Eagles Fan Shows the Flaw in NFL Broadcasting
A Die-Hard Eagles Fan Turned NFL Streaming Chaos into an Optimization Problem
Philadelphia Eagles fans are, as often happens, having an impact on the news. Dianna Russini’s Eagles fan husband has emerged as character of intrigue in that ongoing situation. In past interviews Russini said her reporting on the team was chiefly done for his and their marriage’s sake. While that might have been meant as a joke, it’s hard to tell with the Philadelphia cohort. They tend to take fun and games a little more seriously than the rest of us, escalating situations beyond standard social norms.
Their intensely earnest approach to theoretical leisure can apparently have an impact on politics and business, as well. Take this recent story, highlighted in the Policyband newsletter and sent in by an alert House of Strauss subscriber. The article titled, “D.C. Memo: Die-Hard Eagles Fan in Indiana Created ‘Optimization Algorithm’ to Slash His Annual NFL Streaming Bill by 60%” is about the titular subject plus a lot more. This guy Ryan Kellermeyer created a HUDDLEMAXX algorithm that took his cost of out of market Eagles watching from $973 to $403 a year. The algo accomplished this by gaming the “free trial” system, strategically seizing on promotional windows.
True to Eagles fan form, Kellermeyer didn’t just stop there. He also invoked his invention in an FCC filing that crushed the Consumer Technology Association “for suggesting NFL deals with Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube TV represented a functioning market that promoted consumer choice.” I don’t believe that Kellermeyer is in breach of any laws here, but his act reminds me of the “I deserve some recognition” scene from The Social Network. Kellermeyer’s not just presenting his hack of the system as a feat of individual ingenuity but also as proof of systemic failure:
This is the marketplace the CTA is asking the [FCC] to leave alone. The average fan needs five to six streaming services to watch a full season of one team. Not all 32 teams. One team.
He’s got a point. It would be easier to frame Kellermeyer’s manipulation as ethically dubious if he could have just paid for Sunday Ticket, an NFL service marketed to fans like himself. In that scenario, perhaps the football cartel has fans over a barrel, but they aren’t making them jump through hoops. There’s a service, there’s a cost, and it is what it is.
Apparently, Sunday NFL Ticket covers fewer than half the Philadelphia games, though. Someone like Kellermeyer, and millions of fans in a similar position, now require an overlapping patchwork of streaming services just to accomplish one simple goal. This speaks to an overall modern frustration with sports fandom. Beyond the expense of all these different services, it’s just complicated to follow sports right now. Perhaps only slightly less complicated than an optimization algorithm that takes advantage of free trial windows.
I am far from an expert on monopoly law and whether it’s wrong that the NFL continues to be protected by the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 antitrust exemption. I’ve no position on whether the FCC should intervene in the current “marketplace,” such as it is. I’m even, for now, agnostic on the matter of whether it’s bad if Amazon airs the Super Bowl, a possibility that appears to have raised the hackles of current FCC commissioner Brendan Carr.
I’m just sympathetic to the plight of modern fans, tasked with navigating modern TV rights chaos. You can accuse me of being less price sensitive than I should be, but my belief is that the rising cost of fandom isn’t so much monetary as it is personal bandwidth. By showing us how he saves money, Kellermeyer is also demonstrating the obnoxious difficulty of paying full freight. It’s one thing to ask me to pay you more for a service and another to demand that I also make acquiring the service into a part time job. People might tolerate expense, but they’ll really hate if the expense comes with a scavenger hunt attached.
The key phrase there is "out of market." If he lived in Philadelphia, he'd be able to watch every Eagles game on over-the-air TV for the cost of an antenna. There's another hack that I've been doing since my 20s, which is called "watching the game at a bar that has Sunday Ticket." That would likely be cheaper than his strategic patchwork of cancelling and un-cancelling.
I think it's worth remembering how unique this moment in history is. You never got to see every game on television. Historically, you saw 3 games in the Sunday slot, which later expanded to those 3 games + Monday night, then those 3 games + Sunday and Monday nights, and finally those 3 games + Thursday, Sunday, and Monday nights. The NFL is under no obligation to make all of its games available at all, either on cable or streaming.
And honestly, it's only the most passionate of fans who want to see every game. Everyone was just fine until not that long ago with not seeing every game in its entirety. You'd watch the highlights or read about the other games in the sports section. And most people are STILL fine with that-- what happens is that with the option of seeing every game, some fans will pay a lot of money for that privilege. Which is fine-- charging them a lot of money shouldn't actually be any more controversial that the markups on official souvenirs at the team store. These things are all just "ways to get the most passionate fans to spend more money", which is sports marketing 101.
I think there IS a Sports Broadcasting Act concern if they start taking games OFF of free TV. So far this has only happened to the Thursday Night games nobody cares about and which were only added not long ago. But if it becomes the case that you can only get MNF on Streaming, or SNF, or one of the 3 Sunday games, that's probably a red line.
But people who want to watch every game? The NFL can charge them whatever the market will bear, as far as I am concerned. They're freaks.