As I write this I am watching the US Open final (the score is currently 3-3 in the second, Federer having taken the first set comfortably 6-2).
I am watching it on justin.tv a service which is presumably illegal but has a thriving community sharing paid for premium sports content, in this case they are streaming Sky Sports 1, which normally requires a subscription to view. I am watching on a stream with another 21,934 people according to the viewer counter, which is updated live. Like me they will all not have a subscription to the original broadcasters service.
Of the top ten most viewed streams 9 are currently the US Open final with a total amount of viewers numbering 45,439 world wide. The 9 different pages could essentially be seen as channels on justin.tv are showing exactly the same game and together they have more viewers than most small UK TV channels. Incredible when you think about it.
As well as allowing users to watch the game they can also engage in a debate running alongside the content, most of the debate I have to say is completely unrelated to the content but I think that in the correct setting users would use the chat tools to contextually debate the content they are watching which would be a beneficial to the activity of viewing the content and make the process more meaningful and rewarding.
Over the coming years content providers like Sky, whose footage is being essentially stolen here, will need to tackle this problem, how they do that directly is not an easy question to answer when their whole business model is built around hardware, installation and subscription.
One thing that is certainly on their side and will be pivotal to future developments is the quality of the video. If I had a subscription to Sky Sports I could be watching it in HD on a big LCD screen as it is I get an idea of what’s going on but its not the same by any stretch of the imagination. I am not sure the Internet it its current form will ever compete on the grounds of video deliver because the hardware and bandwidth is so different to that on Sky.
The score is now 5-1 in the third and Federer is 2 sets up. I’ve enjoyed the game so far but not as much as I would have done if I had watched it on TV.
