Morning Skate: Streaming

Welcome to Thursday, folks - the weekend is in sight. Eyes on the prize, etc.

The Eastern Conference Final kicked off last night, with the New York Rangers making a bit of a statement with a 6-2 win over Tampa Bay.

Tampa erased one-goal deficits twice to make it a 2-2 game midway through the second period, then the Rangers scored four in a row to seal the deal.

Considering how the narrative before the game was all about how the Rangers hadn’t faced a real goalie yet, that’s quite a showing.

It’s one game, so one shouldn’t get carried away, but...yeah. Impressive stuff from the Rangers.

(As a side note, I completely forgot until seeing the game that the Rangers actually have home ice, given how most people are like “yeah, Tampa’s winning this series easily.”)

For neutral observers, it’s been an entertaining third round so far — can’t wait to see what kind of chaos gets unleashed in Game 2 of Colorado vs. Edmonton tonight.

Elsewhere, NESN made a bit of a splash yesterday with their reveal of NESN360, a standalone streaming service that will allow fans to pay $30 per month to stream Bruins and Red Sox games on a variety of devices.

This was a logical next step for NESN, which has had battles with various TV and streaming providers in recent years, but $30 per month seems kind of steep.

Plus, per the Boston Globe, it appears membership for the service remains limited to New England users, so this won’t be an option for out-of-area fans:

As with its fiber-optic, satellite-dish, or cable-based cousins, a NESN 360 user will be able to stream content only if their phone, computer, smart TV, Apple TV, or Roku device is located within New England, minus Fairfield County in Connecticut.

My “I’m getting old” take is that the number of streaming options is getting ridiculous, and that we’re rapidly approaching things being more expensive than just getting cable.

Anyways, the NBA Final starts tonight - Go Celtics.

Today’s discussion topic

I know we have some cord-cutters around here, so does NESN’s new Bruins option move the needle for you at all?

Seems like it’s kind of useless for out-of-area fans, and that even New Englanders might be better off getting something like a mix of NHL TV, ESPN+, and a VPN.

Can’t fault NESN for trying something new, but the cost sure seems a bit high.