How to watch football on TV today: new platforms, subscriptions and more and more exclusive streaming events

The changing world, customs, culture and the way of watching football on television would not be left out. Technological advances allow for a new way of consuming sports. With the confinement causing the quarantine due to the Covid-19 pandemic, streaming platforms have grown exponentially and from the thaw and the return to normality there are uses and customs that seem to have settled.

Entertainment companies have taken note and with a qualified audience have jumped in to promote streaming platforms to broadcast sports. Boxing, for example, is a pioneer in this type of modality. The old pay-per-view (pay to watch) has turned into a Netflix-style application for contracting the service and subscribing to sports content. In this category the DAZN -for example- it is the most popular (although not the cheapest), however it is not available in Argentina.

The one that broke into the world of online broadcasting was ESPNthe American giant that has belonged to the ranks of Disney for some years, through its platform Star+. It no longer provides only series and films, but offers increasingly exclusive sports content: lto Formula 1 -at least three races a year are closed to subscribers-, the English Premier League and the French Liga 1are some examples. Also the option to see all the games on demand of the grand slam, extra matches of NBA and nights of the growing mixed martial arts UFC.

And now it also has summer football matches: the international triangular with Boca, Independiente and Everton from Chile, the River tour in the United States and the Río de la Plata series, with the participation of teams from Argentina and Uruguay with guests from Ecuador and Peru. They all go for Star+.

The same happened with the return of Lionel Messi at Paris Saint Germain, this Wednesday, after being crowned world champion with the Argentine national team, was broadcast exclusively by the paid streaming platform of the American network.

And along the same lines – according to data provided by the company – half of the ten Premier League matches will be broadcast exclusively on Star+ over the weekend from 21 to 23 January (including matches between Manchester City, Tottenham and Brighton & Hove Albion , interesting for Argentina by Julián Álvarez, Cuti Romero and Alexis Mac Allister).

To find out the state of the market in Argentina, a report was published months ago by the Audiovisual Observatory of the National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA), which states that Argentine families spend more than $300 million a year on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Disney or HBO. Star+ (which belongs to Disney) has a basic service that costs around 880 pesos. Is the number of subscribers high? When asked by clarionCompany sources explained that it does not usually provide data on the number of subscribers.

It’s a completely different system than what you need to watch Professional Soccer League. There, for now, the “new-old” method of cable television will continue to be used. Although, of course, you have to assume the Football package (the price varies according to the combo that is hired by the supplier, but is around 1,300 pesos per month) to have the ESPN Award Y TNT Sports. River-Boca on May 27, for the local tournament, will be seen through these signals, which can also be accessed through the Flow platform, provided you pay for the same premium content package.