For those of you not getting the Chiefs/Broncos game tonight

yeah glad you fell for it. Too bad Sly didn't beat some sense into you.

 

Sly respects me and I respect him because we both stand behind what we say. You would never do something like that because when you talk shit and threaten to kick someone's ass, you then backpeddle like a bitch and later whine when someone says something mean to you while pointing out how full of shit you were.

 

Colin, did Solarte every say he was gonna beat your ass?

Did you really make Sly sign a waiver before he whipped your ass?

 

.

 

What are the facts of this case?

And what other channels require more?

 

PP:
Yes, I'm well aware that you're mad at me right now because I said some mean things to you and hurt your feelings. Deal with it. I also know what you and the other lemmings are talking about, since solarte threatened me with that if I didn't play nice with him. I almost never just insult someone to be a dick. If you get insulted by me, you almost certainly deserved it. That's why most people don't even bother to argue against the things I say, they just whine about the way I say it.

Indeed he did, and it was highly amusing to all.

I suggested it. I wanted it clear that both of us consented beforehand, but Sly didn't want to, so we didn't.


meat:
Facts -
* The NFL is the most popular draw on television.

* The NFL Network fee was not unprecedented or even excessive.

* The NFL wanted their network on basic packages but did not require that it be so, therefore there was no way that cable companies would lose money by including it on a premium package. They just object to someone else telling them how to do their business, and they don't want to share any of the obscene profits they're making.

 

NFL vs. cable is turning into a real nailbiter
Tuesday, November 14, 2006

By Adam Thompson, The Wall Street Journal


As America's traditional day of turkey and football approaches, the National Football League and some of the country's biggest cable companies are playing a high-stakes game of chicken. And just like for the Thanksgiving bird, time for a deal is quickly running out.

The NFL reportedly left as much as $400 million on the bargaining table during its last round of television-rights negotiations to reserve for its fledgling cable network eight late-season prime-time games featuring attractive teams with wide followings. The first is scheduled for Thanksgiving night between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Denver Broncos, yet nine days from the debut of live games on the NFL Network, it is still available in only 41 million of a possible more than 90 million homes wired for cable or satellite.

Cable operators such as Cablevision Systems Corp. and Time Warner Inc. are balking at carrying the network because, among other things, the league wants to boost what it charges them each month to carry the network to a reported 70 cents per subscriber. The NFL won't say how much it charges now, but it has been reported that the fee is in the low 20s.

"We believe that the most popular programming in this country is NFL football," said Steve Bornstein, the network's president and CEO. "If you can't find a way to make value there, maybe you don't need some of those other channels."

The league had hoped the three-year-old network -- currently a pastiche of game replays, highlight shows and analysis programs -- would be in as many as 70 million homes by now. But cable companies say the NFL Network is so small that its ratings aren't even big enough to generate Nielsen data yet.

"The NFL is asking a very stiff price when you consider the network is currently unrated," says Time Warner Cable spokesman Mark Harrad, whose company boasts 13.5 million subscribers in 33 states. He adds that the network would jump to the fourth-priciest Time Warner carries, despite airing its marquee programming only six weeks a year. Walt Disney Co.'s ESPN is the most expensive cable network, charging operators in the neighborhood of $3 a subscriber each month.

With Time Warner, Cablevision and other companies that the network has yet to strike a deal with, the league hasn't only insisted on its high price, but also pushed to keep it part of its standard cable package, which doesn't charge subscribers premium fees to get the network. The NFL is in a legal battle with the nation's largest cable company, Comcast Corp., over the channel being in a special tier of sports channels. Cox Communications Inc. will continue showing the games on a special tier for digital-cable subscribers, but neither company will comment on how they worked out such an arrangement.

The NFL, meanwhile, can hope that fans will cry "I want my football" and pressure their cable companies to make a deal -- or threaten to switch to another provider. Battles like these bubble up from time to time, mostly on the local level. Cablevision sparred with the New York Yankees' network and ESPN feuded with Cox over a subscription fee increase.

But never has such a fight so directly involved the NFL, the king of televised American sports.

"This wouldn't be the cable companies shooting themselves in the foot," said Marc Ganis, a sports-marketing consultant. "It would be the cable companies shooting themselves in the chest."

Some viewers may consider it their divine right to watch the NFL. The league already has run some ads in local areas urging fans to complain, some of which have used Rich Eisen, a Los Angeles-based co-host for the network who says he is still irked over Time Warner taking his beloved Yankees off the air during a New York dispute. His father, a Cablevision subscriber in New Jersey, can't watch him now. "It is my pleasure to bash Time Warner Cable," he says.

Mr. Bornstein, whom some credit with inventing this hardline bargaining pose from his days running ESPN, may have history on his side. Sports networks have almost always won these fights. While the NFL will feed the games to over-the-air stations in the cities directly involved in each game, backers of regionally popular teams like the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys could miss out.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who sits on the NFL owners' broadcast committee, pointed to nearby cities like Austin and San Antonio: "We're looking at ways that we can communicate it to Warner that those fans will be devastated when they don't get those games."

Indeed, the league will be counting on those regional fans, those in NFL-less cities as large as Los Angeles and gambling and fantasy aficionados. Mr. Harrad counters that the hardest of the hardcore left for DirecTV's Sunday Ticket package, which carries all games not available in a market, years ago. Much will depend on how angry those fans get, and how much that anger translates into calls to congressional representatives and attorneys general.

As they have in disputes with regional sports channels, cable companies argue that if they gave in to the NFL's demands, nonsports fans would be footing the bill to indulge those who want those games. Placement on a sports tier would mean those more inclined to watch the Food Network would be saved the NFL Network's extra cost in their monthly cable bill.

Mr. Jones and his fellow broadcast committee member, Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots, both say the owners are unified in their willingness to make the live games on the in-house network work. Mr. Jones said the owners anticipated the possibility of low household numbers early on, and that initial losses, though potentially steep, could be made up later. Mr. Kraft said the owners have no problem waiting a year or two for positive results.

"There's a desire and a need for this," he added. "I don't think we should sell our soul for a bowl of porridge in the short run."

 

Collin you are an idiot. Cable does not need an apologist. The NFL is operating as a monopoly. There is already a precedent.

 

apparently not 5. From Variety

Now the league believes it deserves to be offered to the broadest range of cable systems' customers as possible. The league is said to be asking for a fee of 70 cents a month per subscriber, a rate that is seen by cable companies as too pricey. Only two cable networks recieve more.



EDIT: Variety reports those two networks are Spice and Playboy

 

The NFL is not a monopoly, you colossal moron. Anyone can start up a rival league and reach their own broadcast deals. The NFL is controlling its product, just as they could choose not to have games shown on television at all if they chose to do so. That's so obvious that it's difficult to imagine how even you could fail to understand that.

Meanwhile cable companies are local monopolies. We, the consumers, are completely deprived of competition between companies because our neighborhoods are allocated to various cable services like mini-fiefdoms. It's essentially the same situation as the one the government broke up among the phone companies when you could not choose your provider but just had to deal with whatever phone company ruled in your area. In this case, they are not in any way injured by agreeing to the NFL's demands, they just have to surrender more of their record profits than they want to.


Also, the article you posted said that TWC has three channels that charge more, so it's not just two, genius. A separate article at ESPN said that 5 total channels charge more.