some channels that would air Clippers' games, but if Clippers eventually had their own streaming service, that would be perfect for me.

It would not happen till the 2016-2017 season ...the clips are under contract for this season..

could you imagine going out of the country and watching every game on your laptop..

he would be a trailblazer in the tv industry....I would pay $12 bucks a month..

Would we still have Ralph Lawler? Is he under contract with primeticket�fox or the Clippers? I'm not paying if Ralph Lawler isn't announcing.

So... you mean I can still have the Clippers on TV, cancel my cable, and with the money I save, actually buy my wife a ticket to the one home game I attend each month instead of having her wait outside Staples for me in the rain? ...Genius! Yellow_Flash_Colorz_PDT_04 Yellow_Flash_Colorz_PDT_08 NBA league-pass f*cked up big time by giving up local rights, otherwise I'd gladly give them $250 a year for our games. My directv bill runs me about $100 a month, and that's AFTER I have to call the motherf*ckers every 6 months and threaten to leave if they don't find me....

I'm pretty sure Ballmer would hire Lawler to do the play by play if he wanted to still be the announcer. Maybe not Michael Smith though.

Support this 100 percent for a few reasons.

1. I'm moving to Washington at end of year and for other fans outside of California this would be awesome. That's my selfish reason .

2. As others have implied I only have cable to watch the Clippers. Everything else I can find online. So if Clippers go stream path I can save prob 60+ a month (assuming streaming isn't more than 15 or 20 a month).

3. I think it would be Innovative and start a trend in sports, transforming the sports industry. Would be cool for the Clippers to be known as trailblazers of success, not failure for once.

4. I've gotten into it here with posters for this view but I feel Fox Sports coverage of the Clippers is complete crap. Besides a 30 minute show once a week... the network has almost nothing Clippers outside of games. The reporters suck mostly and I feel like the Clippers are their 4th or 5th option, especially before they lost all the teams recently.

I don't think the Clippers have enough of a fanbase right now to go in this route. Like the article posted, the monthly charge (12 months) at approx 500 thou, barely gets you over what FSN offered the Clippers. That doesn't include the cost of having to create a broadcasting crew and all the equipment it takes to get it going and to maintain. That's a lot of money to invest in a team that doesn't have nearly as big of a fanbase as the Lakers.

I think this is just a ploy to get the most money possible out of FSN.

LOL yeah when I had cable that's pretty much what I do in the past saying "I want to cancel" with Time Warner, though I still have to do it when they raise the price on the internet. I just made sure I had an actual better offer from a competitor like AT&T prepped (very easy) and they will pretty much beat it.

I watch all Clipper games on Fox Sports channel in Vegas. If they're played early in the day it's always rerun in evening or nights. During the summer I ordered NBA channel to watch the summer league and stay updated on the news especially with De Andre.

Go Clips

The Nevada Fans

can't wait for ballmer to price out all the fans. just like the dodgers

I can't wait. I cut the cable because I was paying for stations in languages only spoken on Tattooine. The NFL is available on "free" digital TV, movies on Netflix

Which only leaves baseball (which I detest on many levels) and the Clippers -- which I get on my Clipper fanatics man/wife (he's a liberal!) cave.

The cable money I save I can use for Staples tix.

My late father predicted "you will wind up paying for all the stuff you get for free." Dad -- you were right.

If Ballmer gets me a dedicated streaming service, there's nothing else I need -- although I will still watch many games with my friend.

Go Steve!!!!

That's pretty much what will happen. People who have cable packages (Internet, cable, land line), and have free access to watch the Clippers, will look at this as an added cost. I'd be furious if I now have to pay to watch the Clippers ....And on Internet to add insult to injury. I won't pay for it just out of principal but I would find a way to watch. Paying 12 months a year for service when the season is only a fraction of the year is bogus. Basically, the Clippers would be a mini (pay per view) enterprise. F that.

This would be awesome for me. I don't want cable/directv because I'm always busy. My family can always watch Netflix/Apple TV and movies for the kids shows and I only watch sports.

If I'm not working, I'm with my wife and kids, on the off chance I'm not doing either, I'm in Oakland watching a Raider game (season tix holder), or watching Clippers on TV - which sucks because being in the Bay Area I have to get NBA League Pass for about $200 for the 50 or so games that aren't nationally televised. I seriously don't spend time watching tv unless it's the Clippers or Raiders. Give me the streaming service please

i used to be a HARDCORE dodger fan up until Magic and crew showed up. Haven't been able to watch a game in years and now don't really give a **** about the team. Because why should I? They destroyed any notion of fan loyalty and focused purely on profits. its absolute BS.

If Ballmer goes to pay for internet viewing of Clipper games, it will be a disaster. He will alienate all the older fans who have all they can do figuring out how their cable and satellite works. There are a lot of the plus 50's who love their Clippers, but simply aren't tech savvy enough and aren't interested in getting tech savvy enough to continue their relationship with the Clippers if they have to do it over the internet.

Many others will view Clipper games as an added cost, as Joe rightly says, and simply choose to opt out.

Then there is the other element. Because sports are something that the vast majority of viewers choose to watch live, it is a natural for television. The time outs provide natural breaks for commercials, which make them worth more to over the air, cable and satellite broadcast. Now, I know commercials will fit into the internet programming as well, but that would seem to me to be an additional negative. Not only do we have to pay extra, but we get no relief from commercials. That is yet another negative that will turn some off.

Also, in my area, the only wifi I can get is Time Warner. And Time Warner sucks. The picture on our downstairs TV, when watching something that is wifi delivered, is visibly degraded. It is slow and dark and I have up-to-date equipment.

That said, it's coming. In five or ten years the difference between internet delivery and other delivery systems will be seamless, but we're not there yet. Don't push it.

what if he just keeps the tv deal, but adds a streaming option to sites like hulu? just spitballing here

I have wifi from time warner and no cable..

netflix and my other channels that I stream come in clear on my tv's..

maybe sammy needs to get more speed on his internet..?? or new tv"s??

I streamed the playoffs last year..there is plenty of room for commercials...there were plenty of them..

same as cable...only difference is...that this would be a first for the nba..

people would have to get used to it..

think of it???

streaming the clipper game on your phone while at the bank..

or while at a boring wedding...or watching it on a tablet or on your computer at work..

nothing but choices for us fans..

and other teams will probably follow...

then we could stream football and baseball,

this is the future..

the clipper owner is a leader...

not a follower..

let him lead..

how about he just leaves everything as it is, accepts the offer.

i mean, he's already one of the richest people in the world - he doesn't need to make more money while screwing over a good number of loyal fans.

You can already stream live Clippers games.

FOX Sports GO

Savvy business move. If you're expanding the clippers brand to gain new fans, this is a good start. Everyone will just have to get use to it since every outlet is doing the streaming business now, that's where the business is headed whether it's liked or not. Hulu, Netflix, HBO go, playstation vue, Apple TV, showtime (which can now be viewed In Hulu for an extra 5 bucks). They're pretty much cutting out the middle man. Instead of buying league pass, you can buy individual team channels. If it's not Balmer, it's someone else who will think of it and the direction will eventually head the streaming way. Whether we like it or not, for business men, gaining ten additional fans are more important than losing one loyal fan. That's the sad truth

That's exactly what it is. If Fox Sports can offer $60,000,000, it's only because they think they can get MORE than that from advertisers and cable providers AFTER the overheads of production costs.

This may be just Ballmer's ploy to extort more money from them THIS time around, but it is inevitably the way of the future, hence Netflix culling their movie library in order to invest further in creating and distributing original content.

The cable companies will either have to evolve or perish.

Never even thought about Balmer using the streaming service as a bargaining chip, that's an excellent point. But yeah either way, technological advancement and evolution is inevitable. Cable needs to evolve or their fate will be parallel to blockbuster and blackberries

Most RSN's already offer up free streaming through their websites. I think they've already evolved. For those that want to watch their favorite teams that are not in their area, you have NBA League pass. What Ballmer is trying to do is not innovative since the NBA has been steaming games for years. All he is trying....

It's the laker channel run by time warner cable, exclusively only showing lakers programming, which is approved by he nba because the nba is run by cable and networks.

The networks pay the nba to show the games.

Because of advertisements, people who have cable, etc, they're able to pay the nba a certain amount of money per number of years.

i think the possibilities are there, why can't they get approve? if you can back an investment with money and advertisers, and match whatever percentage the nba is getting from the cable company, plus more since it's going straight to Balmer, I think he can match whatever percentage they're losing from losing the clippers on cable. Sounds improbable but nothing really is impossible. Marketing standpoint, it can be done

The LOCAL broadcast rights are owned solely by team owners, as long as they don't conflict with collective, NBA-mandated broadcast agreements like the ones with Turner and Disney.

Nothing to stop Ballmer broadcasting exclusively to the local market over the web (officially, at least), and if people use a VPN to access the broadcasts out of market - or outside the US - there are no rules being broken by him. Ballmer still gets to tell his advertisers that, say, ten million people who appear to be in Los Angeles (though they might really be anywhere on the planet) are viewing their ads, and charge them accordingly.

The Fountain Valley body shop with the big smiley-face might not bite... but the Nikes, Coca-Colas and McDonalds' of the world certainly will.

Just like the Clips re-upping DJ... it's going to happen, whether you like it or not.

Seems to me like the only way forward for FoxSports is to give up a slice of their network, as MrHill suggested... which can only be good for the franchise.

Evolve or perish.

LOL!

Hit a nerve I guess. Had to throw out something irrelevant into a discussion. But my point still stands. Netflix is a horrible comparison. Netflix is a vehicle that streams and creates it's own content of entertainment. It's also a on demand version of a cable channel over the internet. For the sake of argument, I mean in the market of movie and TV entertainment. I say this cause I know you will find a way to play with words to keep the argument going. What Ballmer is doing is not new and is already happening on a bigger scale by the NBA itself. Plus, cable outlets are already paying huge amounts of money to keep or steer away teams. As long as that keeps happening,Lakers 2 billion deal, MSG, and Comcast are still ruling the major and small markets. Just cause no team has a internet broadcast outlet yet, doesn't mean it's the way to go. Not as long as you can pay to watch all teams live, or on demand if you buy league pass.

Very little market for a team with a small fanbase going internet when you can get that team as well as all the other teams in a package deal. You say, "what about the local market?". I say it's going to be a hard buy when you were watching them for free on a local RSN. I'd rather buy League pass in another country, or pay for a VPN and get league pass. At least then, i have the option to see all the games, at any time. I'd rather spend $200 for the full package then spend $144 for just the Clippers. That is of course that the monthly fee will just be $12 a month. You think other Clippers fans won't see it that way too? Think again.

Netflix is the pioneer and the only pioneer of their movement. There is a reason why they're successful. Clippers would have to compete with the pioneer...Not netfliox, but NBA league pass. That there is why Ballmer isn't doing something innovative. The NBA beat him to it.; lol

Oh, and you add insult to injury when most RSN's offer live streaming on their websites already. So not only can you get a RSN on basic cable (for the most part) to watch live games, you can also stream the games on mobile devices using the RSN's websites...FOR FREE!!!!!. Ain't that a hoot? Someone should tell Ballmer.

"Apple watch is the next big thing"

"BETAMAX will replace VHS"

"New Formula Coke and Crystal Pepsi will be huge"

Not even close, dude. Don't flatter yourself.

For FREE? Really? Oh, well then I'll just cancel my Directv and watch it on the net "for free". Seems like we have quite a few Clips fans here who'd be quite happy to give up paying in excess of $60 a month + equipment charges + DVR service charges + HD premiums, etc. for 200 shitty channels that repeat the same crap every 3 hours that they don't watch and just pay their $12 to enjoy their team a la carte... but if you enjoy your "Real Housewives of Omaha" and such, they'll probably be streamable in future, too, so don't fret.

Que sera, sera.

You're so freaking predictable...Passive aggressive troll.

As far as the rest of the crap you wrote, you know what I meant. If you get FSN, not only can you watch live games, but can watch live streaming from their website for free. In laymen's terms, there is no added cost.

My qualifier to your predictable antics:

"For the sake of argument, I mean in the market of movie and TV entertainment. I say this cause I know you will find a way to play with words to keep the argument going."

True to form I must say.

"So not only can you get a RSN on basic cable (for the most part) to watch live games, you can also stream the games on mobile devices using the RSN's websites...FOR FREE!!!!!"

Say this in one thought and tell me how anyone can come away with saying you can watch live streaming Clippers games for free without HAVING FSN on basic cable? Can't make this crap up.

Then it's not "Free" is it? ...it's "included" in the (extortionate) price.

Try going to a steakhouse and asking for a baked potato and vegetables without paying for a steak and see where that gets you.

Like they give a frack about yours? Don't flatter yourself mister moderator troll. This is only a forum...Nothing more, nothing less.

Didn't claim they did. And yes, this is a forum... and as far as I understand the rules, simply giving my opinion doesn't make me a troll.

Did I "hit a nerve", Joe?

Uh, you are aware that the streaming was recently added, right? No extra cost was added on the cable bill. So isn't that a free option that wasn't offered before? What do you call gong to a steakhouse that you frequent and ordering the surf and turf for 10 years and all of a sudden, you're now being offered an option for a second side dish at no extra charge?

"hey garson, why does the menu now have the surf and turf with a second side dish and the price is still the same?"

"We now offer a second side for free...No extra charge for our customers:".

capiche?

Nope.

But this is trolling:

"but if you enjoy your "Real Housewives of Omaha" and such, they'll probably be streamable in future, too."

Why don't you use your pseudo powers and revise your quote like you did mine? Anyway, time to move on. It's crazy batshit.

Yes, streaming is indeed a recent addition... and there have also been recent increases in cable and satellite rates. Funny coincidence, that.

Oh, and by the way, it's "garcon", not garson. If you're going to be pretentious enough to use foreign words (and disparaging ones, at that - do you really address your waiters as "boy"?), at least learn how to spell them correctly.

What exactly did I revise, Joe?

Are you trying to imply that there was some timeless, philosophical pearl of wisdom in your post, of which I deprived the world?

I think not.

I hit 'edit' instead of 'quote' and accidentally typed my response into your post, so I removed it and left your post exactly as written. Believe me, I don't have to mess with your words in order to expose your "pseudo" intellect... you've already got that covered, "garson".

A man with no argument, or can't contest what is brought in front of him, will grab at straws to find his outlet. Fine, you found your outlet. You'll find tons of misspelled words, incorrect punctuation, and even certain words I tend to duplicate from time to time. . If that is all you have, maybe you should team up with Donald Trump cause it's getting pretty petty up in this mofo.

By the way, this brings me back to my original post where I said you have be CLEAR, leave no opening for you on anything, anyone writes. When you're left with nothing to rebuttal, you'll find a way to deflect, distract, or focus and respond to something other than what is brought in front of you. You're so predictable it's not even funny. True to form...Like I said.

"Evolve or perish"

"Beta will replace VHS"

" New coke will replace the old formula"

There are plenty of other instances where "evolve " caused a backlash and failed. So time will will tell who is right about this.

Whatever you say, Joe. After all, you're the expert when it comes to making pointless, irrelevant arguments. I mean, Donald Trump? ...that's quite a segue there, buddy!

What I see on this thread is a plurality of fans only too happy to cut the cord and save money by paying ONLY to watch Clippers basketball instead of subsidizing a whole heap of other crap that they never watch. Will it be enough to be financially viable for Ballmer? Nobody knows... not even the author of the article. But the beauty of any streaming service wholly owned by the franchise is that if it turns out to NOT be profitable, he can pull the plug and negotiate a local broadcast deal with whichever networks he chooses (or even directly with service providers, as did the lakers) and at any time he chooses.

Sorry if those facts are too "distracting" for you.