[CBFF] Article: NFL and Direct TV

[Kenny Claxton]

Satellite is generally cheaper than cable and more reliable. He also
took the most expensive oiption of the NFL Ticket and failed to
mention that payments are broken up into 4. 15 million subscibers is
nothing to sneeze at.



Kenny

On 8/22/06, Ryan Dietzenbach <ryandietzenbach at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think he's a little off.  I'm not a DirectTV guy (DISH subscriber
> here) but the dish services are generally no more expensive (if not
> cheaper) than digital cable.  Furthermore, they can mount it on
> basically any house or in a yard.
>
> Ryan
>
> On 8/22/06, Phil DeNomme <pdenomme at gmail.com> wrote:
> > It would be nice to have options though.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: cbff-bounces at chicagobearsfanforum.com
> > [mailto:cbff-bounces at chicagobearsfanforum.com] On Behalf Of Kenny Claxton
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 5:27 PM
> > To: post at chicagobearsfanforum.com
> > Subject: Re: [CBFF] Article: NFL and Direct TV
> >
> > Sounds like a bitter cable guy.
> >
> > On 8/22/06, Steve Behrens <steve.behrens at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Just stumbled upon this article, even though it was written before
> > > week 15 of last years game, I thought it was a good read concerning
> > > the NFL and their deal with Direct TV.  The full article (with some
> > > other observation, picks, etc, can be found here:
> > > http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/12/29/232113.php
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >  [image: Blogcritics.org] <http://blogcritics.org/>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I am sick: head congestion, sore throat, cough. The symptoms roughly
> > > correspond to a cold, but I am convinced it's something worse. Like
> > > pneumonia. Or Bird Flu. Hell, maybe it's a tumor. Whatever the case,
> > > I'm pretty sure I'm at death's door. Lucky I have made my mark on this
> > > world through my legacy of football picks.
> > >
> > > At least if I reach Heaven I can count on having NFL Sunday Ticket, or
> > > maybe I can just look down and see any game I want and even fly down
> > > for a close up view of the line play once I get my wings. On the other
> > > hand, if I wind up Down Below, my guess is the football viewing is
> > > pretty close to what I have now: the only sure thing is that the Lions
> > game will be on.
> > >
> > > Actually, in Hell, all games are Lions games.
> > >
> > > But seriously, we live in an on-demand age. I can listen to any music
> > > I want, at any time I want, and have the choice of buying or renting
> > > it. I can time-shift movies and TV or simply order them when I'm ready to
> > watch.
> > > Anything that isn't already on-demand is moving in that direction. How
> > > long do you think it will be until I can get my Rhapsody playlist
> > > streamed to my car? Or how about the entire inventory of Blockbuster
> > > ready to order through my digital cable box?
> > >
> > > So then why is it that I can only get a predetermined set of football
> > > games, theoretically tailored to my geographical market by some NFL
> > bureaucrat?
> > > Instead of getting what I want, I get what some suit's idea of what a
> > > typical person who lives within a couple hundred miles of me might
> > > want to see on average. Did we take the time tunnel back to the Stone Age?
> > >
> > > For those not familiar with NFL Sunday Ticket, it is an extra cost
> > > package that gives you access to any the game you want (with a minor
> > > exception now and then). That's a pretty simple model. Pay roughly
> > > $250 up front and you're covered for the whole season. There are even
> > > optional add-ons like Short Cuts, a replay of an entire game with
> > > nothing but the plays, everything else is edited out. You can watch an
> > entire game in 30 minutes.
> > > Cool, eh? All in all, it's a nice package; I would buy it every year
> > > without a second thought. The problem is, it is only available with
> > > DirecTV. That's right, no cable TV customer can have access to this;
> > > it is for DirecTV subscribers only.
> > >
> > > As much as I love watching football, I am not giving up my digital
> > > cable for it. So that means, if I wanted to see all the NFL games, I
> > > would have to have DirecTV installed and pay the Direct TV
> > > subscription of roughly $60/month plus the $250 for Sunday Ticket.
> > > Suppose I could arrange to do it for only five months out of the year
> > > for football season, that still jacks up the price of seeing the football
> > games I want to $550 per year.
> > >
> > > Yet even if I were willing to pay that, I still couldn't do it.
> > > DirecTV requires a south facing line of sight for their little
> > > satellite dish to work. Sorry, I don't have that. For me to get NFL
> > > Sunday Ticket I would have to buy a new house, which jacks up the
> > > expense a bit. But my personal issues aside, why would the NFL grant
> > > this privilege to DirecTV, thus assuring it is only available to the
> > > relatively small cross-section of insane football fans who are
> > > financially willing and technically able to have DirecTV installed?
> > >
> > > The answer, as always, is money. DirecTV paid the Dr. Evil-worthy sum
> > > of 3.5billion dollars to the NFL for this exclusivity. And the rights
> > > are locked up through 2010. According to this
> > > article<http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA480250.html>,
> > > cable TV negotiators were "blown away" by how much DirecTV was willing
> > > to offer, but it's not all that shocking. NFL Sunday Ticket is the
> > > only thing that matters to DirecTV. It is just about the only reason
> > > to choose satellite over cable, especially now that cable companies
> > > are offering discount packages that include broadband and phone
> > > service. They really had no choice. If they lost Sunday Ticket, they
> > > could just pack it in and call the bankruptcy lawyers. Note this quote
> > from a DirecTV exec:
> > >
> > > DirecTV will generate about $385 million in revenue this year from
> > > Sunday Ticket, and revenue has grown 20% during the past two years...
> > > If DirecTV grows its Sunday Ticket revenue each year by 11% to 12%,
> > > the company will be able to break even on the rights deal...
> > >
> > > That doesn't sound all that promising for DirecTV. If all you have to
> > > hang your hat on is Sunday Ticket and your target for Sunday Ticket is
> > > to break even, well, that's not what I would call a robust business plan.
> > >
> > > The NFL does this because they believe that by limiting out-of-market
> > > viewers to the niche audience of DirecTV, they can continue to extract
> > > outrageous sums from the old-school networks for the market limited
> > > offerings they currently provide. It's the best of all worlds for the NFL.
> > > DirecTV pays them an exorbitant amount for exclusive out-of-market
> > > game rights, but the DirecTV audience is small enough that the
> > > traditional networks (FOX, CBS, ESPN, etc.) don't freak out at the
> > > competition and don't balk at paying an exorbitant amount for their
> > > usual line-up of games. The League is swimming in green.
> > >
> > > The odd man out here is, of course, the football fan. You have to
> > > shell out some healthy cash for the privilege of jumping through
> > > DirecTV's hoops to see out-of-market games, or you live with what the
> > > NFL thinks you should see. And it's going to be that way for the next
> > > five years at least. In other words, it'll be 2011 before the NFL can
> > > even consider stepping into the '90s. How lame is it that I can't just
> > > contact Comcast and pay $5.99 or thereabouts to get the game I want to
> > > see, like I can with most other sporting events? So much for the on-demand
> > world.
> > >
> > > Can you imagine a more lucrative business than the NFL? Internally it
> > > is run like a totalitarian communist autocracy, but externally they
> > > are savagely capitalist. Sort of like what would happen if Josef
> > > Stalin mated with Ayn Rand. So many other businesses survive by their
> > > connection to them that they pay ludicrous amounts of money for
> > > sponsorship contracts just to stay solvent. And governments (read:
> > > taxpayers) finance their major investments in fixed assets. It's good to
> > be king.
> > >
> > > Believe it or not, there was a time when things were worse for viewing
> > > football games. At least we get Sunday and Monday night games. When I
> > > was a mere lad, there were no prime time games. You got the Lions game
> > > and one other in-division game on Sunday. Apart from that, you lived
> > > with 30 seconds of highlight clips on your local news broadcast. It was
> > the dark ages.
> > > Didn't have none of your high-falutin' ESPN *Sportscenter* or your HBO
> > > *Inside the NFL*.
> > >
> > > *Monday Night Football* opened a whole new world. I would wake up
> > > Tuesday morning and be looking forward to Howard Cosell doing the
> > > half-time highlights. I'm sure my Mom had to come in and turn off the
> > > little black and white TV in my bedroom every Monday, because I
> > > couldn't keep my eyes open past half-time.
> > >
> > > *MNF* didn't put prime time sports on the map; most localities
> > > broadcast the local team's baseball games at night all summer long.
> > > What it really showed was the viability of out-of-market games as
> > > prime time programming. It could have been two lousy teams from the
> > > west coast, but it was still the highest rated show in the Detroit
> > > market. When *MNF* came along, we finally saw the marketability of the
> > game itself, rather than just the local team.
> > > Besides *Sunday
> > > Night Football*, *MNF* begat *Monday Night Baseball*, which begat TBS
> > > and WGN cable casting Braves and Cubs games nationwide, which begat
> > > any number of cable operators showing night baseball and NBA games.
> > > Interesting that even though it started with the NFL, MLB and the NBA
> > > are more flexible in their scheduling now.
> > >
> > > This Monday marked the last ever *Monday Night Football* broadcast on ABC.
> > > Next year it moves to ESPN (and ESPN's Sunday night game moves to
> > > NBC), where presumably the excruciating crew of ESPN Sunday night
> > > announcers will take over. Ironically, one of the legendary *MNF*
> > > highlights is the gruesome scene of Lawrence Taylor breaking Joe
> > > Theismann's leg. Now Joe gets to be the color man on Monday Night
> > > Football. I wonder how many people will tell him to "break a leg"
> > > before his first show. Let's hope NBC, which takes over Monday night's
> > > game, will be able to do a quality job. They'll have Madden; if they
> > > pair him with someone sharp (Costas maybe? You could add Jaworski for
> > > even more insight...) and avoid Hank Williams Jr.-itis, they may do
> > > well. Personally, I'd bet they do something stupid like hire Terrell
> > > Owens when he gets suspended next time, or have William Hung do the
> > half-time soundtrack, or have Richard Lewis do color.
> > >
> > > By the way, I once saw Joe Theismann waiting for a plane at Dulles
> > > airport in DC. He was wearing these obnoxious salmon colored Bermuda
> > shorts.
> > > Definitely not on his color chart. He dresses as obnoxiously as he
> > > announces. He's not much bigger than me. I think I could've pantsed
> > > him. I should have just on general principle. And maybe called out,
> > > "LT says Hello," as I was running away. (Yes, I know it's apropos of
> > > nothing, when you're lying in front of the TV hacking up chunks of
> > > your internal organs, life's regrets are particularly vivid.)........
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > "He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool
> > you. He really is an idiot."
> >
> >  Groucho Marx
> >
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> >
> >
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> >
>
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-- 
"He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that
fool you. He really is an idiot."

  Groucho Marx