Why are we blacking out ESPN?

[goaliebob99]

Go to watch baseball tonight while were in a rain delay over at wrigley, guess what it's blacked out. If i tune to comcast, I can see it. What's more funny is that comcast is showing the cubs game on ESPN and WCIU where as D* is completely blocking all ESPN Programming.

Now here is a question. Why does comcast get to show both feeds unblacked out but D* is forced to black out ESPN. To me it seems a little unfair to satelliteguys that they are forced to black out a feed where as Comcast can provide the same feed in the same area on ESPN.

 

[charper1]

Who were the teams and where were they playing vs your market? DirecTV was likely upholding of the rights LOCAL broadcast rights holder and whatever the league mandated on the main channel. What was being aired on ESPN alternates?

 

[goaliebob99]

It was the cubs and houston. There were no games on the alt channels I belive, Allthough I didnt bother to look as D* isnt providing ALT HD Feeds for ESPN. The thing was that the game wasnt playing and ESPN was in rain delay programming.

The real question is that does comcast a free ride to league mandated blackouts. Comcast was showing the same game on ESPN. Where over at D* it was. I just found it weird that things would play out like that. The only thing that im pissed about is the fact that when the game wasnt on and ESPN was in normal programming or rain delay programming IE another game or sports center, ESPN was blacked out anyhow with no care given to unblack it out for normal programming.

 

[mlb]

I'm guessing that Comcast was in violation of the league blackout rules.

 

[jcrandall]

exactly, blackout was correct, comcast should blackout espn too.

Comcast wiill probably never face a complaint unless WCIU makes an issue of it.

 

[charper1]

Yep, they are almost 99.995% accurate when applying the mandated league blackouts; its just that they are some damn stupid and confusing no one can fugure them out on the fly. The one point is that BO posts almost never belong to a provider but we need a league BO area.

 

[goaliebob99]

Yep, My only problem was that D* was blacking out ESPN during the raindelay when obviously the game wasnt on.

 

[jcrandall]

Yep, My only problem was that D* was blacking out ESPN during the raindelay when obviously the game wasnt on.

I understand the delay, but I doubt they would switch it back and forth for rain delays - too much manual work, and mostly unnecessary. I'm guessing you wanted to watch the "bonus coverage".....you need Extra Innings

Quite a storm that went through Chicago last night, I laughed when that lightning strike sent Astros sprinting to the dugout, but then remember that I would have done the exact same thing.