What the picture costs, and who carries it

A picture is bought twice: once as rights and once as delivery, and the second payment is metered by the gigabyte. That meter is why the tier of an event decides whether it is streamed at all.

Desk spec

per GB: 0.02
an hour, tier 3: 0.0270
a match: 0.0540
100,000 viewers: 5,400.00

the pictureA live picture is a licensed broadcast shown beside a market, not a window onto the event. It has an owner, a territory and a cost, and only 96 of 300 events in the month carry one.

the two clocksThe event happens at 0.0 s, the price refreshes at 0.2 s and the picture arrives at 12.0 s, so the number beside the picture is 11.8 seconds newer than the picture it sits beside.

the one sourceThree things describe an event - the picture, the data feed and the official result - and only the official result settles a bet. The picture looked decisive in 96 of 100 disputes and settled none of them.

Direct answer

A picture is paid for twice: the rights, which are bought by territory and period, and the delivery, which is metered by the gigabyte. On the samples a 3.0 megabit hour weighs 1.35 gigabytes and costs 0.0270 to move, a two-hour match costs 0.0540 per viewer, and a hundred thousand viewers of one match cost 5,400.00.

Two payments, one of them metered

The rights payment is a fixed cost decided in advance. The delivery payment is a variable cost that follows the audience and the tier, and it is the one that makes a low-audience event uneconomic even when the rights are cheap. A streamed event is a bet on an audience being large enough that a fraction of a cent per hour, multiplied out, is worth carrying.

Sample E and F - what an hour of each tier costs to deliver
Tier	An hour	Cost an hour	Cost a 2 h match
low	0.36 GB	0.0072	0.0144
medium	0.68 GB	0.0136	0.0272
high	1.35 GB	0.0270	0.0540
higher	2.70 GB	0.0540	0.1080
maximum	5.40 GB	0.1080	0.2160
five rungs	0.36-5.40 GB	0.0072-0.1080	0.0144-0.2160

sample F - the delivery cost, worked from the gigabyte at 0.02 a gigabyte: an hour at 3.0 Mbps = 1.35 GB x 0.02 = 0.0270 a 2-hour match = 1.35 x 2 x 0.02 = 0.0540 the same match at the low tier = 0.72 GB x 0.02 = 0.0144 (26.7%) the same match at the top tier = 10.80 GB x 0.02 = 0.2160 so the tier alone moves the delivery cost by 0.2160 / 0.0144 = 15 times.

Why the audience decides the event

Delivery is charged per viewer, so the same match costs in proportion to how many people watch it. An event whose audience is a hundredth of the top tier no longer looks like a bargain simply because the rights are cheaper, because delivery does not fall with the rights, and the fixed costs of buying, packaging and supporting the stream do not fall at all.

sample F - what the audience turns a fraction of a cent into per viewer, a 2-hour match at 3.0 Mbps = 0.0540 1,000 viewers = 1,000 x 0.0540 = 54.00 10,000 viewers = 10,000 x 0.0540 = 540.00 100,000 viewers = 100,000 x 0.0540 = 5,400.00 the same match at the top tier is 4 times that: 21,600.00 and the reader pays 0.00 of it directly, because the picture is granted on a balance or a bet rather than sold: 0 of 96 streamed events charge a fee for the stream itself.

Check the cost side before you expect every event to stream

Is this event streamed because it is important, or because its audience carries the delivery?
Does the operator say what the picture costs, or only what it is worth to you?
Would the same match be streamed at the low tier rather than not at all?
Is the tier you are given chosen to save data or to save the operator?
Is a picture ever a public good, or always a service granted on an account?

What the picture costs, and who carries it

Two payments, one of them metered

Why the audience decides the event

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