Football season is most definitely upon us, as I’ve hit training camp and received my first fantasy league invite.
Outside of the satellites themselves, DirecTV’s most costly investment has got to be their NFL broadcast rights ($700m – $1b/yr!). But it must be paying dividends, as every DTV subscriber I know sticks around for one exactly reason: Sunday Ticket. So, whereas we spend our Sunday afternoons parked at the wing place, many of my friends enjoy every game from the comfort of their own homes.
If memory serves, last year basic mobile streaming access was provided as part of the DirecTV SuperFan package. However, they’re rolling with a new mobile tier dubbed Sunday Ticket To-Go as a $50 add-on in 2010. The service streams live game video to Mac, PC, and various mobile devices – the most notable addition being Apple’s iPad. I can’t imagine catching an entire game on a 3.5″ iPhone screen, but the 10″ iPad makes for a mighty fine mobile television. Also new this year is higher definition streaming, although I haven’t been able to dig up the exact resolution (or bitrate). Additionally, DirecTV is advertising picture-in-picture and being able to display a grid of 4 live streams simultaneously, but I suspect these new features might be limited to computer clients.
As for me, I’m sticking with the wing joint. At least until Cox Communications picks up the RedZone Channel – that’s probably all my short-attention span requires (but yet one more way in which Cox has failed me).