Multi-sport with Flex Pack?

[king3pj]

I haven't been around this part of the the forum in quite a while because I no longer have Dish but my parents still do. My dad is a big football fan so I just did my annual routine of going on Dish's customer support chat to see if I could get him any promo rates for Multi-Sport with Redzone.

They have the Flex Pack. During the summer they had the regional action pack so my dad could get Fox Sports Detroit for his Tigers games. Now that the Tigers are out of it and football is back I replaced the regional action pack with the national action pack for the ESPN channels and FS1.

The agent offered me half off multi-sport for 6 months. I accepted but when she tried to add it she came back and told me it wasn't available on Flex Pack and that I would have to upgrade to AT120+ to add it. Is that correct? Unfortunately the price she quoted me was about $40 more than they are paying now and that isn't going to fly.

Multi-sport was going to be big for my dad this fall. He loves Redzone and on top of that it also provides him with NFL Network, Big Ten Network, and MLB Network for postseason coverage. He doesn't currently get any of those channels with Flex Pack.

 

[lparsons21]

Yeah, I noticed that on the latest channel guides. Multi-sport requires AT120+.

 

[Tampa8]

Unfortunately to get the Red Zone/Multi Sports you need the Top 120+ or greater. (Or Latino Max)

 

[king3pj]

Yeah, I noticed that on the latest channel guides. Multi-sport requires AT120+.

I knew you couldn't get it if you had AT120 instead of AT120+ but I guess I didn't know that this also applied to Flex Pack. This is a real bummer because in my opinion Flex Pack is the best thing Dish has going for it. It's what kept my parents from switching to a streaming service. 10+ years of experience with Dish hardware and channel numbers didn't hurt either.

Keeping their best counter to the free Sunday Ticket ads away from Flex Pack customers seems like a bad move to me. Now they are going to have to reconsider their options.

 

[Tampa8]

As a guess they can not offer those channels if your package does not include certain other channels, and the reason why you need Top120+ not Top120.

 

[king3pj]

As a guess they can not offer those channels if your package does not include certain other channels, and the reason why you need Top120+ not Top120.

This must be annoying for people who live in areas where Dish doesn't offer an RSN. They have to pay to upgrade from AT120 to AT120+ in order to pay for multi-sport to get Redzone and that AT120+ upgrade doesn't actually get them anything.

 

[Tampa8]

This must be annoying for people who live in areas where Dish doesn't offer an RSN. They have to pay to upgrade from AT120 to AT120+ in order to pay for multi-sport to get Redzone and that AT120+ upgrade doesn't actually get them anything.

Maybe it isn't the RSN it's needing to have the NFL network and other channels in your package... but it could be DISH wants you to subscribe to a higher package to get it.

 

[king3pj]

Maybe it isn't the RSN it's needing to have the NFL network and other channels in your package...

Yeah, I've been away from Dish for a few years. When I left the only difference between AT120 and AT120+ was the RSNs. I just did a channel comparison and it looks like there are some other differences now. AT120+ carries most of what is included in Multi-sport now (NFL Network, BTN, SEC Network, Longhorn Network). The main thing multi-sport gives you that isn't in AT120+ now is Redzone and out of market RSNs. At only $5 more than AT120, AT120+ looks like a much better value than it was when I left.

Still, none of this does anything for my parents. They are still with Dish because the Flex pack brought their price closer to the streaming options without having to give up the DVR they know and learn a new system. Bumping up to AT120+ isn't really an option because it puts them back in the price range they were in when they wanted to leave Dish.

The question will be whether my dad sucks it up and goes without a lot of the football coverage he wants or if they switch to a cable double play or streaming service. Thanks for confirming that the CSR was right even though I wish she wasn't.