No worries, man. This whole situation is frustrating as hell. Only natural for the fans to want to blame someone. And Les isn't exactly beyond reproach. No matter who is negotiating the hardest right now, it seems incomprehensible that the Rockets would agree to this deal knowing that several major providers weren't on board. It's called due diligence. Bottom line is we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. That tweet posted in this thread is intriguing and actually sounds legit....but it just seems really weird that 3 major carriers want Comcast to pay them to carry their network. I wonder if someone could retweet (I don't know how this twitter **** works...) and get him to elaborate. His explanation doesn't make sense.
It doesn't seem as weird to me. If there was a DirecTV sports channel that they wanted to air on other providers, providers might balk as it could be seen as a promotion for that provider.
Well, I live in Montana and am dealing with a similar problem myself. Here in Billings, the only carriers are Optimum or Direct TV. Since my family here already had Optimum and they carry League Pass, I decided to stick with Optimum and ordered League Pass last Thursday. Today, I attempted to register at NBA.com for the free Broadband access you get with League Pass TV. I had problems getting registered and was directed to call Optimum customer support. After calling Optimum, here's what they told me. NBA League Pass is available at Optimum but only on TV....NOT Broadband. Something to do with negotiations between the NBA and Optimum. Interestingly enough, they still charge the full $179 price. Also I was told that on the East Coast, Broadband is available for Optimum customers because the infrastructure is in place but not out here in the west. Yet, they offer no discount. To add insult to injury, I also discovered League Pass is not available in HD on Optimum. I will probably switch my subscription to Broadband since I do have Apple TV and that is carried in HD streaming but I want to watch it for free the first week and judge the quality first. Damn.....why does the NBA make it so hard to watch a friggin basketball game?
The receivers are negotiable. My friend have 5 receivers and had all 4 receiver fees waived (1st is free). My co-worker had 2 of your extra receivers waived, but still have to pay for 1 receiver. 5 receivers is only $30. I think Uverse is making a nice margin off of you. Good luck man.
This is depressing. Well... good bye to watching Rockets games on my television, and hello to watching ****ty internet streams. I guess I'll eventually lose interest. P.S. **** you wealthy ***** who caused all these problems.
if we don't get CSN channel after 5 games, let's do a protest in front of the toyota center. let's burn rockets jerseys...
Baaaaaad karma. Let's just say we drunkenly burned Rockets gear signed by a certain Mavs coach before game 7 in 2005....
I have Scola and Hakeem's jersey but there's no point in holding on to it... or, let's go to Marshall's and buy a 15$ Tmac's jersey for the occassion
Anyone know if league pass shows away games? I thought about getting to watch those then I figure I could watch the thunder since lamb and Martin are there. Oh ad I've always been a durant fan
i called directv and complained respectfully. they in turn offered me a series of payment cuts for the next 12 months.. it pleases me that my monthly bill is 70 dollars fewer than it was before. still, it concerns me that they were so willing to appease me through financial means, gives me the suspicion that they don't see an imminent resolution to this.
If you're in or around Houston, the Rockets games will still be blacked out because Comcast Sportsnet Houston owns the broadcast rights in this area. http://leaguepasssupport.nba.com/link/portal/7801/7801/Article/143/-What-are-blackouts " What are blackouts? Sports Blackouts for TV Sports blackouts are a factor in every programming distribution service. Blackouts are determined primarily according to who has the rights to broadcast a given game in a given area, and are defined by the NBA. Blackouts take place when a game is televised locally in your area via a regional sports network or an over-the-air station. If a game is blacked out on NBA League Pass in your local area, you should tune to your local station to see the game. Games appearing on national television are not available on League Pass. This applies to games being televised on ABC, ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV. You may view these games simply by switching to the designated channel. For example, the Lakers are playing the Rockets and both teams are broadcasting the game locally -- KCAL 9 in the Los Angeles area, and FSN Southwest in the Houston area. NBA League Pass Subscribers living in the Los Angeles area will be blacked out in the Lakers over-the-air territory. Subscribers in the Houston area will also be blacked out for NBA League Pass Broadband. "
I thought about it. And when ATT didn't offer me really anything to stay I decided I'd seek a different provider anyway. But I still blame Les and to a lesser extent I blame Comcast. And I don't want to patronize the Rockets anymore. If I change providers it will be to DirecTV or some other provider that does not yet have Rockets games. If they try to charge me extra for Rockets games I won't pay the charge; I'll just skip the game. I hope that my interest will be rekindled and that all this greedy, anti-fan BS will eventually be resolved. But I'm sitting this year out. If they make the playoffs I'll watch, but I already missed the pre-season and, as I did, I no longer care to watch the regular season. I'm not interested in seeing most of the team play for the very first time on Wednesday or, more likely, later than that. It took about 20 crappy moves to alienate this lifelong fan but they finally did it. I might be back eventually but the bad taste in my mouth won't go away any time soon.
Just purchased the Nba League Pass from Directv for $10 per month. Blackout on home games though. So it was $19.99 for six months plus 12 months of $10 credits on top of that. Now I will watch some OKC games as well.
