OT:Direct TV/ MLB, NFL

[patsfan13]

Cable is lazy and cheap. They get incredible breaks and near monolopolies and haven't had to worry about competition for years. Blame your cable company for not making a serious effort at trying to compete with directv for NFL and MLB. Cable is making too much money off their ancillary products, like home telephone and high speed internet to give a crap about sattelite, and they still don't view it as a legitimate threat. They know they have you by the short hairs or that people think sattelite is too esoteric for most people, so they let directv get away relatively cheaply on both MLB and NFL. Cable easily could have outbid directv, but they don't need to so they didn't even try.

Eventually, cable will start to see directv as a threat, and there will be competition, and both will have to woo you with superior products and service. Right now, cable doesn't give a crap about you.

Direct TV can do a national deal with MLB and the NFL that a local cable co can't, plus if you did a cable deal with the NFL Fox CBS and NBC would scream bloody murder. Don't know if the same applies to MLB. Eventually we will pay for our teams in an a la carte system.

 

[TomBrady'sGoat]

Well, it's their league. They can choose how to have it televised however they want. I'm just glad I have an option to watch every game. Is it 100% optimal ? No it's not. I'd prefer to have the baseball and NFL packages available on cable. They're not so I get DirecTV; not perfect but I get my games, that's by far the most important thing.

I understand what you're saying. If given the choice between no option to see every game and getting to see every game through only 1 carrier you'll happily choose the latter. I guess I just don't see any good reason for the choices to be so limited. *edit* thinking about this I guess it's because I like to view EI more as a service for the fans rather than an effort to make money. i know, i'm being silly.

You also state that getting the games is by far the most important thing to you. I have a stupid hang-up where I hate being pushed around and toyed with by big business. I guess priorities come into play (and no I'm not trying to be snarky or condescending; the paragraph for some reason just reads that way to me so I figure this disclaimer is necessary).

 

[TomBrady'sGoat]

Every owner of intellectual property gets to decide how and when to market it or not to market it. You author or create something, and you own it in this country, and you can do or not do with it as you wish.

I hear arguments like this all the time from people who would probably punch me if I called them a socialist.

I'll let you know when I write that they don't have the right to do it. At that point your post will actually be relevant.

 

[PatsFaninAZ]

Direct TV can do a national deal with MLB and the NFL that a local cable co can't, plus if you did a cable deal with the NFL Fox CBS and NBC would scream bloody murder. Don't know if the same applies to MLB. Eventually we will pay for our teams in an a la carte system.

There are 4 cable companies in the United States that by themselves have more subscribers than Directv.

And no one of them alone would have to pay what directv is paying. They would just need to pay their share. I suppose if one of them wanted exclusivity, they would have to offer more, just like directv did. The reality is that Time Warner or Comcast could easily have tried to outbid directv, but they have no incentive to do so.

There are 83 million cable subscribers in the U.S. There are 16 million dish subscribers. If cable had wanted to pay for extra innings, it's per subscriber cost would have been way lower than directv. Directv is paying a premium to try to attract new customers.

The networks wouldn't care if cable had the NFL package. So long as there are blackouts in the markets that require people to watch local games on their local channels, the local networks are fine with it. In fact, they probably would rather have the deal be with cable, since cable channels are required by law to carry networks, and directv is not. (Although as a practical matter, directv does in nearly every market, so it doesn't matter much.)

Anyway, sorry I'm being a bore. I do really feel badly for those who cannot watch their favorite team and do not have the ability to switch to or from directv to or from cable. But ultimately, I think having cable feel the heat from directv will make things better for those of us who spend way too much time watching tv. Sorry to be a broken record. I'll shut up and let others have the last work.

 

[PatsFaninAZ]

I'll let you know when I write that they don't have the right to do it. At that point your post will actually be relevant.

I thought you were saying that MLB should be required to make its product available on cable and directv. I reread your post and that's still how it sounds to me, but if that's not what you were saying, my apology.

 

[LiveShot]

I pay for a football package but wouldn't get the MLB package if it was free. I listen to baseball on the radio. Too many commercials on TV and I don't have TV on my boat. Difficult to fish and watch TV.

 

[TomBrady'sGoat]

I thought you were saying that MLB should be required to make its product available on cable and directv. I reread your post and that's still how it sounds to me, but if that's not what you were saying, my apology.

no problem, sorry i responded so tersely. I was responding to the sentiment that i have the choice to switch to directtv and since i choose not to I should not be ticked off about it. When I say "shouldn't" I don't mean that MLB/NFL shouldn't have the right to sell exclusively, I'm saying that they shouldn't be making us choose (and slapping us in the face in the process).

 

[QuiGon]

I thought you were saying that MLB should be required to make its product available on cable and directv. I reread your post and that's still how it sounds to me, but if that's not what you were saying, my apology.

That's how it sounded to me too... I guess I am not sure what the problem is... I mean, if you live 1,500 miles outside Boston, you should expect to have to pay extra money to watch Red Sox baseball day in and day out....

 

[fgssand]

Please forgive the following rant.
Thanks to Direct TV's latest deal with MLB, I will no longer follow baseball and I will no longer support the Red Sox. Bud Selig's attempt to suck every last penny out of my pocket and force me to alter my viewing choices has led me to this decision.
Here's why. I live in Florida in a large gated community and a portion of my association dues are spent to bring discounted cable to every home . My best guess is $35/month is spent on a great cable package that includes the NFL Network. My community has 1000+ homes and similar gated communites just in my town have the same group cable plans (3-4000 homes). Selig and the greedy owners hope that these families are willing to pay twice (cable and Dish) just for the opportunity to pay an additional $169 for the MLB package. Last year, I forked over the $160 and probably watched 100 Red Sox games on my cable system. I was happy, and my sons became baseball fans and my youngest worshipped all things "Big Papi".Two years ago, I gave MLB.TV a shot at $10 a month and it was the most aggravating experience. No more!I'm guesstimating that this new Direct TV deal would cost me an additional $700 a year. Not gonna happen. I feel bad for my kids...but they will move on with other interests and maybe catch a game on a Saturday. Not me though. Thanks Bud. Keep squeezing the fans and ring out every last dollar from your advertisers while showing those 9:00PM playoff games. You serve the youth of America well.
Hopefully the NFL will not go to the extremes that baseball has. The Pats are on Network TV about 8-10 games per year down here. The NFL Network seems to have the Pats on there "Games of the Week" often enough. And of course their are neighborhood sports bars.

$700 a year includes the football package. MLB package and all your programming....it's really not that expensive for what you get.

I realize you are in a tough spot of having to have both due to your communities situation.

Still, though, it is well worth it if you are a sports nut - and you certainly will find it a bargain to get your kids involved in all aspects of sports versus what they may get into if you leave them with time on their hands.

Ya, it sucks to feel extorted, but ya know what, it is worth it. Just pay the money and let it go - just like you pay the money at the gas pump every damn day and you know how badly you are getting screwed there.

 

[Crazy Patriot Guy]

I gave up Directtv a couple years back when I finally crunched some numbers on it. My roomates wanted to keep cable so I just got the dish for my room. I rarely, if ever, watched anything on satellite, not even the NFL Network. I think at one point I had turned on my dish maybe twice in three months during the offseason. Obviously my sole purpose with it was to get the Patriots games. So with monthly fees and NFL Sunday Ticket, I figured it was costing me roughly $50-$60 per game, taking into account the number of games that were primetime or on local coverage anyway.

Yeah, I love the Pats, but that's almost like buying a ticket to watch the game from your couch. Sorry but no.

 

[Owl]

Borg,

This isn't perfect but you might try finding 3 other people in your community who would also like to watch MLB. If you can do that, order the basic DirecTv package, plus the 3 additional receivers that you can get. That would give you and each of your friends a receiver to pick up MLB. The basic DirecTv package per month is about $70 with 4 receivers, which is $840 for the year. Add on your MLB package of about $169 for a total of $1010 a year, divide by 4 people and that's $252.25 per year, monthly only $21 per person. I believe that would solve your MLB problem. You'd pick up some basic channels you don't get with cable, plus every once and a while they have free preview weekends of movie channels. That would mean your total satellite/cable bill would be $56/month. If the other people who are interested are too far away to run the cable to, what you can do is visit a local apartment complex and ask the manager for any old DirecTv dishes he might have around (it never hurts to slip him a couple of bucks for his effort). If you have somebody to install the dishes, great. If you don't, when the installer does the initial work on your house for DirecTv, ask him what he'd charge to do your friends' houses on the weekend. Even if it cost another $100 or $200 initially, in the long run it beats paying $700 a year! You spread a little bit of money around the local economy, you save quite a bit of money personally and the best part is, you might make some new friends in the process. Best of Luck, Owl.