It's not a conscience decision for me, personally. I'm not one of those "I will NOT pay attention to the Rockets this year!!!!11" guys. I desperately want to follow them and watch them grow as a team this year. I've been wanting to see them rebuild and go young for 3 years now. My point is, when they're not on TV, it's MUCH harder to do so. And I've got a lot on my plate right now. New job, couple of 15-month old twins, band about to start our busiest time of the year, etc. I had totally planned on DVR'ing all their games this year and watching them up in my man-cave after the wife and kids were asleep. Those few hours a night are pretty much the only "me" time I get these days. But I can't do it. Because the games aren't on TV. It's just hard to be passionate about a team by only following the scores/stats via ESPN phone app.
I don't know if what Comcast wants for the channel is outrageous or not, and I don't know how you would know. The fact that the large providers haven't picked up the channel yet just means they don't care as much about their customers as much as the small providers do. These are just a bunch of large corporations doing what they do. If DTV and DISH were going broke that would be one thing, but they are making billions this year alone.
I have no idea what you are going on about. I said that Comcast could offer reasonable terms to the smaller providers, I didn't say I knew for sure that they did. I am simply pointing out the reasons why Comcast may treat small providers and large providers very differently. Another potential point of contention is tier offering. Maybe Uverse is fine with $4 per subscriber, but they will only offer it for certain tiers. Let's say that only 10% of Uverse customers are on their U450 tier and Uverse wants CSN-Hou to be on the U450 tier only, then CSN-Hou only gets effectively 40 cents per Uverse subscriber and Les doesn't get to send Rockets games to every subscriber. Uverse is like, dude, we ain't paying $4 per subscriber making our non-sports subscribers shoulder that much extra for our sports subscribers. If they want to pay extra for Rockets games, they can upgrade for it. Comcast then may be like, nope, we want it on you basic tier, and Uverse is like, for $4 per sub? Well **** off then we don't even pay that much for Showtime you jackass.
David Barron has said the closest number he can get to the truth is 3.40 per subscriber. DirecTv rarely has disputes, and when they do, they get resolved fairly quickly. This isn't about them "not caring as much about their customers", it's a business decision. Obviously, it's not a good one to pay more than 3 dollars per subscriber and put it on the basic tier for channels. Wake up dude, if DirecTv and other providers don't care about their customers, what does that say about CSN Houston and the Rockets???
Does anyone know anything about this? http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/87561/dtv-nbcuniversal-to-sign-new-deal
I also found this article - http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-directv-nbc-20121126,0,2187970.story "Not every NBCUniversal channel is part of the deal. Comcast SportsNet Houston, a regional sports channel, is not included as DirecTV was unable to come to terms on a price." uh oh
I don't listen to a radio at home. I turn the TV on in the background in the evening amongst two kids, a wife and corresponding with clients and other attorneys over email. I would also argue that following on radio isn't getting a great sense of how a basketball team plays together. I can follow baseball on radio just fine...basketball I tune in to know just what the score is at any given point. Listen, I love the Rockets. I'm not going anywhere. I won't pretend I'm all pissed and trading in my fandom because of this. But this situation has made it far more difficult to feel endeared to the current group of players than I'd like to be....because I've been one of the people here on CF who has been hoping for a youth movement for a very very long time now.
I'd say that deal is PROBABLY why there was optimism a week or so back about DirecTV being the first to get CSN Houston....the fact that it didn't happen probably means that momentum is dead. Just my guess...I don't have any inside information.
My guess is that you are correct. There was probably optimism because the two were working on a new carriage agreement. In the LA Times article, it says DirecTv could not agree on a price for CSNHouston. Looks like we're screwed
I just want to watch Jeremy Lin, Asik, and Harden in HD...on my own Tv. I just want to sit on my bed and lose myself in the Rockets for 2 and a half hours at a time.
I wanna watch with my sons. My older boy kicks ass in hoops, and he's a brainwashed Houston sports fan. My younger boy is playing hoops for the first time this year, and I'd love for him to be able watch with us. It sucks they can't sit with their dad and watch a Rockets game at home.
If DTV doesn't pay to add CSN Houston, but doesn't lose many subscribers then it's a win for DTV. They don't have to pay for the channel but they keep raking in billions from subscribers. There are countless posts in this thread alone with people saying they will never sign up with Comcast just to get that one channel. As long as DTV has so many loyal customers unwilling to jump to Comcast, what's the hurry in making a deal?
If I had an option I'd switch. My choices don't have CSNHouston. First one to get it though, I'm switching
Turn their back on which players? Parsons, Patterson and Morris? They're the only ones I was cheering for last year and the only players that wore Rockets uniforms both last year and this one. The rest of the team has been gutted and I don't have a way to watch the new players and develop a loyalty to them. I'm not a fan of a logo; I'm a fan of a group of players and also of coaches that change over time and I follow them over time because I grow accustomed to them and get excited about them by watching them. Les/Daryl dumped two of my three all-time favorite coaches for a dud (sorry to say during time of tragedy but they took a yes-man over a legendary coach) and they dumped a lot of my favorite players (Scola, Lowry and most of all Dragic) but this was also going to be a very exciting year as it featured a nearly all-new team. How can I be loyal to a group of players I've never seen play? #Can't watch, can't cheer
