Clippers debut streaming service, but is ClipperVision worth $199 per year?

If you want to watch the Los Angeles Clippers, you have a few options.

You can watch them on cable, where Bally Sports is showing 63 games. You can watch the Clippers on over-the-air KTLA, which will broadcast 11 regular-season games this season. You can subscribe to NBA League Pass, which has all NBA games - aside from national telecasts — for $14.99 per month. Or if you're a die-hard, you can watch ClipperVision.

Owner Steve Ballmer hyped the new service. “ClipperVision’s augmented reality and interactivity will let us transform the experience our fans have watching games, and provide them with more platforms to watch the Clippers," said Ballmer. The service costs $199/year.

Part of ClipperVision's "augmented" services includes foreign-language feeds in Spanish and Korean. The Clippers are clearly trying to give access to more fans, as evidenced by their local, non-cable deal with KTLA. 

Gillian Zucker, the team's president of business operations, told Next TV: "We believe it’s incredibly important for Clippers basketball to be accessible to as many people as possible, and the return of the NBA to KTLA is a critical step."

Clippervision has an alternate feed called BallerVision, which features former players Baron Davis, Jamal Crawford, and Paul Pierce. It’s an interesting collection of players, Crawford is a long-time Clipper who won two Sixth Man of the Year awards for the team. This year, TNT hired him to replace Dwyane Wade on their Tuesday night studio show.

Baron Davis and Pierce are LA natives, but neither exactly had a sparkling tenure with the club. Disgraced former owner Donald Sterling used to sit courtside and openly heckle Davis when he played for the Clippers, and the team eventually attached a first-round pick to get off his large contract — a pick that become Kyrie Irving. Pierce was recently let go from ESPN after posting an Instagram Live video featuring drinking, smoking, and strippers, and only played for old coach Doc Rivers and the Clippers for what Draymond Green derisively called "chasing that farewell tour.”

Essentially, this is an option for cord-cutting Clippers fans. “Starting in the year 2022, would somebody really say, ‘Hey, I want to do a new cable channel?’" Ballmer asked rhetorically. “No. They’d say I want to do a new streaming service. And I’m not anti-cable. But that’s just what you do.” 

It's akin to pay-per-view, which was the way NBA teams often televised games before the rise of regional sports networks 25-30 years ago.

So for fans in LA who only want cable TV for the Clippers, this could be an option. But for $199/year, you'd expect a little more than Paul Pierce's live game commentary.