Well I guess it hard to quantify and I suppose it is possible that I am the only person who has been convinced to attend a game on the back of the streaming. I would have thought it is unlikely that I am the only one though. Now whether the outlay is covered by people like me I don’t know.

PS It’s more than one... because I also convinced my wife and child that it might be a nice afternoon out!

One person from the tiny demographic that actually bothers to post on this website.

I get that and I do hope the stream pulls fans new and old back to the game however this sounds like keighley benefitted and York lost out since you watched the york game for free.

Personally I travelled, paid for a ticket, food drink at york. Now I’m not having a go at you or anyone for not going but what is my incentive to do that when I could have watched at home for free? From a business prospective it just doesn’t make sense.

Sure we get exposure to the game as a whole but we are effectively saying why pay when it’s free. Likewise how would anyone convince a broadcaster to pay for the rights given we give them away for free? This is the very same issue the RFL are now having with the competition rights after the stobart deal.

I 100% want to be wrong and want the streaming to lead to 10,000 on the terraces again but how could it? Is it worth having a fan base all over the world and thousands watching online when the club and other clubs don’t see a penny in return?

Even if we take the examples by some that fans might turn up to the odd game. Does that £20 in a blue moon balance out the drop of season tickets knowing you don’t need one when it’s free online..

I would be absolutely amazed if we have sold a single season ticket on the back of the free stream. If we have I take my hat off to that person

I think you are missing the point. York haven’t lost out as you have said above - he wasn’t never going to go to York, but watching the stream convinced him to go to one of the next games in person.

I think that is entirely the aim for this season, and if viewing figures are good I wouldn’t be surprised to see a subscription service next season.

After years of poor performances, I now have some confidence in the coach and it looks like AC does too. If we think performances are going to be good enough to bring back some old fans then why not explore the live streams?

With us reaching (more or less) our season ticket sales target I guess Chalmers thinks he can showcase this now when we hardly get any away support. If we go up I don't expect it'll be free next season. Having said that it depends on how the club sell the watching audience to potential sponsors - if they can do that it might be worth keeping it as free.

I don't think anyone who has actually sat down and (tried) to watch the game being streamed live has genuinely thought that it is a viable alternative to going to the game.
Let's be honest the commentary is pretty good, if a little shrill at times, but the quality of the pictures and reliability of the stream are pretty bad. It's a good job it is free because in it's current state I would not be willing to pay for it.
That's not a slant on those putting the efforts in to get the streams up and running and broadcast etc. I'm just being honest.
They're doing the best with what they've got and who knows, perhaps with better funding the quality would improve.

All of this may become a moot point anyway because (fingers crossed) if we do get promoted this season then I don't think we'll even be able to do any live streaming of matches because technically Sky have already bought the broadcasting rights for the championship. The only reason we can do it now is because nobody gives a gnat's chaff about this division.

Toronto are still airing games via Premier Sport aren't they (I'm not sure as I don't subscribe)? I don't know what deals they have in place, but it's obviously doable.

Which then makes me wonder how/when? this will be monetised as there is an outlay by propersport (less from the Bulls) and what we're getting at the moment is more of a proof of concept sort of thing which will have evidence of viewing figures when the time comes to start selling advertising.

^This. Good on them for trying something different but can't see much of a long-term future in the live streaming in its present form (speaking as someone who can't get to matches, I don't even bother now as the quality issues don't make it worthwhile). Just keep the after match video interviews.

As Nothus rightly said though, the quality would need to improve before they could start asking people to pay for it. They'd be inundated with complaints if you were paying for the current service. As a freebie, we can't really moan about it, we can just choose whether it's worth watching or not.

I have thought the exact same thing though. There seems to be a big thing being made by people involved to get the viewing figures out there (although I do think they're purposely trying to quote the higher figures rather than things like unique visitors, but hey, they're marketing) and I fully believe that's so they can try and sell it to sponsors and potential future customers.

One thing we've overlooked in all this, what's the quality of Workington's Tea Lady's brew?

They do but only after agreeing it with Sky and (presumably) paying them for the broadcasting rights.
I'm just assuming we don't have the financial clout to do that, and that we won't have had to pay anyone this season because nobody owns the league 1 rights.