Is DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket Doomed?On July 13, 2015, a local bar in San Francisco filed a class-a

[JUCJ85]

I don't buy this as being a monopoly, what is a monopoly is like in my town, where Time Warner is the only Internet available, no DSL through Verizon or AT&T, or FiOS.

The problem with the NFL deciding to pull out and giving it to someone new, we will still have lawsuits, as if they give it to 1 provider, say Time Warner, where they're not in every area, or you can't get them anywhere like you can Satellite, then a bunch of people will file a lawsuit against TWC, and the NFL, it's best to just throw the lawsuit out, or better yet have the NFL give the rights to every provider. But they won't they are about being in charge, and making money.

 

[Jimbo]

I don't buy this as being a monopoly, what is a monopoly is like in my town, where Time Warner is the only Internet available, no DSL through Verizon or AT&T, or FiOS.

The problem with the NFL deciding to pull out and giving it to someone new, we will still have lawsuits, as if they give it to 1 provider, say Time Warner, where they're not in every area, or you can't get them anywhere like you can Satellite, then a bunch of people will file a lawsuit against TWC, and the NFL, it's best to just throw the lawsuit out, or better yet have the NFL give the rights to every provider. But they won't they are about being in charge, and making money.

Thats the biggest thing, it's the NFL and its thier ball, so they ARE in charge ...
There would be huge ramifications, but the NFL could take the contract and do away with it, once the current 8 year one is over ... now they Won't do that, but they could.

 

[darrengs]

mo·nop·o·ly
m??näp?l?/
noun

1. the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.

Sounds like Sunday Ticket to me.

 

[robjlevin]

I can't believe this conversation is still going on. A few things:

1. ATT when it bid for DirecTV put in a clause whereby they could back out if DTV did not get the Sunday Ticket renewal, so the idea that they'd back away from it is crazy.

2. Sunday Ticket is only as valuable as it is as an exclusive and the FOX and CBS affiliates would be up in arms if all of the cable companies had access. This is the NFL's desire. They want one and only one distributor and nationwide access to the product.

3. A monopoly is only an issue when it's abused and is an essential product or service. This is NOT the case here. What has anyone lost since ST came to be? The answer is nothing. All games for the local teams are still available over the air.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

nothing stopping him from starting a sat tv company and bidding on the rights

Except when the NFL refuses to put the package out for bid.

 

[robjlevin]

Right of first refusal is built into many contracts. The NFL has it with all of its TV partners.

 

[darrengs]

What the "NFL wants" doesn't necessarily matter, if the courts feel that there is collusion by the teams concerning their broadcasting rights and/or antitrust issues, then there will be changes and possibly compensation.

 

[RichManitoba]

I believe it's called, "Free Enterprise".

 

[Jimbo]

mo·nop·o·ly
m??näp?l?/
noun

1. the exclusive possession or control of the supply or trade in a commodity or service.

Sounds like Sunday Ticket to me.

You guys worried about the "No one else can get this product so it has to be against some law" guys ...
If you go back to the BEGINNING of the ST, it was available on C-Band, then on D*.

EVERYONE was available to bid on it, most didn't want anything to do with it or the price involved.

Most that didn't bid, had NO IDEA, how big this product was going to be.

D* took a chance and won ...

Now that people have seen how big it's gotten, they all want in .... tooo bad, you had your chance.

 

[harmlesslyfatal]

I still don't see any basis for a monopoly. It's the NFL's discretion to who they want to broadcast their product.

 

[ChadT41]

It is most certainly a monopolistic deal, but as I stated quite a few posts ago, not one that is or should be illegal. This is a deal that as Jimbo mentioned, was available to all, and everyone making a fuss over it is sore losers. DTV took the chance of a lifetime and won. And being smart business negotiators, they have that wonderful little clause that when the contracts expire, they get first chance to accept the NFLs new price, or leave it behind. Not all monopolies are bad or illegal. You do not see other companies with AutoHop, or with the availability to add sling to their equipment(internal to the company), so does that mean Dish does not get to use sling? No, they can use it, even though Sling Media is another company, attached to Echostar, because they have exclusive rights for the internal product. Of course people can buy sling boxes and do it that way, but that is through Sling Media and not their provider. Also, people can buy Sunday Ticket without DTV in areas where DTV cannot be offered.

To prove this point about monopolies even further, I want everyone to count how many electric and water companies are in their town. Typically, there is only 1, in some cases maybe 2. They have a local monopoly because the government grants them that. Are what they doing illegal, or cost effective? It is keeping those companies alive, and since they were the ones to bid and accept the terms of the city at that time, they got control. This lawsuit is frivolous at best, and the only claim that can be made is monopoly, but it is going to be hard to prove that this monopoly is going to bankrupt competitors, and is bad trade. This is just two smart businesses working together(although the NFL is a non profit supposedly, with deals like this they should be required to pay taxes, and from the looks of it may have recently shed its non profit tax exempt status) to make a product the most wanted and watched thing in the US. This is Capitalism at its finest and exactly what our country is about.

 

[Troch77]

NFL Sunday is the least valuable it's ever been.
But Directv chose to pay Billions for it.

I'm not so sure any other provider saw any value in the package to even attempt to pay that much.

And directv makes damn sure everyone pays their fair share of that bill.

I know I know, Directv doesn't pass NFL ST bill onto all of its subscribers.

 

[joed32]

It is most certainly a monopolistic deal, but as I stated quite a few posts ago, not one that is or should be illegal. This is a deal that as Jimbo mentioned, was available to all, and everyone making a fuss over it is sore losers. DTV took the chance of a lifetime and won. And being smart business negotiators, they have that wonderful little clause that when the contracts expire, they get first chance to accept the NFLs new price, or leave it behind. Not all monopolies are bad or illegal. You do not see other companies with AutoHop, or with the availability to add sling to their equipment(internal to the company), so does that mean Dish does not get to use sling? No, they can use it, even though Sling Media is another company, attached to Echostar, because they have exclusive rights for the internal product. Of course people can buy sling boxes and do it that way, but that is through Sling Media and not their provider. Also, people can buy Sunday Ticket without DTV in areas where DTV cannot be offered.

To prove this point about monopolies even further, I want everyone to count how many electric and water companies are in their town. Typically, there is only 1, in some cases maybe 2. They have a local monopoly because the government grants them that. Are what they doing illegal, or cost effective? It is keeping those companies alive, and since they were the ones to bid and accept the terms of the city at that time, they got control. This lawsuit is frivolous at best, and the only claim that can be made is monopoly, but it is going to be hard to prove that this monopoly is going to bankrupt competitors, and is bad trade. This is just two smart businesses working together(although the NFL is a non profit supposedly, with deals like this they should be required to pay taxes, and from the looks of it may have recently shed its non profit tax exempt status) to make a product the most wanted and watched thing in the US. This is Capitalism at its finest and exactly what our country is about.

Each team pays taxes on it's revenue and the leagues revenue is divided among the teams so it all gets taxed.

 

[Joe The Dragon]

You guys worried about the "No one else can get this product so it has to be against some law" guys ...
If you go back to the BEGINNING of the ST, it was available on C-Band, then on D*.

EVERYONE was available to bid on it, most didn't want anything to do with it or the price involved.

Most that didn't bid, had NO IDEA, how big this product was going to be.

D* took a chance and won ...

Now that people have seen how big it's gotten, they all want in .... tooo bad, you had your chance.

I think there are still some old C-Band subs that get NFL ST only (can they get HD? and still keep NFL ST only?) (what happens when SD is turned off?)

In Canada it's on many differnt systems.

There was a time that cable made a bid for it but they wanted to sell it per game and the NFL wanted the full package to be sold as a full one.

Right now streaming only is out and for that to work in a sports bar they will have to say a 14-16 stream plan the place will have to have the bandwidth for say at min for 8 feeds at 5MEG each. About 40 megs down to about a max of 80 to cover over lap / other sports needs (Over IP) also a big download cap as well.

Years ago Comcast wanted to trade CSN Philly of NFL ST how far there they willing to go in getting there systems setup to have 8-16 part time HD feeds?

in demand has a hard time fitting in all of the NHL / MLB games at times in SD much less all of the games in HD. Maybe if they stopped limiting NHL / MLB to just the game channels and used the TEAM channels for MLS / NBA. Maybe if they tuned off most of the HD on NBA / MLS / NHL / MLB to fit in NFL ST it may work but more SD channels may be needed as few cables systems have all IN demand hd feeds.

 

[Broe67]

There is no way that bar will win that one. When you see San Francisco or California in the mention of something. You know that there is a joke there. The owner of that bar has probably been smoking too many joints and drinking too much of the stock. I would love to be there when the judge tosses that case out. Then hopefully orders the owner to pay the costs for the other sides lawyers to be there.

ATT may end up with a new piece of Real Estate, that Google can own to move their Google Fiber project along.

 

[ChadT41]

What's wrong with smoking to much cheeba? My nights are wonderful and I still don't think like this jack wagon.