NFL Network-CALL TO ACTION

[MJZiggy]

I got this e-mail from packers.com last night:

Finally, someone is standing up for the fans!

State Senator Dave Hansen and State Representative Kitty Rhoades are introducing legislation that would end the standoff between cable providers and independent programmers like NFL Network.

The Fair Access to Networks (FAN) Act sets up a dispute resolution process that allows an neutral arbiter to select between competing proposals for carriage of NFL Network.

If passed into law, the FAN Act would ensure NFL Network will be available in some form to subscribers of big cable companies like Time Warner and Charter Communications.

As you might know, Packers fans who live outside of Milwaukee and Green Bay will not be able to see the November 29th Packers-Cowboys game that will be shown on NFL Network. On top of that, Time Warner and Charter subscribers do not have access to NFL Network's 24/7 football programming. As the Packers march toward the playoffs, there isn't a better time to have access to behind-the-scenes NFL information shown daily on NFL Network.

In order to get the bill passed, fans like you need to let your legislators know you support the FAN Act, and you'd like to see them sign on as a co-sponsor of the Hansen-Rhoades bill.

You can contact your elected official by either:
Calling the Legislative Hotline at 1-800-362-9472. The Hotline will be able to get a message to your state legislators.


Or, click here to send your legislators an email.
Please email or call TODAY. Tell your legislator to sign on as a co-sponsor of the Hansen-Rhoades FAN Act. It is time the fans have a voice!

To learn more about the FAN Act, visit www.football247wisconsin.com today.

[Spaulding]

Or say screw the cable companies (ala Charter) and their constant rate increases and overpricing and switch to either DishNetwork or DirectTV.

Cost was 40% cheaper and you get the Big Ten Network as well the NFL Network.

[Bretsky]

Or say screw the cable companies (ala Charter) and their constant rate increases and overpricing and switch to either DishNetwork or DirectTV.

Cost was 40% cheaper and you get the Big Ten Network as well the NFL Network.

If you have multiple TV's I don't think it's any cheaper; what I would miss most is the cable internet. Although I suppose I could keep that at their jacked up prices

[]{ilr]3]

No one involved in this is for the fans. The NFL and the Cable companies are only concerned about who gets to make the next billion $.

I would really like to get the NFL network. My cable company knows this as I call them every month about it. The reason I dont have it is because the NFL is asking too much for it. Apparently the NFL doenst feel it has to earn its way into network broadcasting like ESPN did. Fans are loosing now and are going to loose no matter what happens.

This really pisses me off that I cannot see the Packer Cowboys game at home. Except for the NFL network, my cable company offers me more for less (way less actually) for HD service and HD DVR service than DTV or Dish so I cannot pull the trigger on these services just yet.

[MadtownPacker]

Feel free to stop by my pad ]{ilr]3. I got Turkey, dank, drank and NFLNetwork on HD.

[RashanGary]

I'm rooting for the NFL. The NFL wants the NFL network to be a part of the basic package. The cable companies want the right to charge customers to add the NFL network to their package.

I personally want the NFL network to be a part of basic cable. I think it would take a nice chunk out of ESPN's monopolistic reign on the sporting market. Hopefully MLB and NBA will follow suite, ridding us of crappy sports coverage forever.

[RashanGary]

Feel free to stop by my pad ]{ilr]3. I got Turkey, dank, drank and NFLNetwork on HD.

Hahaha, sounds like a good time. Next time there is a PR party, there should be a night set aside like this. The only thing missing is gambling. Maybe PR Poker night (enter at your own risk)!!

[RashanGary]

We'll all be sitting around China eyed, drinkin Hennessy, playin no limit poker. Maybe we could hire a local stripper to be the dealer!!

[Bretsky]

Feel free to stop by my pad ]{ilr]3. I got Turkey, dank, drank and NFLNetwork on HD.

Hahaha, sounds like a good time. Next time there is a PR party, there should be a night set aside like this. The only thing missing is gambling. Maybe PR Poker night (enter at your own risk)!!

If GB only loses one game this year, do those who attended the PR party get blamed for throwing the whammy on GB ?

[RashanGary]

maybe this isn't the place?

[RashanGary]

If GB only loses one game this year, do those who attended the PR party get blamed for throwing the whammy on GB ?

Wouldn't it be a great time if we hired a stripper to be the dealer and another stripper to serve drinks!!

It would get sort of expensive, but the pictures alone would be worth the cover charge!!

[Bretsky]

If GB only loses one game this year, do those who attended the PR party get blamed for throwing the whammy on GB ?

Wouldn't it be a great time if we hired a stripper to be the dealer and another stripper to serve drinks!!

It would get sort of expensive, but the pictures alone would be worth the cover charge!!

Now we're talking a can't miss game plan

Anyways, anybody who has Charter call those POS heads. 800-581-0081.
Listen to them squirm with their highly regulated bullshit, and then tell those zero's you know this has nothing to do with regulations or the customers. They want $10-$20 per customer who wants it; I too am clearly on the NFL's side here.

[FritzDontBlitz]

The NFL Network is a ripoff. You get 8 games over 6 weeks, the other 44 weeks it has more lame reruns than ESPN Classic.

In his "Monday Morning Quarterback" piece, Peter King weighed in on the conflict between the NFL and cable. I will post it here, hopefully it will help illuminate the issue a bit more for you guys:

Can't we all just get along? Isn't the pie big enough for everyone to have a piece?

Is it your inalienable right to have the NFL Network on your basic cable subscription? The NFL thinks so. Big Cable -- Time Warner Cable (Time Warner is the parent company of Time Warner Cable and Sports Illustrated) and Comcast, most notably -- think not.

We'll start to feel the heat on this issue Thursday night, when the first of eight games in 38 days is aired, a tepid matchup between Indianapolis and Atlanta (that lineup is the extent of live NFL football on the 24-hour NFL channel). The two referendum games come later, a month apart -- Green Bay at Dallas on Nov. 29, and New England at the Giants on Dec. 29.

The Green Bay-Dallas game will draw attention because this game for NFC supremacy and likely home-field advantage through the playoffs won't be seen on cable TV in either team's state capital; Madison and Austin don't have the NFL network on their cable systems.

The Patriots could be going for an undefeated regular season in week 17 at the Meadowlands, and 70 percent of the country with cable TV won't be able to watch because the big cable companies -- Time Warner and Comcast being the largest -- haven't reached a deal with the NFL to show the channel.

This is the second season with eight games on the fledgling network. The NFL eschewed a $400 million annual offer from Comcast to farm out the eight games before the 2006 season so the league could show them on its own network. Though the NFL has made deals with 240 smaller companies nationwide, most of the country is locked into Big Cable. And it's highly unlikely a deal will be made with either Time Warner or Comcast to break the logjam in time to show any or all of the eight games this year, though the Federal Communication Commission may force the two sides to binding arbitration after its monthly meeting in Washington on Nov. 27.

I want to lay out the two positions so you can have an opinion, if you want to have one. I've had a lot of people who won't see the games tell me, in essence: a pox on both their houses for not being able to figure out a fair way to give us the games.

I'll let Dallas owner Jerry Jones, the chairman of the league's broadcast committee, lay out his side, then you'll hear from the cable companies.

"We offer the cable company several minutes of advertising inventory on NFL Network. Every hour of every day they receive commercial time where they sell the ads and keep all the revenue. And in an effort to be better partners, we even set aside extra commercial inventory during our highly rated NFL games. Each cable operator gets 18 30-second ads during these games and they keep all the revenue from those too. Why do they have to charge the fans?

"Ask the fans this: Would you trade in three shopping channels, the Versus Network and Turner Classic Movies for the opportunity to have one channel in this country dedicated to football year-round? We offer a tremendous array of football-related content, the most popular programming in the country, and we do it for the cost to the cable operator of less than one movie ticket a year per subscriber. Would you rather go see one movie in the theater for two hours or have 24/7 year-round access to football?''

Big Cable clearly thinks the NFL Network is expensive niche programming, and disputes the league's claim it wouldn't have to raise rates if it took on the network. As one cable company official said to me: "The NFL wants us to show eight football games in six weeks, and then the rest of the year show a channel that has more repeats than ESPN News. They want us to do something that would force us to raise our rates. And quite frankly, there's been no groundswell from our customers to do this.''

I thought the fair thing might be to show how much money the cable companies are charged to carry some channels, just to put the stance of the NFL into some perspective. The firm SNL Financial, based in Charlottesville, Va., gathers financial data for the cable industry and provided me with these figures:

COST PER SUBSCRIBER HOUSEHOLD (per month)

Leading non-sports channels
TNT: 91 cents
Disney Channel: 83 cents
USA Network: 51 cents
CNN: 46 cents
TBS: 44 cents
Nickelodeon: 43 cents
FX: 36 cents

Leading sports channels
ESPN: $3.26
Fox Sports Net: $1.92
NFL Network: 80 cents
Fox College Sports: 63 cents
NHL Network: 51 cents
ESPN2: 46 cents
NBA TV: 36 cents

Keep in mind that this is an average. As Jones says, for mass distribution with the big companies, the NFL would likely make a deal with the cables for 60 or 65 cents per subscriber per month. One compromise offered by Time Warner but turned down by the NFL was to have the company make the eight games available on pay-per-view, with the NFL setting the pay-per-view price per game and collecting all revenue.

I expressed my disbelief to one cable analyst that cable companies viewed the value of the NFL Network almost double that of CNN, which has to be a staple of every cable system in the United States, with instantaneous coverage of wars and disasters worldwide. "You've got to understand one thing about sports and cable TV,'' the analyst said. "Sports rights fees are the one thing in the business that keep spiraling up and up, while the cost of a lot of these other channels, even the ones that seem so important, are remaining relatively flat.''

It still seems insane to me. Even the NHL Network -- and I don't even know what that is -- costs cable companies, on average, five cents more than CNN. NBA TV (36 cents per subscriber per month) is nine cents more than CNBC.

I have DirecTV, and, of course, the satellite carries the Network. But I don't watch the Network much, because I don't have time to watch much NFL programming other than games. Certainly I'll watch the games when they come on, beginning Thursday night. I heard Jim Nantz say on WFAN recently he doesn't have it in his Connecticut home, and my friend at ESPN.com, Len Pasquarelli, told me he doesn't watch it either.

I have nothing against it, and I'm sure I'm missing things by not watching the regular programming. But there's a sea of NFL programming on ESPN and Fox and everywhere else, and you could go blind watching it all. The NFL Network, it seems to me, would have a better case if it had more live events than eight games, the week at the NFL Scouting Combine and draft coverage.

You make the call. Who's to blame for you not having your games, cable America?

Yeah, you know its gotta be legit when Jerry Jones is the front man...

[Spaulding]

Or say screw the cable companies (ala Charter) and their constant rate increases and overpricing and switch to either DishNetwork or DirectTV.

Cost was 40% cheaper and you get the Big Ten Network as well the NFL Network.

If you have multiple TV's I don't think it's any cheaper; what I would miss most is the cable internet. Although I suppose I could keep that at their jacked up prices

Not positive on prices and I'm new to dish so can't vouch for their service or quality but so far things look good. Anyways went from $75/month for Charter and one of the packages and DVR to DishNetwork and dropped to $45/month for four TV package and America's 100 with DVR on two sets. Going month to month to evaluate it and only cost in not signing an 18 month contract was losing pay channels (HBO, Showtime, etc.) for free for thee months, HD free for six months, and the $50 initial service/installation fee reimbursement. Either way am saving $30/month so if after two months and it sucks I have the option of going back to Charter and getting one of their new subscriber packages.

But, the meantime I have the NFL Network for the Packers/Cowboys game as well as the Big Ten Network to watch Badgers hoops.

[Lurker64]

I think the Cable companies are more concerned with "You won't give us Sunday Ticket, and you want to give us table scraps instead?". Since I want Sunday Ticket available to me without getting a dish, I'm kind of in the camp of the cable companies. In my dream world I imagine the cable companies' continued blocking of NFLN might open up the door for sunday ticket to become available to them (and by extension, me) in some way.