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Chris Havel:NFL Network is a sign of greed
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<blockquote data-quote="net" data-source="post: 117708" data-attributes="member: 200"><p>Here's a pretty accurate explanation:</p><p></p><p>NFL playing TV hardball</p><p>By John Ryan</p><p>Mercury News</p><p>NFL'S BONUS COVERAGE </p><p>As happens more often than not nowadays, the NFL's Thanksgiving offerings are turkeys. Miami-Detroit. Tampa Bay-Dallas. Who even needs tryptophans to fall asleep?</p><p></p><p>But they've added nighttime dessert, the creamy-sweet pumpkin pie of Denver at Kansas City -- for those willing to pay. The NFL Network, the league's own cable channel, has eight prime-time games scheduled for the latter part of the season, beginning Thursday night.</p><p></p><p>It sounds great. But it's a Trojan horse filled with confusion and controversy.</p><p></p><p>Locally, the NFL Network is available only on Comcast's digital cable, which accounts for a little more than half of Bay Area subscribers. (DirecTV and Dish Network also carry the channel.) It isn't on Comcast's bare-bones Digital Classic package, either. The added cost is about $5 a month for customers who already have the digital box, or $11.90 for those currently on basic. (And for those in Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Milpitas and Saratoga, the NFL Network isn't available at all because of Comcast's bandwidth limitations.)</p><p></p><p>Now, to the controversy: The NFL is using these games as a hammer to get top priority on all cable systems. The league hopes to reap a subscriber fee -- reportedly a very high 70 cents per customer -- for programming that is narrow and niche-oriented 357 days a year. The companies want to keep the channel on a paid tier, and they're fighting back with a lawsuit, the attention of Congress and even a Web site -- <a href="http://www.nflgetreal.com" target="_blank">www.nflgetreal.com</a>, started by Time Warner.</p><p></p><p>Not that the cable companies are Cesar Chavez rising up, but good for them. The league is creating content, selling it on its own and, when it does sell to someone else, choosing one group to the exclusion of another. (To wit: DirecTV and the NFL Sunday Ticket package.) At one point in American history, that was called an antitrust violation. Ask Bill Gates about it.</p><p></p><p>Or ask Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who grilled an NFL executive on Capitol Hill this week. ``We're intrigued, to put it mildly, what the NFL has in mind,'' the senator said.</p><p></p><p>It's not so bad here, where our local teams' games will be on over-the-air TV. It's horribly arrogant of the NFL in places like Rapid City, S.D. (Broncos), and Madison, Wis. (Packers), with rabid fan bases that won't see the games because they aren't defined as the local market.</p><p></p><p>So we're with the cable companies.</p><p></p><p>(But we aren't holding a bake sale.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="net, post: 117708, member: 200"] Here's a pretty accurate explanation: NFL playing TV hardball By John Ryan Mercury News NFL'S BONUS COVERAGE As happens more often than not nowadays, the NFL's Thanksgiving offerings are turkeys. Miami-Detroit. Tampa Bay-Dallas. Who even needs tryptophans to fall asleep? But they've added nighttime dessert, the creamy-sweet pumpkin pie of Denver at Kansas City -- for those willing to pay. The NFL Network, the league's own cable channel, has eight prime-time games scheduled for the latter part of the season, beginning Thursday night. It sounds great. But it's a Trojan horse filled with confusion and controversy. Locally, the NFL Network is available only on Comcast's digital cable, which accounts for a little more than half of Bay Area subscribers. (DirecTV and Dish Network also carry the channel.) It isn't on Comcast's bare-bones Digital Classic package, either. The added cost is about $5 a month for customers who already have the digital box, or $11.90 for those currently on basic. (And for those in Sunnyvale, Los Gatos, Milpitas and Saratoga, the NFL Network isn't available at all because of Comcast's bandwidth limitations.) Now, to the controversy: The NFL is using these games as a hammer to get top priority on all cable systems. The league hopes to reap a subscriber fee -- reportedly a very high 70 cents per customer -- for programming that is narrow and niche-oriented 357 days a year. The companies want to keep the channel on a paid tier, and they're fighting back with a lawsuit, the attention of Congress and even a Web site -- [url]www.nflgetreal.com[/url], started by Time Warner. Not that the cable companies are Cesar Chavez rising up, but good for them. The league is creating content, selling it on its own and, when it does sell to someone else, choosing one group to the exclusion of another. (To wit: DirecTV and the NFL Sunday Ticket package.) At one point in American history, that was called an antitrust violation. Ask Bill Gates about it. Or ask Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who grilled an NFL executive on Capitol Hill this week. ``We're intrigued, to put it mildly, what the NFL has in mind,'' the senator said. It's not so bad here, where our local teams' games will be on over-the-air TV. It's horribly arrogant of the NFL in places like Rapid City, S.D. (Broncos), and Madison, Wis. (Packers), with rabid fan bases that won't see the games because they aren't defined as the local market. So we're with the cable companies. (But we aren't holding a bake sale.) [/QUOTE]
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Chris Havel:NFL Network is a sign of greed
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