NFL and Comcast try to chop-block each other

Negotiations between sports-governing bodies and TV channels are often rather beguiling.

While News Corp.'s Fox, for example, built the fourth network with the NFL its most sturdy pillar, other channels seem to fall in and out of favor.

Now Comcast, which owns some channels and controls a seemingly infinite amount of cable, is threatening to remove the NFL Network from every last strand of cable because it feels that the NFL is not quite playing ball.

Comcast has never liked the 70-cents-per-subscriber fee that the NFL charges for the its total football network, which occasionally shows a live game or two but otherwise offers quite a lot of talking about football.

The NFL seems to have gone to the Federal Communications Commission to complain that the NFL Network isn't offered as part of Comcast's standard sports package, while Versus (oh, yes, those wonderful NHL playoffs are coming!) and the Golf Channel, both owned by Comcast, are.

Comcast, on the other hand, would dearly, and understandably, like to get hold of NFL Sunday Ticket, a channel that allows those who got out of places like Cincinnati and Tampa to still enjoy their home team's games live. Currently, they can do this only on Direct TV.

Naturally, both sides are offering some necessary roughness, as the current NFL Network-Comcast deal expires May 1.

Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen offered this long bomb to The Wall Street Journal: "In the palace of truth and justice, all these channels probably belong on a sports tier, but the leagues are not willing to do that."

Yes, not the Palace of Auburn Hills. The gilded Palace of Truth and Justice.

"Yo, how many of you can make it to my place Thursday for the NFL Network Game? I got Direct TV."

(Credit: CC Monica's Dad/Flickr)

However, Steve Bornstein, chief executive of the NFL, offered his own strike down the middle, despite the close attentions of a ruthless safety or two: "Some cable operators talk out of two sides of their mouths...One minute, they say it's about the price, the next, they're saying it's about access to Sunday Ticket."

Is he suggesting someone might not be telling the truth? A personal foul, surely.

Will the FCC turn out to be the referee on this one? Will the two sides reach a hard-fought, swimmingly reasonable compromise along the lines of, oh, I don't know, the Camp David agreement?

When so much money clasps its hands around a beloved national sport, it's sometimes easy to forget that people just want to watch the games they want to watch without hooking up woks on their roof or cables around their wallpaper.

Strangely, the former commissioner of the NFL, the weirdly somnolent Paul Tagliabue, believes that baseball got something right, specifically concerning the way it launched their MLB Network. Cable had first dibs on out-of-market games. Then MLB Network appeared as part of a basic digital package.

I know that many people have never understood why the NFL gave exclusive rights to Direct TV for its Sunday Ticket. I mean, it's not as if you have to wok your chimney to watch other important events--like "American Idol" and "Dancing with the Stars"--happening elsewhere.

I know you'll tell me that it all has to do with money. But one might have thought that there would have been a far larger market out there if the out-of-town games were offered across multiple platforms.

Look, I'm a San Diego Chargers fan. I don't live in San Diego. I have cable. Ergo, I spend a lot of winter Sundays in sports bars.

Please, wealthy people of commerce, will you sing from the same playbook and help me improve my diet and my lifestyle? Thank you.

[libertyforall1776]

Just enable internet streaming of content and be done with it! ;-)

[mensadude]

I will take the NHL playoffs over others, such as the always boring a** NBA, any day. Thank you for reminding me they are almost exclusively on Versus; I will be glued to it starting today. I also have Directv and I have always received the NFL Channel...you ain't missing nothing, Comcast subscribers. The NFL Channel isn't even worth the characters used to write this article. A big whocares? to this issue.

[kc6hur]

I glad they didn't suck any HD channels from Dish for that rubbish.

[jatstuff]

The NFL has been more overbearing and frustrating to deal with than any modern-day monopoly, including Microsoft. As a monopoly, the NFL has been able to generate enormous profits for decades. But as a monopoly, the also have an obligation to make their product available to the general public at a reasonable cost. With things like NFL Network and restricting NFL Sunday TIcket to one company, they fail to meet this minimal standard. Let's hope that the latest dust up with Comcast will help bring some of the NFL's ethical shortcomings under greater scrutiny.

[umbrae]

I will switch to any cable/sat provider that offers NO sports channels. Just to let them know there is a market outside of sports. 50% of the channels I pay for a sport related and never get watched in my household.

I say let the NFL burn.

[doublendonn]

I dropped DirectTV and Direct Ticket after one season - they raised price and raised the price and did not care because they are the ONLY provider - Hey FCC what happened to the competition? You allow 3 cable providers in my town, big deal if you can ONLY GET WHAT YOU WANT ON ONLY ONE PROVIDER!!!! whats the point?

NFL screwed the fan and they DONT CARE - they know DirectTV is screwing people jacking up the rates - NFL does not care!