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So binding arbitration is good enough for TWC customers, but not for TWC, huh?
So binding arbitration is good enough for TWC customers, but not for TWC, huh?
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I'm quite tired of subsidizing professional sports. If it's not assistance in building stadiums, these people have their hands in my pocket to support networks I don't watch.
I've never been a fan of Comcast or any other cable company, but I sure wish DirecTV would have taken the same approach. If you want the NFL network, that's great. I shouldn't be required to subsidize a network I don't watch.
It's nice to know that the NFL has enlisted the help of politicians to get their way.
Or you can really thumb your nose at the cable companies by watching the game live on your Sprint cell phone. They are carrying the game on the NFL network for anyone that has one of the Sprint Data plan things.
this whole situation is really starting to get tiring. in the meantime I'll be watching the NFL network on direct tv. I sympathize with all those who don't have it and are football fans.
@ErnieMcCracken: You're right. How about this for a compromise: Cable pays the NFL $0.45/subscriber per month for the NFL network on basic cable and the cable companies have access to NFL Sunday Ticket. Everbody is happy (except for DirecTV.) The End.
This home market stuff is total bullshit.
A few years ago, when I was living in Harrisburg, Pa. (a city that goes about 60-40 for Steelers and Eagles, respectively), the NFL decided that they needed to expand the hated Ravens' \"home market\" into Harrisburg. The local CBS affiliate tried to put up a fight, but I think that in the end the NFL probably ended up getting their way.
Basically, the NFL said that all those Steelers fans needed to become Ravens fans because Harrisburg is closer to Baltimore than Pittsburgh.
@BloggyMcBlogBlog: I imagine if it were $.45 per subscriber, we'd all have an extra channel and slightly higher bill by bow.
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@B: I was going to comment in agreement, but kangaroo BA courts only encourage me to spout vulgarities. Suffice it to say, the bigger they are, the more votes they can buy.
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Cox Communication sent us something one time showing how the bill breaks down per channel and the sports channels ESPN and Fox Sports added up to more than half the total bill. As far as I'm concerned they could just pull the sports channels, cut my bill in half and I could just check out scores online. After a few years the sports channels would be back begging us to watch them again, salaries of sports stars would drop, tickets to games would be cheaper and the owners would have something called hulmility.
...or if I could spell it would say Humility...
I live in Wisconsin and am a Packer fan. I was able to watch the Packers VS. Cowboys game via NFL Network.. Of course, since I didn't see the point in getting direct TV for ONE or TWO 3 hour games PER FUCKING YEAR that I would need it for, I went down to a local bar and watched it.. BTW, I have MediaCom.. I havent found any better deals ($60 for 8mb cable, and a decent selection channels including a Starz package and a Showtime package).
According to an e-mail from the NFL, adding the NFL Network costs cable companies 2 cents per subscriber per day. 60 cents per month doesn't seem like too much of a stretch for cable companies to add the NFL Network.
@Jthmeffy:
That's my strategy. Hell I have more fun watching games at bars. It's fun to get drunk and rowdy with the other sports fans.
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I have the best of both worlds. In Canada, TSN airs all the NFL Network games (plus NBC/ESPN games), which is included in most, if not all basic cable systems here. Not to mention, I received Sunday Ticket for free when I subscribed to NHL Centre Ice.
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The thing that funny, doesn't TWC carry the NFL Network already? The problem is that the individual subscribers have to pay extra for it (which I'm sure most of it would go to the NFL)?
If that's the case, then the NFL can go pound sand if they claim \"but if no one watches it\". They're scared to admit that there's a lot of people that aren't willing to pay for it (or at least overtly pay for it).
The NFL is running a racket, since they get paid by the cable companies to broadcast it, paid by the teams to be part of the league, paid by the advertizers for air-time during the game. Meanwhile, you have to get a sub-prime ARM loan against your house if you want to take your son to a live game.
This isn't a concern about the \"sport dying off\", which is nonsense, this is about protecting these huge profits and salaries for all involved. And appearently the only way that they can continue to do that is \"tax\" everyone via their cable/satellite bills without everyone seeing the man behind the curtain. Good for TWC for not playing their game.
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@SacraBos: That is exactly the issue. The cable companies know that they'll lose subscribers if they jam yet another channel down our pipes. I know they'd lose me. If the NFL wants to ruin their own product by alienating their viewers, more power to them. There are dozens of channels on cable that can and do show NFL games; its certainly not the cable companies keeping the games from their viewers.
@BloggyMcBlogBlog: 45 cents a month isn't really the issue. Its more like the \"straw that broke the camel's back\". On regular \"expanded\" cable that I need to get Comedy Central (which honestly is the only channel I watch that is not available on the $12/month super-basic cable lineup), I also end up with multiple ESPNs, multiple MTVs, VH1, a truckload of nickelodeon, Lifetime, Oxygen, Fox sports, Fox news, a handful of CNNs, and who knows what else. And I have to pay for all that crap just to get the few shows I really want to see (thankfully the writer's strike has alleviated that need for the short term and I'm on super-basic, and if pressed I can \"buy\" the daily show and the colbert report on iTunes for less than the price of expanded cable).
(I get my local channels HDTV broadcasts through the rabbit ears, so network shows are already \"free\".)
The more channels they add that I don't watch, the stronger the argument for \"ala carte\", and the cable companies absolutely do not want that. They're certainly not going to blow that on some niche channel. They know their market and how to exploit it; the NFL knows football. TWC and Comcast know they can milk an extra tier out of the real diehards to whom the NFL Network actually appeals, without the risk of losing subscribers.
This is truly PR gold for the cable companies. For once they look like they're trying to protect their customers; for once it seems like they don't want to nickel and dime us to death. The reality is that the nickels and dimes just don't add up to the $5-$6 they can get steering just a tiny percentage of customers to the sports tier. If they thought it would be profitable, they'd have screwed us over months ago.
@cerbie: If Comcast added the NFL network to my lineup at my cost, I can assure you my bill would go from $54 (cable plus cablemodem) to $0 and I'd be switching to DSL. I have no loyalty to Comcast, and I'm not a slave to my TV.
That said, I did watch the packers v. cowboys on the NFL Network at a jam-packed sports bar down the street from me. As a niche channel, the NFL network is brilliant. The \"scarcity\" of that game got me (and many others) to the bar to watch it. Had it just been on regular tv that I could have watched at home, I probably would have stayed home and skipped it.
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@DerekG: Except most of us don't want to pay it. It doesn't matter how much. We don't want to subsidize you. If you want the channel, put it on your own bill.
I don't pay for HBO because I don't want to watch HBO. Why should I pay for football that I don't want to see?
How am I supposed to feel bad that TWC doesn't want to pay the NFL for showing a product some of their viewers want to see?
Are they losing money somewhere we don't know about? Because last time I checked, they were rolling in dough.
This site is usually saturated with horror stories about awful cable companies messing up everything left & right. And now they're the white hats in this situation? Riiiiight.
Cable companies have no problem bundling channels and sticking subscribers with the costs. They haven't turned into consumer advocates here, they're trying to use publicity like this to leverage NFL game access to get their costs down or increase subscriber revenue.
Both parties in this are having a business fight and don't let either of them position themselves as the Red Cross of content here.
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A little arbitration trivia: this story is interesting because arbitration in the U.S originated, and was originally intended only for, transactions between two corporations. The Federal Arbitration Act was enacted to allow companies to choose arbitration over litigation if desired, the thought being that two equally positioned parties, i.e., two corporations, should be able to negotiate over the terms of a contract and choose to use an arbitrator instead of a judge or jury if they desired someone with industry experience, or wanted fewer procedural restrictions--some of the very same benefits that have become disadvantages when consumers are involved in arbitration.
I never thought I'd say this, but Thank You Time Wanker Cable! Probably the only decision of theirs that I've agreed on. Granted, they're nowhere near as evil as Verizon, but there's something majorly wrong when my cable bill w/no premiums is higher than my electric bill.
so the sense I'm getting here from TWC customers is they'd rather PAY EXTRA for a channel than get it included in the services they're already paying for? Am I missing something here, and does TWC immediately increase rates when they add a channel to their basic service lineup? It's pretty pathetic when a customer complains about bill-1 without NFLN being the same as bill-2 with NFLN added. Do you also complain at stores when you find out because of a sale, your register receipt is lower than it should be?
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\"Sports die off when they are not broadly accessible to the fans...\" So mote it be. ;o)
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\"Sports die off when they are not broadly accessible to the fans...\"
Hey, anyone seen an NHL game on TV? Didn't they used to be on EPSN? Are they still on strike?
Seriously, I like hockey, and I still don't know what channel number Versus is...
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@Dibbler: \"Cox Communication sent us something one time showing how the bill breaks down per channel and ESPN and Fox Sports added up to more than half the total bill.\"
Wow. That's simply obscene. Especially as a guy that plays sports, not watches them.
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The only sport I watch regularly is baseball, but I can't get games for my favorite team, St Louis....except in '06 when they got to the series.
Seriously though, I'm glad my cable company (suddenlink) as much as I hate them, is fighting the NFL on the requirement that the network has to be in basic service. I played touch and flag football alot as a kid and still play with my friends from time to time, but I can't stand to watch it. I'll be damned if I gotta take another increase in my cable bill so I can get a channel I don't even want.
I'm the anti-Christ. I happily pay Comcast $4.95/mo for the NFL Network (and 4 channels no one cares about). The on demand 10 minute recaps of all the games and a lot of the classic footage is worth about a dime, a nickel, and two pennies a day for me. I wish it was still free; Sprint gives me the NFL Network for free - why can't Comcast?
I love how NFL complains about lack of cable access spelling the end of NFL popularity, when they freely choose to offer NFL Sunday Ticket only to DirecTV, which millions of people can't get even if they were willing to pay for it. What a crock! They've really screwed up the legal and PR aspects of this whole thing about as badly as possible.