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Yahoo!Many football fans in our state already know that big cable companies are taking advantage of consumers and preventing them from watching their favorite football teams. How do they know this? Because they are being charged extra for the NFL Network or are blocked from watching the channel altogether. Instead of carrying popular channels like the NFL Network, some cable companies are loading their schedules with cable-owned channels like Versus and the Golf Network, claiming that the NFL Network is just a niche market. Tell that to the 222 million Americans who watched NFL football last season.
The good news is there's a way to resolve these disputes through arbitration so fans can see the programs they want. The FAN (Fair Access to Networks) Act would establish a fast, fair and cheap process so cable companies doing business in our state can't discriminate against channels like NFL Network and hurt consumers in the process. I hope my state representatives will stand up for consumers and football fans by supporting this common-sense solution. You can let your elected officials know you support the FAN Act by visiting www.iwantmynfl.com. —Cathy Williams
Previous Month
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Unfortunately this viewpoint has been tainted by the other Big Business in this tango, the NFL. Not to say that the cable companies aren't being greedy in this dispute, but the NFL is being just as greedy. In fact us little guys, the consumers, are caught in a giant tug of war between two big ego's, Big Cable, and the NFL.
The first thing the NFL did to make this tough, is to ask all cable companies to put the NFL channel on it's basic tier, right along with CNN, which has a broad audience. The NFL did not want to allow cable companies to put the NFL Network on a premium sports tier, like other specialty sports channels such as NBA TV, the Golf Chanel, etc. I'm a football fan, so I enjoy watching football, but if I didn't like football but still had to pay for the NFL channel with the basic plan, I'd be angry. The NFL is asking .70 per user per month for the NFL Channel. This doesn't seem like much, but consider CNN only charges .45 and it has a much broader audience.
In addition, understand the NFL has been sticking it to fans for a long time with access to viewing games. They sold the Sunday Ticket to DirectTV exclusively, so you need to get a satellite to watch out of area games (however millions of people can't get DirectTV). They moved MNF to ESPN so you can no longer watch MNF on over-the-air TV. They've offered a way to stream the games online, but only to overseas users (and U.S. taxpayers fund stadiums).
Also, please understand that website linked in the above opinion piece, iwantmynfl.com, is owned and operated by the NFL. Pro football is great, and the NFL has a good "product", but they are risking alienating their customers with this power grab.
pope (Paul Costales)
December 13, 2007 at 2:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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