The suggestion to switch to DirecTV is just trying to point you in the right direction and get you satisfaction for the hard earned money you spend on TV. What you must accept is that, while offering similar or even the same products, each company and its competitors are all a little bit different. Supermarket (Ralph's
)A has all the same products for sale as supermarket B (Von's
), yet there can be a number of reasons why people prefer supermarket A over B or B over A. And, BTW, there are always just a few precious specialty items that one supermarket has that the other doesn't (that one-of-a-kind eggnog).
While Dish is superior to DirecTV in every other way I can think of, Dish has never been #1 on sports, even takes a back seat to cable with regards to sports. For Dish to be even #2 with sports would cost Dish too much money, as in it can't really afford it, but that's what comes with choosing a much smaller company like Dish than the mega-gorilla media cos. cable companies and deep pocketed DirecTV. In fact, it is the primary reason I chose Dish over any other provider: getting the best or even 2nd best sports provider was and still is not important to me and I wanted the lowest price for what I consider the best value.
When people ask me about Dish and cable and DirecTV and which they should consider subscribing to, the first thing I say is, "If you want the tops in sports such as NFL ST, etc. or just superior sports options, then DirecTV is what you want." However, the vast majority of people (even some big-time sports fans) say, "I don't really care about all that, I just want my local teams, ESPN, broadcast nets, etc. for my sports). I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of people just don't care about getting the #1 or even #2 sports providers because how else would have Dish gotten as large as it has over all these years with standard--not stellar-- sports offerings and still add over 200,000 subscribers just last quarter and DirectTV somewhere in the 100,000's that same quarter, and it does explain why Dish hasn't made this a top priority, and they do have the bandwidth to provide 24/7 RSN's now, but they choose not to until they feel it is time.
On the other hand, Dish committed itself to being "The HD Leader," and so far, they are achieving it. Charlie has said, repeatedly, that Dish Network is going to be the place to be for HD, and he will work hard to have the most HD channels of anybody out there. By my last count, my cable co. has 31 HD channels, DirecTV about 72, and Dish Network 92 HD channels, I mean
REAL, national HD channels, not counting LIL's, PPV, VOD's, or even RSN's. So, that let's us know what Dish considers to be more important and far less financially risky than paying billions upon billions for tops in sports with insufficient return that could put Dish in financial jeopardy. All the other providers have much deeper pockets to take those losses in exchange for snagging a few more subscribers or even keep them from leaving.
We all have to go and give our business to our favorite supermarket to get the same products because one has lower prices, or it has better service, prettier displays, or friendly employees, etc.
