By Mike Vandermause
[email protected]
The Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings square off tonight at Lambeau Field in a bitter NFC North rivalry with playoff implications on the line. Countless fans in the western two-thirds of Wisconsin won't be able to see the game on television.
That's because a dispute between the NFL Network, which is airing the game, and local cable companies will leave many fans in the dark.
Viewers in the Green Bay and Milwaukee television markets can watch the game on free TV as usual because they live in what is considered the Packers' home market. WFRV-TV, Channel 5 is carrying the NFL Network broadcast in the Green Bay area.
But Packers backers in the Madison and Wausau TV markets and others who don't have access to the NFL Network via satellite TV — Dish Network and DirecTV — won't see it.
Some fans who are being blacked out are not happy.
"People living anywhere in Wisconsin have the right to view Packer games," a fan from Rhinelander said in an e-mail to the Press-Gazette. "It's inalienable, darn it."
Another Rhinelander e-mailer said: "I will not be held hostage by the NFL and pay to have a satellite dish put in. The NFL can go to the place where the guy with the pitchfork lives."
The dispute between the NFL Network and the cable companies — Time Warner serves most of Wisconsin — comes down to money.
"The NFL Network is looking for $100 million to $140 million a year from Time Warner Cable," said Bill Harke, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable in Kimberly. "They're saying 'Take it or leave it.'"
Time Warner offered to put the NFL Network on a premium-tier channel rather than in its basic cable package but was turned down. Harke said viewers who aren't interested in a football channel shouldn't have to absorb the extra cost on basic cable.
"Put it on a tier where people who want it have the opportunity to get it," Harke said. "It's pretty much a specialty channel."
To which NFL spokesman Seth Palansky responds: "Then why is everyone getting the jewelry channel and 12 other shopping channels on their basic service?"
Palansky said the NFL Network would cost a cable subscriber 70 cents per month.
"We think $8.40 a year is reasonable and most of the people in Wisconsin would be willing to pay that," he said. "We're asking for 2 cents a day for a channel that's year-round dedicated to the most popular sport in the country."
There's no resolution in sight.
Bob Harlan, the Packers' chairman and CEO, feels caught in the middle of a difficult situation and feels badly for the blacked-out fans.
"We certainly understand their frustration and have sympathy for the fact that our loyal fans can't see the game, particularly a division game that means so much," he said.
Not everyone is a loser in this dispute. Sports bar operators who carry games on satellite likely will see an increase in business tonight.
"I can only assume we'll have large crowds," said Erick Singkofer, manager of Buffalo Wild Wings in Wausau. "It may possibly be standing room only."
The Wausau Daily Herald contributed to this report
