Fan streaming apps have sports world debating TV rights

Ask big names in the sports business what's on their mind, and live streaming by fans is one of the first things they'll mention. Television, with its ever-escalating contracts, increasingly finds itself competing against new technologies such as live-streaming apps Periscope and Meerkat that threaten to disrupt the entire business model. Even Internet giants like Google may be entering the space. (Periscope is owned by Twitter, and CNBC's parent company Comcast is an investor in Meerkat.) Broadcasters, sports executives and athletes the Sports Business Journal's 2015 Sports Business Awards in New York on May 20 were of two minds when asked about fan streaming apps, with the old guard having bigger problems with the technology than the younger generation had.