IN Demand Reaches MLB EI Agreement

[dishbd]

So, we've been hearing for the past week that the one hold up for E* was getting equal ownership in the Baseball Channel. In fact, this is exactly what Charlie said the hold up was on the last Chat. So, now we hear that InDemand is getting that exact deal. When I heard this I thought, "Great, Dish should be right behind them in signing." And now E* has another excuse. Congrats, E*, you played me for another month of service while feeding out a false hope. See ya.

 

[jahlight]

I dropped Dish and went to Cable and now I am really happy about my decision!

 

[Peter Parker]

What if MLB had demanded $200 million a year? A line has to be drawn somewhere for any negotiation and E* drew theirs. Also, MLB seems to interpret the words 'matching offer' differently than the rest of the world does. I will be interested to see if anyone caved on the baseball channel ownership problem or what compromise was made.

At the moment I am more concerned that only 7 of the RSN-HD channels have been activated and E* will "continue to explore carriage of additional HD RSNs throughout the year"... leaving the rest of us in the other 9 regions SOL. But I suppose we should just accept that subscribing to and paying for the same service doesnt mean we should expect to get it.

We do not know that MLB demanded $200 million a year. All we know is that E8 did not accept the terms but taht EVERY OTHER PARTY found a way to. Some of you think that this si fine and if that is the case you should stay. Many others are upset and can be expected to express that.

 

[duckydan]

How are indemand and d* subsidizing the cost? I'm guessing that the other companies are going to have across the board price increases. If 230k subscribers each pay $200 per year thats only $46million... where does the other $154 million come from? On top of that if only 55k dish subscribers pay $200 a month thats only $11million which is even worse as they would have to find $189 million more. I guess D* sees that more people will sign (as with the sunday ticket) but even if you take the 270k from D* and the 230k from cable the combined only gross $200 million so I don't see why any of the companies find this attractive. At least with football its a weekly event that has a huge following. Baseball is so saturated with games the average fan may watch half of them.

 

[Robert NTSC Archivist]

Yes time to head up to get Guest Room to watch theDodgers and Angels. I am givingf Dish until Friday or I will ahve ot add it to my DirecTV account.

Then I will have to add a reciever and as I own my DirecTV equipment. I can only imagine what a nightmare that will be.

 

[Sammy033]

At least with football its a weekly event that has a huge following. Baseball is so saturated with games the average fan may watch half of them.

NFL games are on 3 days a week. I would think Sunday afternoon + monday night football was enough. Now its Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday night and Thursday night. How much pro football can people watch?

I wonder if would make business sense for all major sports to go totally PPV... like selling virtual tickets. For people to accept it... not withstanding the price... I figure all games would have to be made available for it to work. If people were guaranteed they could get the games they want, how much would they pay for a single game?

Old argument yes. But whats going to happen when the next major sport package comes up for renewal? Hopefully it wont be as protracted as the EI battle is.