You're wasting your time if you're calling up Comcast. This station is owned primarily by the Astros and Rockets (something like 50 and 30%, respectively). Comcast/NBC Universal is a minority owner, so the teams have the responsibility in all of this. I wouldn't expect the support people at comcast to have any clue about it, regardless of how clueless they may be in general. That is a completely separate entity. Everyone needs to realize that this is the ROCKETS and ASTROS making this deal, not Comcast. At this point I'm looking at them more than I am Uverse/Dish/DirecTV. The fact that none of them have come to a deal leads me to believe the network is being stubborn.
You don't think you're kind of being a jerk about this? People are just pissed that they can't watch the team they like. Saying, "Oh, it'll all work out eventually. And when it does, you'll be thankful" just isn't good enough. Personally, I have to either fill my laptop with viruses to stream the game or go out and spend $10-$30 each game just to watch. Those are my options. I live ~15 minutes from the Toyota Center in an area that supports every major cable provider except Comcast. That sucks, and this is a big deal to many people. I attempted to get Comcast, but that resulted in the worst customer service experience known to man. If I told you what happened, you would not believe the story. In the end I wasted two months trying to get their service, was charged $300+ despite them never actually doing anything for me and I now have debt collectors on my ass because Comcast mistakenly has me down for missed payments (how can I miss payments when I never had any service????). I have to pursue legal action to get these guys off my nuts. I eventually caved and signed up for Uverse. Their tech came out and within 30 minutes everything was set up and I've had no problems since. So, yeah, f*** Comcast and everyone involved in this.
2 things...first, you don't need inside knowledge to see that no major carrier has CSNHouston. Obviously the price is too high because none of them have the network, fairly easy to recognize. second, our sports teams would get more revenue regardless of who they made the deal with. Doesn't matter if it's Comcast or Time Warner or whoever...it's a major market and teams almost everywhere are gonna get a share in the tv network that show the games, so you never have to worry about a Houston team becoming the Pirates.
So, if CSN is holding out because they want their station included in the standard package, but the providers are not willing to do this and want CSN on a premium sports package, does this change your opinion about this? And obviously, the franchises did this because they believe this will allow them to recognize more revenues than they were seeing with Fox. They didn't decide to do this because "**** the fans!". That's the sentiment I'm being a jerk about.
Well, I don't think I've gotten any viruses yet... I don't think. The main point of that part was that having to stream is not a good situation to be in.
If CSN is asking for it to be on the standard package, and providers aren't willing to do that and are trying to put it on the premium sports package...what does that tell you about the price CSN is asking for? It's obviously too expensive to put on the basic/extended packages. Come on, this isn't hard to figure out
By the way, there are plenty of other CSN's on DirecTv and other providers that are on the basic/extended packages. So it's not like providers are unwilling to put CSN's on that package, they'll do it for a reasonable price. This should make it easier for deals to be made because they have templates to look at in other areas around the country. You make a similar deal that other markets have.
DirecTV Subscribers Alternative! Hello All, This is my first time to post on clutchfans so take it easy on me. haha. I just thought it was worth telling everyone that I called DirecTV and asked about the situation and got a decent alternative to NO GAMES. I was told the typical answer of them working on the deal, but the cool thing is that he appologized and gave me all the regional channels FREE :grin: for a month. So I may not be hearing Bill, Clyde, and Matt as announcers, but at least I'll be able to watch the games. I'll just be watching the games from other stations. So basically I'll be watching the opponents station. I'm sure someone else has done this, but if you haven't I would recommend doing it so you don't miss anymore games. Hope that was helpful.
Or the providers are low-balling CSN because they know the longer they hold out, the more likely CSN will cave because CSN/Rockets can't risk their games being unwatchable for a majority of the population. But no, let's just go with the Rockets are out to **** their fan base in the Alps.
yup, on my dtv i have comcast bay area, chicago, new england, mid atlantic. plus i get a ton of non-comcast like masn, ny sports net, big ten network, a bunch of foxsports regions, etc... but no comcast houston. on another note dtv just moved NBC Sports from 603 to 220. i wonder if that is related.
When did I ever say "the Rockets are out to **** their fan base"? I'm sure that's not their intention. Major fallacy on your part
And the chances that all of the major providers are getting together to take a hard stance against 1 station are very slight. The first provider to get this station will get a major boost in subscribers and will put pressure on the other major providers to do a deal, so it's not like they don't want to do a deal. All sides realize this
I wish we can have some kind of update, something. Im just waiting to hear that we can watch the game, other than watching it illegally like ive been doing
Sorry man, wasn't necessarily directed towards you, but that's been a pretty common sentiment in this thread. Should've been cleaerer though.
No problem. I think the anger towards the Rockets is directed at their choice to get into business with a company that still has 60% of Houston in the dark, and however many other people in Texas and other states that can't watch. (I'm not sure of the number, but it's gotta be huge) If Comcast had made a deals with 3 out of the 4 major providers before the season, or even after the 1st game...the mood would be the exact opposite. One thing that does make me think it won't be a Portland situation, is that this is Texas. When you hold something from people down here or people think they are getting a raw deal...it's not gonna last 6 years.
Maybe somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but technically I don't think it's illegal for you to watch those streams, it's just illegal to broadcast/distribute them. If you're watching through a website you should be good to go, but if you're watching through a peer2peer streaming method then you're uploading too and therefore distributing.
more than likely, it comes down to the benjamins, and astros/rockets are asking for lot more than what these providers are willing to pay.
LOL at people calling customer service call centers and expecting their front-line reps to have inside knowledge of the negotiations.
