For tens of millions of sports fans, the portion of the cable bill that goes to sports (Not really an accurate statement economically, but I'll with it for the sake of this post) isn't a tax, it's called the reason they bother paying the rest of the bill. For many, sports is the main dish, and everything else is just icing on the cake that they'd be willing to do without if it came down to paying just for the icing and leaving out the cake (the sports).
If they split sports into a separate tier that requires a basic tier you have to subscribe to first, then they'll be "a non-sports tax". How is that right if the current situation isn't?
One thing the article is right about, though- pay television costs too much, and a lot of people are being forced to drop down service tiers, start jumping back and forth between providers to get deals so they can afford, or drop it entirely. And if the economy doesn't get better and the prices continue to rise, more and more people are going to be in those situations. The solution is not to drop sports and provide less value, though. The solution (or at least a good temporary band-aid) is to trim the profit margins a little. Dish, Comcast, and others make a fortune every year in profit. Half a billion a year might be better than a billion if it prevents you from losing long-term customers forever.
I'm not saying these sports rights fee paid to the leagues aren't out of control, they are. And, I'm not saying that some of these sports channels don't want too much money, they may (Though I'm not sure on that one). But what I am saying is that the end providers (Dish, Direct, Comcast, Cox, Charter, etc.) need to stop passing the buck and blaming it on everyone but themselves. As long as they are making huge net profits, they themselves are part of the reason rates keep rising. If one year, say, Dish winds up operating at a net loss or barely makes a profit and has to raise rates because channels are charging them more, then I might see their point. Right now they can swallow these increases without passing it onto consumers and still make a tidy profit, though. If Dish chooses to raise our rates again or drop our sports because they can't stand to see their profit margin go down a little, that's on them.
I'd love to see bills drop to like $20 or $30 a month, but if the programming no longer includes sports, it's not even worth $20 or $30 a month to me. Maybe $10 a month. And no matter how much they save in rights fees, I don't see anyone offering a $10 a month television package anytime soon (at least not as a regular price).
