I read in my local paper yesterday that the deal was signed by mlb and direct tv and there was a provision added that indemand can carry the games if they match the terms agreed to by both parties. There was a line from someone at indemand that said there was no way they could do that so it doesn't look good for us folks with cable. Maybe someone can find more info on the web and post
<TABLE class=yspcontent cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=974 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class="" vAlign=top width=720>Senators to examine baseball deal with DirecTV
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=7><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="1"></TD></TR><TR><TD class=yspsctnhdln>Senators to examine baseball deal with DirecTV
</TD></TR><TR><TD height=7><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="1"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><STYLE type=text/css> td.yspwidearticlebody { font-size: 13.5px; }</STYLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=yspwidearticlebody>March 9, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two senators plan to examine baseball's $700 million, seven-year deal with DirecTV to determine its impact on fans.
Under the agreement announced Thursday, the deal contains a provision that allows its "Extra Innings" package of out-of-market games to remain on cable television if the other incumbent providers -- iN Demand and EchoStar Communications Corp.'s Dish Network -- agree to match the terms.
<TABLE cellPadding=1 align=left border=0 hspace="10" vspace="5"><TBODY><TR><TD><SCRIPT language=javascript>if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object();window.yzq_d['wd5.HUSOxI0-']='&U=13bojsh94%2fN%3dwd5.HUSOxI0-%2fC%3d542848.10316726.10965936.1806201%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4392831';</SCRIPT><NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>But Robert Jacobson, president of iN Demand Networks LLC, said those terms for the "Extra Innings" package of out-of-market games were impossible for his company to agree to and called it a "de facto exclusive deal."
"I will review this deal to ensure it benefits consumers," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "I'm encouraged that Major League Baseball may be willing to provide broader access to their games than what was initially proposed. I will be watching closely to ensure the league works in good faith so that America's pastime is available to all fans. My concern all along has been that fans continue to have the ability to enjoy baseball on television."
The agreement also drew the attention of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I will be analyzing the commitment to see ... if the conditions for other carriers are satisfactory," Specter said. "This arrangement should motivate the NFL to reconsider broader coverage on its Sunday ticket and Thursday/Saturday programming to make such games available to other carriers beyond DirecTV. "It may be necessary for the Senate Judiciary Committee to have further hearings on the antitrust implications of the NFL and MLB TV programming and whether it is in the public interest to allow the antitrust exemptions of the NFL and MLB to continue."
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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=7><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="1"></TD></TR><TR><TD class=yspsctnhdln>Senators to examine baseball deal with DirecTV
</TD></TR><TR><TD height=7><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="1"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><STYLE type=text/css> td.yspwidearticlebody { font-size: 13.5px; }</STYLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=yspwidearticlebody>March 9, 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Two senators plan to examine baseball's $700 million, seven-year deal with DirecTV to determine its impact on fans.
Under the agreement announced Thursday, the deal contains a provision that allows its "Extra Innings" package of out-of-market games to remain on cable television if the other incumbent providers -- iN Demand and EchoStar Communications Corp.'s Dish Network -- agree to match the terms.
<TABLE cellPadding=1 align=left border=0 hspace="10" vspace="5"><TBODY><TR><TD><SCRIPT language=javascript>if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object();window.yzq_d['wd5.HUSOxI0-']='&U=13bojsh94%2fN%3dwd5.HUSOxI0-%2fC%3d542848.10316726.10965936.1806201%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4392831';</SCRIPT><NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>But Robert Jacobson, president of iN Demand Networks LLC, said those terms for the "Extra Innings" package of out-of-market games were impossible for his company to agree to and called it a "de facto exclusive deal."
"I will review this deal to ensure it benefits consumers," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. "I'm encouraged that Major League Baseball may be willing to provide broader access to their games than what was initially proposed. I will be watching closely to ensure the league works in good faith so that America's pastime is available to all fans. My concern all along has been that fans continue to have the ability to enjoy baseball on television."
The agreement also drew the attention of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I will be analyzing the commitment to see ... if the conditions for other carriers are satisfactory," Specter said. "This arrangement should motivate the NFL to reconsider broader coverage on its Sunday ticket and Thursday/Saturday programming to make such games available to other carriers beyond DirecTV. "It may be necessary for the Senate Judiciary Committee to have further hearings on the antitrust implications of the NFL and MLB TV programming and whether it is in the public interest to allow the antitrust exemptions of the NFL and MLB to continue."
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<TABLE class=yspcontent cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=974 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class="" vAlign=top width=720>Tuned out
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=7><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="1"></TD></TR><TR><TD class=yspsctnhdln>Tuned out
</TD></TR><TR><TD height=7><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="1"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><STYLE type=text/css> td.yspwidearticlebody { font-size: 13.5px; }</STYLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=yspwidearticlebody>By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
March 9, 2007
<TABLE id=ysparticleheadshot cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 align=left border=0 hspace="5" vspace="5"><TBODY><TR><TD class=ysptblbdr2><TABLE class=yspwhitebg cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=3 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE class=yspwhitebg cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>
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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Besides being hell bent on infuriating its best fans and having less people watch its games, Major League Baseball would also prefer if you stop calling to complain. If the FCC and Sen. John Kerry would stop threatening to investigate them, that would be good too. Other than that, it’s full speed ahead for MLB, which appears to have offered a virtually impossible to complete proposal (and a tight deadline to do it) to the consortium of cable and satellite providers that distribute the Extra Innings package to die-hard and displaced baseball fans.
If that option isn’t met by March 31, then DirecTV will get exclusive rights to Extra Innings and all the hundreds of thousands of fans that Bud Selig called “ridiculous” two weeks ago will be out of luck when it comes to watching out of market games.
As long as they stop complaining to MLB President Bob DuPuy, no one in New York seems to care what happens with them.
“I hope that those fans who have been directing their concerns to us over the last several weeks will now encourage their cable carriers to in fact enlist for this package,” DuPuy told the Associated Press.
<TABLE cellPadding=1 align=left border=0 hspace="10" vspace="5"><TBODY><TR><TD><!-- /SIG=12jdqa64m/M=542848.10368529.11011118.1414694/D=sports/S=96191705:LREC/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1173557809/A=4324646/R=0 --><SCRIPT language=javascript>if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object();window.yzq_d['TkODHUSOxI0-']='&U=13bp6s4it%2fN%3dTkODHUSOxI0-%2fC%3d542848.10368529.11011118.1414694%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4324646';</SCRIPT><NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Actually, DuPuy is just trying a weak public relations campaign. He must consider his customers morons if he thinks they are falling for his attempt to shift the blame for this debacle off MLB and onto cable providers who almost certainly will fail to make a deal that was designed to fail in the first place.
The nearly completed exclusivity would cut the availability of Extra Innings from 82 percent of U.S. households to 16 percent. The reason why MLB would do this is far more confusing than the regular baseball fan should have to try to figure out.
That person is someone from, let’s say, Cleveland, who now lives in Atlanta but still wants to watch his Indians so he can enjoy an emotional attachment to his father, his sister and his boys back home. He is gladly willing to shell out $179.95 to do so.
Only now, he won’t be able to, unless he switches to DirecTV.
There is virtually no chance the current consortium of cable and satellite providers (InDemand) can maintain access based on baseball’s smoke-screen offer.
It isn’t just money – the difference between the offers was less than $1 million per year, per team. It mostly hinges on clearing prime space on cable systems for The Baseball Channel, which isn’t scheduled to launch until 2009.
If that means a guaranteed spot on first-tier basic cable, then forget it. The Baseball Channel promises to draw even more anemic ratings than the NFL Network since baseball isn’t even as popular as football. It would be ludicrous to bump a higher-rated channel in favor of one that isn’t yet created and promises to do far worse.
Robert Jacobson, president of InDemand, said in a statement the “conditions for carriage that MLB and DirecTV designed (will) be impossible … to meet.”
The only other hope is intervention by the federal government. But don’t count on Congress telling 30 billionaires they can’t do something. Plus, baseball will probably have better luck confusing politicians with this “it’s the cable operators' fault” smoke screen. “This should help enormously in that area,” Selig said. Yeah, no kidding.
Regardless, it seems that MLB has the right to freeze out and anger its customers if it wants. This is the Land of the Free and MLB is free to be arrogant, duplicitous and money-hungry if it so chooses. And it so chooses.
Earlier this month Selig, whose customer-relations skills were clearly honed during his days as a used car dealer, called fan protests about the rumored deal “ridiculous” and just “a slight controversy, in some places.” Then Thursday DuPuy asked fans to stop complaining to his office and instead tell it to those helpful folks at the cable company.
I swear, long before steroids or misbehaving athletes kill sports, these supposed genius businessmen who care about dollars but have no sense will have ruined it.
Last year over half a million people subscribed to Extra Innings and MLB just sold them out for $2 a head, per team per year. So there’s the price of fan loyalty, a small Coke at the stadium. The league is pushing the “television” package on its website but it’s laughable to suggest watching a game on a computer equates with television.
So, essentially, it looks like DirecTV or nothing for Extra Innings viewers.
What Selig can’t understand is that while there are plenty of people out there who take television very seriously and are willing to compare and switch providers based on slight improvements, there are exponentially more who don’t and won’t.
They will always stick with what they have either out of loyalty, convenience or laziness. Maybe their wife and kids prefer the current system. Maybe they can’t afford a whole new package.
Maybe they are among the five percent of households that can’t use DirecTV at all, or the others where the reception is awful. Or they think a dish is ugly. Or maybe they live in an apartment and while, sure, there is a federal law allowing them to install something on the roof, this being the real world their landlord is against such a practice. And he can make life miserable.
Then there are the young or transient, who move every year or so and just aren’t going to invest in satellite.
There are a million reasons why they aren’t switching and a million more why they shouldn’t have to.
Yet baseball is not just trying to make them, Selig and DuPuy are saying they don’t care about them, their concerns or their past loyalty.
This is what happens when you listen to the suits and not the fans because a spreadsheet can’t measure passion. This is what happens when your commissioner likes to play the part of dopey every man, but is actually just dopey and out of touch like the rest of the rich guys.
MLB is selling its fans out for the price of a utility infielder, which is pretty stupid. Although not as stupid as Selig and DuPuy think you are.
Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist. Send Dan a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=7><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="1"></TD></TR><TR><TD class=yspsctnhdln>Tuned out
</TD></TR><TR><TD height=7><SPACER type="block" width="1" height="1"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><STYLE type=text/css> td.yspwidearticlebody { font-size: 13.5px; }</STYLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=yspwidearticlebody>By Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports
March 9, 2007
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If that option isn’t met by March 31, then DirecTV will get exclusive rights to Extra Innings and all the hundreds of thousands of fans that Bud Selig called “ridiculous” two weeks ago will be out of luck when it comes to watching out of market games.
As long as they stop complaining to MLB President Bob DuPuy, no one in New York seems to care what happens with them.
“I hope that those fans who have been directing their concerns to us over the last several weeks will now encourage their cable carriers to in fact enlist for this package,” DuPuy told the Associated Press.
<TABLE cellPadding=1 align=left border=0 hspace="10" vspace="5"><TBODY><TR><TD><!-- /SIG=12jdqa64m/M=542848.10368529.11011118.1414694/D=sports/S=96191705:LREC/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1173557809/A=4324646/R=0 --><SCRIPT language=javascript>if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object();window.yzq_d['TkODHUSOxI0-']='&U=13bp6s4it%2fN%3dTkODHUSOxI0-%2fC%3d542848.10368529.11011118.1414694%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4324646';</SCRIPT><NOSCRIPT></NOSCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Actually, DuPuy is just trying a weak public relations campaign. He must consider his customers morons if he thinks they are falling for his attempt to shift the blame for this debacle off MLB and onto cable providers who almost certainly will fail to make a deal that was designed to fail in the first place.
The nearly completed exclusivity would cut the availability of Extra Innings from 82 percent of U.S. households to 16 percent. The reason why MLB would do this is far more confusing than the regular baseball fan should have to try to figure out.
That person is someone from, let’s say, Cleveland, who now lives in Atlanta but still wants to watch his Indians so he can enjoy an emotional attachment to his father, his sister and his boys back home. He is gladly willing to shell out $179.95 to do so.
Only now, he won’t be able to, unless he switches to DirecTV.
There is virtually no chance the current consortium of cable and satellite providers (InDemand) can maintain access based on baseball’s smoke-screen offer.
It isn’t just money – the difference between the offers was less than $1 million per year, per team. It mostly hinges on clearing prime space on cable systems for The Baseball Channel, which isn’t scheduled to launch until 2009.
If that means a guaranteed spot on first-tier basic cable, then forget it. The Baseball Channel promises to draw even more anemic ratings than the NFL Network since baseball isn’t even as popular as football. It would be ludicrous to bump a higher-rated channel in favor of one that isn’t yet created and promises to do far worse.
Robert Jacobson, president of InDemand, said in a statement the “conditions for carriage that MLB and DirecTV designed (will) be impossible … to meet.”
The only other hope is intervention by the federal government. But don’t count on Congress telling 30 billionaires they can’t do something. Plus, baseball will probably have better luck confusing politicians with this “it’s the cable operators' fault” smoke screen. “This should help enormously in that area,” Selig said. Yeah, no kidding.
Regardless, it seems that MLB has the right to freeze out and anger its customers if it wants. This is the Land of the Free and MLB is free to be arrogant, duplicitous and money-hungry if it so chooses. And it so chooses.
Earlier this month Selig, whose customer-relations skills were clearly honed during his days as a used car dealer, called fan protests about the rumored deal “ridiculous” and just “a slight controversy, in some places.” Then Thursday DuPuy asked fans to stop complaining to his office and instead tell it to those helpful folks at the cable company.
I swear, long before steroids or misbehaving athletes kill sports, these supposed genius businessmen who care about dollars but have no sense will have ruined it.
Last year over half a million people subscribed to Extra Innings and MLB just sold them out for $2 a head, per team per year. So there’s the price of fan loyalty, a small Coke at the stadium. The league is pushing the “television” package on its website but it’s laughable to suggest watching a game on a computer equates with television.
So, essentially, it looks like DirecTV or nothing for Extra Innings viewers.
What Selig can’t understand is that while there are plenty of people out there who take television very seriously and are willing to compare and switch providers based on slight improvements, there are exponentially more who don’t and won’t.
They will always stick with what they have either out of loyalty, convenience or laziness. Maybe their wife and kids prefer the current system. Maybe they can’t afford a whole new package.
Maybe they are among the five percent of households that can’t use DirecTV at all, or the others where the reception is awful. Or they think a dish is ugly. Or maybe they live in an apartment and while, sure, there is a federal law allowing them to install something on the roof, this being the real world their landlord is against such a practice. And he can make life miserable.
Then there are the young or transient, who move every year or so and just aren’t going to invest in satellite.
There are a million reasons why they aren’t switching and a million more why they shouldn’t have to.
Yet baseball is not just trying to make them, Selig and DuPuy are saying they don’t care about them, their concerns or their past loyalty.
This is what happens when you listen to the suits and not the fans because a spreadsheet can’t measure passion. This is what happens when your commissioner likes to play the part of dopey every man, but is actually just dopey and out of touch like the rest of the rich guys.
MLB is selling its fans out for the price of a utility infielder, which is pretty stupid. Although not as stupid as Selig and DuPuy think you are.
Dan Wetzel is Yahoo! Sports' national columnist. Send Dan a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.
Updated on Friday, Mar 9, 2007 1:04 pm EST
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The owners are really a bunch of greedy scumbags at this point. Cash out big time now and piss off a good chunk of current fans. (Not to mention limiting yourself to bringing in future fans.) I can't imagine if you live in a small market and you're forced to watch a team, that has no shot whatsoever, all year long. People in those areas aren't going to care about baseball in general.
And watching on the computer is not the same thing.
And watching on the computer is not the same thing.
How does the NFL not get hammered on their "exclusive deal" like MLB has been? I do not even have the option of watching NFL games on the computer. Going further, DirecTV has also jacked up the price of Sunday Ticket nearly every year that I have had it (this will be the 10th year). Can you imagine how many would drop DirecTV if they didn't have exclusivity with the NFL?
For one, they had exclusive rights from the get-go. Wasn't like the NFL ticket was on every system and they dropped everything to go to Direct TV. Second, were talking about a sport that's on once a week compared to baseball that has 162 games for each team. Anyone can just go to a sports bar, worse comes to worse, every Sunday to watch the NFL that one day.
here is the real deal breaker baseball TV :lol:
It isn’t just money – the difference between the offers was less than $1 million per year, per team. It mostly hinges on clearing prime space on cable systems for The Baseball Channel, which isn’t scheduled to launch until 2009.
If that means a guaranteed spot on first-tier basic cable, then forget it. The Baseball Channel promises to draw even more anemic ratings than the NFL Network since baseball isn’t even as popular as football. It would be ludicrous to bump a higher-rated channel in favor of one that isn’t yet created and promises to do far worse.
It isn’t just money – the difference between the offers was less than $1 million per year, per team. It mostly hinges on clearing prime space on cable systems for The Baseball Channel, which isn’t scheduled to launch until 2009.
If that means a guaranteed spot on first-tier basic cable, then forget it. The Baseball Channel promises to draw even more anemic ratings than the NFL Network since baseball isn’t even as popular as football. It would be ludicrous to bump a higher-rated channel in favor of one that isn’t yet created and promises to do far worse.
Forget them. They are not the leaders in innovation anymore. Having DTV isnt the statement of coolness it might have been a few years ago.
My new reciever is roughly a 1/5th of the size of my old DTV one. It's tiny. Thank you Comcast!
DTV stopped working hard, they are just using their bucks to monopolize the system for subscribers. Let's just face it.
baseball is only a novelty in that it is somewhat interesting in march, and october, thats it. otherwise it is just a place to go get wasted and kill time before you head to the bars. or to get kicked out of the reds game in the 3rd inning and have an excuse to go to the bars earlier like i did after they finally got rid of graves. :toast:
I think this is an awsome deal....this will enable Directv to do to Baseball what it has done w/ NFL and Nascar. They will creat an Score Borad channel and exclusive content that other providers will not offer.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/stories/MYSA030907.EN.whattowatch.3698aaaf.html
To the less media savvy, DirecTV and MLB spun the deal around to make cable and Dish Network look like the bad guys. Yes, DirecTV gets the 10-year-old PPV package for the next seven seasons beginning this year and even though DirecTV more than outbid everyone else for exclusivity, the surprise is that the deal is non-exclusive.
In brilliant chess moves, MLB did these things — First, it announced DirecTV will carry its proposed MLB Channel in 2009 on a basic tier level that every DirecTV subscriber will receive, instantly giving the network 16 million potential viewers, which is not bad for a start-up network. DirecTV will also own a minority stake of the channel.
Second, Dish Network and cable systems can still have the PPV package this season provided they meet the same requirements DirecTV has. Quoting the MLB press release, both parties have access to the PPV package “at consistent rates and carriage requirements with a deal to be concluded before the baseball season begins. The provision also requires the incumbents to agree to carriage rights to the MLB Channel proportionally equivalent to DirecTV's commitment. Should the incumbents decide not to match DirecTV's commitment, the MLB Extra Innings package will be exclusive to DirecTV.”
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/stories/MYSA030907.EN.whattowatch.3698aaaf.html
To the less media savvy, DirecTV and MLB spun the deal around to make cable and Dish Network look like the bad guys. Yes, DirecTV gets the 10-year-old PPV package for the next seven seasons beginning this year and even though DirecTV more than outbid everyone else for exclusivity, the surprise is that the deal is non-exclusive.
In brilliant chess moves, MLB did these things — First, it announced DirecTV will carry its proposed MLB Channel in 2009 on a basic tier level that every DirecTV subscriber will receive, instantly giving the network 16 million potential viewers, which is not bad for a start-up network. DirecTV will also own a minority stake of the channel.
Second, Dish Network and cable systems can still have the PPV package this season provided they meet the same requirements DirecTV has. Quoting the MLB press release, both parties have access to the PPV package “at consistent rates and carriage requirements with a deal to be concluded before the baseball season begins. The provision also requires the incumbents to agree to carriage rights to the MLB Channel proportionally equivalent to DirecTV's commitment. Should the incumbents decide not to match DirecTV's commitment, the MLB Extra Innings package will be exclusive to DirecTV.”
