What's your No. 1 fear if you subscribe to cable and you're a sports fan? Aside from the signal dying on the first day of the NCAA basketball tournament or on any Saturday or Sunday in the fall, it's that through no fault of your own you might not be able to watch your favorite teams play because of rights disputes between major companies. We've seen it with the Big Ten Network and several cable companies, and we've seen it with the NFL Network and virtually every cable company. Nothing sucks more as a sports fan than being a paying subscriber, being willing to pay whatever you have to for the games you want to see, and still not being able to watch your favorite team play from the comfort of home. It's a constant dance between content providers and cable distributors over how much channels should cost, and fandom is the collateral damage.
The latest rights dispute that seemed likely was between ESPN and Comcast. Only it never materialized.
It hasn't gotten much attention, but ESPN scored a major victory over the nation's largest cable company this week, Comcast agreed to carry ESPNU on their digital tier package. Why? Because Comcast didn't want to fight SEC fans who can't watch their favorite teams play.
You see, as part of the $150 million per year that ESPN is paying for the SEC television package, the network is moving one football game a week to ESPNU. That game will most likely be the hated 11:30 CT kickoff game that was previously available on Raycom/Lincoln Financial/Jefferson Pilot's free regional broadcasts. Now the games will be on cable. And an awful lot of the SEC footprint is covered by Comcast. Given how intractable they'd been in past rights disputes, I was already gearing up for an epic battle featuring SEC fans in the middle and Comcast and ESPN on either side of them. It was going to be ugly and everyone was going to be pissed.
But then Comcast and ESPN did something unbelievable, they behaved reasonably.
Comcast doesn't get most things right. In fact, they're the only corporation on earth I've ever gotten into a fight with my wife over. We both hate calling Comcast so much that every time we have an issue with our cable or Internet, we'd fight. That's been simplified now. We play paper, rock, scissors to see who has to call. It's a Comcast compromise and countless couples know exactly what I'm talking about.
My favorite conversation with a Comcast employee came two summers ago when my Internet wasn't working. I called Comcast customer service (an oyxmoron if there ever was one) and explained that my Internet wasn't working. Comcast's employee was very helpful, "The Internet doesn't work well when it's hot," she said.
"So you're telling me the Internet will never work in Africa or Florida?"
Comcast lady: "Yes."
It's why I'm a firm believer that the term Comcast'd should be used in popular parlance whenever you get screwed by something or someone beyond your control.
But in this case, Comcast got it right. And ESPN scored a major coup in getting yet another channel added onto the digital tier. The more often this happens, the more sense Comcast's attempt to buy Disney a few years ago makes. ESPN rights fees have got to be eating Comcast alive. But the games will go on. Which makes that $150 million ESPN ponied up, and the way they divided the games among their respective networks, look pretty smart.
It also shows that no one wants to make SEC fans angry.
-----------------------------------------------------------
In other news, Lane Kiffin and Ariel Alejo, the Pahokee High School principal who I wrote about last week, have kissed and made up. All it took was a phone call to the mayor, the vice-mayor and their cronies.
"Pahokee vice mayor Henry Crawford Jr., mayor Wayne Whitaker, city manager Matthew Brock, Alejo and Gran met at city hall and Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin delivered an apology by telephone late Tuesday afternoon.
'Everything is a go," Crawford said. "(Kiffin) apologized once again, and they are welcome any day, any time.'"
You can't even make this stuff up. Pahokee is like Hazzard County without the ennobling leadership of Boss Hogg.-----------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile the absurdity of the NCAA permitting player jerseys to be sold so long as the player's names don't appear on them remains ridiculous. The latest absurdity? Pete Carroll is holding a fan contest, via Twitter of course, that allows fans to vote on whose jersey they'd like to see USC offer this season. The USC jersey numbers are offered up and then the player's name comes immediately after them in a parenthetical. 3,000 people have voted in a poll entitled: What jersey numbers do you want to see produced and sold for the coming season?
Right now it looks like USC fans will get Taylor Mays and C.J. Gable since they share the number 2. A daily double!
But that's just a coincidence. Shhh.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-23-2009 @ 8:07AM
StigmA said...
thank you. that "so the internet will never work in africa or florida" bit was great, i needed a good laugh
Reply