Fans As Collateral Damage
| 13
|
by user Frisky
 |
Being a sports fan has become easier and easier over the years. Between the Internet and all the variations of ESPN, it’s pretty darn easy to follow your team no matter where you live. Of course, the goal for most fans is just to be able to watch all or most of your teams’ games. As a Cleveland fan, I’m thrilled to be able to watch about 150 Indians games a year and pretty much every Cavs game. Unfortunately, all is not perfect and, amazingly enough, it’s America’s most popular sport where the bulk of the problems lie.
As a Browns fan living in Columbus, the last few years have brought quite a struggle when it comes to watching my team every week. Since Columbus is split between Bengals and Browns fans, and since the Bengals are a much better team right now, there are often times when I am unable to watch the Browns due to conflicts with the Bengals.
If that weren’t bad enough, the NFL has recently started its own network which is going to be airing games. I have no doubt that the NFL made a strategic decision to include as many different teams as they could on their broadcast schedule so as to induce national demand for the network. It has worked in Ohio, with both the Bengals and the Browns appearing on the network later this year. As it stands, if you don’t get the NFL Network and you live outside of a team’s local viewing area (and Columbus is indeed outside of both the Cleveland and Cincinnati viewing areas), you are screwed.
Of course, the simple solution would seem to be: add the stinking channel to all cable lineups. But is anything ever that simple? Not when you’re Time Warner. Time Warner Cable has been spreading across the country eating up smaller cable companies along the way. Many who were under one cable provider a year ago are now under Time Warner by default. In this area, if you want cable, you have to get it through Time Warner. By extension, if you want the NFL Network, you have to get it through Time Warner.
Unfortunately, Time Warner does not currently carry the NFL Network. Even though many fans want it and are willing to pay for it, Time Warner refuses to budge in their negotiations with the NFL. They are pretty much telling their customers that they are SOL if they want to watch their team on the NFL Network.
But you can’t just blame Time Warner. After all, it was the NFL that put games on their network in the first place and they clearly did so with the intention of forcing the hand of cable providers. This boils down to a battle between two huge corporations and it’s us, the fans, who find ourselves in the line of fire.
Now the problem has found its way to college football. As a fan of the Buckeyes living in the Columbus viewing area, I never imagined I would have to worry about whether or not I can see the number one team in the nation each week. It’s a given, right? Wrong.
When the Buckeyes play the Indiana Hoosiers next weekend, very few people will get to see it. The Big 10 sold the rights for the game to ESPN-U. Yeah, I’d never heard of it either. It sounds cool, but of course Time Warner doesn’t carry it. It’s basically no different than if the game were on ESPN. That is considered a national broadcast even though people without a standard cable package would be unable to get it. You just don’t hear that much about it because nearly everyone who cares about sports already has ESPN. Unfortunately, the same thing cannot be said for ESPN-U, so the result is that most of Ohio will not be able to watch the Buckeyes next weekend unless they go see them in person.
Clearly this is once again a big corporation (ESPN) trying to force the hand of cable providers by securing the rights to games a lot of people would want to watch. Time Warner’s refusal to pick up the network once again results in the fans paying the price. But this situation adds a new wrinkle with the Big 10 essentially allowing this to happen in the first place by selling the rights to a network that they had to know very few people would have access to. You can use any method you want to come up with the party deserving of blame but no matter what, you’re going to end up pointing the finger at a huge corporation that has more money than the fans will ever make combined.
Of course you could say, “Well switch to satellite. That will solve all your problems.” Sure that will solve the problem of getting to see my teams, but it doesn’t make financial sense in my situation. Unfortunately, I am heavily invested in Time Warner due to the fact that I get my cable, Internet and phone service through them. If I drop one, I lose discounts on the others and I have little doubt I would end up paying more in the long run. Trust me, I have no need to pay MORE for these things than I am currently doing.
The point is, this should not even be an issue. With the availability of things like movies on demand, why can’t this technology be applied to sports as well? I should be able to pay for some sort Ohio package that would allow me to see the Indians, Cavs, Browns and Buckeyes at any given time no matter where I live. Instead, I have to go week to week wondering if I’m going to get to see the teams that play an hour or two from my house. Is this 2006 or 1906?
