Aug 28, 2024

ESPN Invents TV Guide. Finally.

It's *exactly* what we need because it's 2024 and streaming is a chaotic tangle of services

Forget Venu, this is what we want from Disney/ESPN:

ESPN’s newest feature will be a welcome bookmark for sports fans everywhere: the company just launched “Where to Watch,” which aims to be a universal guide for streaming sports all over the internet.

When you open the page on ESPN’s website or in its app, Where to Watch looks like a typical schedule of games, the kind of thing ESPN has had forever — it’s sortable by sport and able to show your favorite team at the top. But next to each listing, it now shows where you can watch the game, even when it’s not on ESPN.

True story, earlier today I was looking up where to watch the second leg of Servette vs. Chelsea in the Europa Conference League tomorrow. Where was I looking this up? Google, of course. Because it's 2024 and there's no single place to find such sacred information.¹ ESPN is finally – finally – trying to solve this problem.

Even better:

ESPN says Where to Watch has data from more than 250 streaming services. On Wednesday morning, it offered me a baseball game on MLB.TV, a college soccer game on ACC Extra, some MLS on Apple TV Plus, and five different ways to stream a WNBA game. ESPN says that you’ll be able to click some listings to go directly to a game, though that’ll require a separate partnership with those services. You can also set the feature to only show games on services you subscribe to.

They're not only telling you where you can find the games you want to watch, they're providing links directly to said places to watch said games?! I might cry. Tears of pure joy.

Granted, it's a bit more complicated than it should be – "separate partnership" – because again, it's 2024 and of course it is. Still, this is a massive win for users. And it's almost exactly what I had hoped Apple was going to do with their weird and extremely bare-bones Sports app. As I wrote when it launched:

The next question: do they start to link to other apps showing other content, even when it's not Apple TV+ content? This line in the press release seems to allude to just that:

"...and tap to go to the Apple TV app to watch live games from Apple and connected streaming apps."

This is obviously top of mind with what Disney/Fox/Warner just announced in the form of a new partnership/service, which apparently will be ready to go in the fall, just in time for the NFL season... Might Apple be able to become the app that ties all of live sports content together, if only through links out?

In a follow-up post the following day, I wrote:

And it's potentially a bigger deal than it may seem. If done well, this app could be the glue that brings and holds together your sports-viewing experience. Is the game on Peacock or Amazon or Apple TV+ or ESPN? Just use the Apple Sports app, click the "Watch live" button, and it shouldn't matter, is how I envision this working at least (narrator: it turns out, it would not be that simple). In a way, this would do a better job of what the new sports bundle is trying to do.

Well, I'm here to report that months later, it's not done well. Apple's app sort of does what's promised above, but only in very rare and specific circumstances. Like when the games are in someway tied to the Apple TV app/service. But even that click takes you to a landing page in that app which then requires at least two more clicks to "Open In..." and then the right app – if you have that app. Honestly, I think I'd rather just Google it.

But this ESPN service seems a lot more promising in the above regard. I've only just been playing around with the website just now, but it's pretty straightforward. It's not one-click and the game starts, of course. But this is 2024... You get the picture. Baby steps.

Next up, how about someone does this for all television/streaming content? That's obviously not going to be ESPN, but it could be Apple:

Next up: can Apple please do this for all television content? "I just want to get the damn score of the game" is the new "where the fuck can I stream this?".

Well, if only it wasn't for that pesky Netflix. So it may have to be Netflix. But that will take years. Maybe this ESPN service will show someone the way...