ST. THOMAS, U.S.V.I., Oct. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovative Cable TV today
charged Major League Baseball with discriminating against baseball fans in the
region by not allowing the telecasts of the baseball playoffs.
"Our representatives at ESPN tell us that Commissioner Bud Selig and MLB
will not license to them outside of the continental United States," said
Jennifer Matarangas-King, president and general manager of Innovative Cable
TV. "We only want to be treated as equally as Hawaii and Alaska, but
obviously Commissioner Selig is unaware that these two states are not part of
the continental U.S. We are very much a part of the U.S., which is why United
States is part of our name, United States Virgin Islands.
"We thought we had this resolved in 2003 when MLB did exactly the same
thing and ESPN also did not give us any advance notice," said Ms. Matarangas-
King. "We assumed after the last incident that ESPN would have resolved any
problems it had with MLB to insure that there would be no future blackouts.
"The residents of St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John are being treated by
MLB as second class citizens," she added. "Commissioner Selig also must not
realize how many MLB players have relatives living here who want to see the
games. So many players come from our Caribbean islands to the mainland U.S.
to make millions of dollars for the team owners and entertain the fans; yet
their families are deprived of the opportunity to see them play on television.
MLB enjoys a number of antitrust benefits from Congress, and because of this
discrimination, perhaps these special benefits should be revisited.
"All of us at Innovative apologize to our customers for this blackout and
want them to know it was beyond our control," said Ms. Matarangas-King.
Innovative Cable Television is one of the family of companies of
Innovative Communication Corporation that has management offices in West Palm
Beach, Fla. and headquarters in St. Croix, U.S.V.I. The privately held
telecom and media company has operations in the British and U.S. Virgin
Islands, Sint Maarten, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, France and
Belize.
Source
charged Major League Baseball with discriminating against baseball fans in the
region by not allowing the telecasts of the baseball playoffs.
"Our representatives at ESPN tell us that Commissioner Bud Selig and MLB
will not license to them outside of the continental United States," said
Jennifer Matarangas-King, president and general manager of Innovative Cable
TV. "We only want to be treated as equally as Hawaii and Alaska, but
obviously Commissioner Selig is unaware that these two states are not part of
the continental U.S. We are very much a part of the U.S., which is why United
States is part of our name, United States Virgin Islands.
"We thought we had this resolved in 2003 when MLB did exactly the same
thing and ESPN also did not give us any advance notice," said Ms. Matarangas-
King. "We assumed after the last incident that ESPN would have resolved any
problems it had with MLB to insure that there would be no future blackouts.
"The residents of St. Thomas, St. Croix and St. John are being treated by
MLB as second class citizens," she added. "Commissioner Selig also must not
realize how many MLB players have relatives living here who want to see the
games. So many players come from our Caribbean islands to the mainland U.S.
to make millions of dollars for the team owners and entertain the fans; yet
their families are deprived of the opportunity to see them play on television.
MLB enjoys a number of antitrust benefits from Congress, and because of this
discrimination, perhaps these special benefits should be revisited.
"All of us at Innovative apologize to our customers for this blackout and
want them to know it was beyond our control," said Ms. Matarangas-King.
Innovative Cable Television is one of the family of companies of
Innovative Communication Corporation that has management offices in West Palm
Beach, Fla. and headquarters in St. Croix, U.S.V.I. The privately held
telecom and media company has operations in the British and U.S. Virgin
Islands, Sint Maarten, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, France and
Belize.
Source
