Astros blocked CSNHouston deal?

They didn't take it away. They moved it. The Braves have been on at least 4 different networks in my life.

 

C'mon. The Astros & Rockets have been discussing having their own RSN for years. They never had any intention of staying with Fox. I'm sure if Fox would have offered them some amount above what owning (most of) their own station, they would have reconsidered. But let's not pretend like it wasn't going this way from the beginning.

 

I'll have to take your word for it. Never seen it and being on a cable system that isn't based in Houston, not sure when I will.

 

OK, I am intrigued about the economics of this TV deal situation so I did a bit of research and came upon a very good article that describes the current state of MLB with respect to these TV contracts. It's a rather lengthy read but a good one that offers some perspective behind Crane & CSN's stance on the TV deal with the carriers:

http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2013-03-28/news/the-screwball-economics-of-major-league-baseball/

Here are some points from that article:

In 1980, a record 54 million people tuned in to watch the Philadelphia Phillies win their first World Series since forming during the Chester A. Arthur presidency. Fast forward to the fall of 2012 when the San Francisco Giants get a World Series sweep over the Detroit Tigers. The Nielsen ratings reveal how far baseball has plunged: an average of just 12 million people tuned into the 2012 Series — a collapse of nearly 80 percent from three decades earlier. This was the seventh straight WS to post declining ratings.

Regular-season games have declined equally. FOX's Saturday audience has gone down an average of 800,000 since 2001. Sunday-night ESPN telecasts have shriveled by a million viewers in just the past six years. In any other industry, such staggering drops would raise alarms of a rotting ship. One might presume that TV execs are screening Selig's calls. But the exact opposite is happening.

ESPN, FOX and Turner recently struck deals that double their annual payments to MLB. The Los Angeles Dodgers will soon ink a 25-year pact for local rights that's worth an estimated $7 or $8 billion. If it all seems incongruent, born of the same economics that brought you bank bailouts and the housing crisis, that's because it is. Baseball, you see, is expecting you to pick up the tab.

The game has lost it's appeal to young males. More women age 50 and older watched the last World Series than did men under 49. In terms of TV viewership, sports are doing "less bad" than other programming. You can't blame baseball for cashing in on this backhanded blessing. After all, when your customers willingly pay $8 for a lukewarm Budweiser, it's safe to assume they'll buy anything at any price.

Not long ago, the Texas Rangers were a color guard for mediocrity at both ballpark and bank. But even as they were emerging from bankruptcy, they negotiated an estimated $80 million annual deal for local TV rights.

In a year when the team does well, the reset [for broadcast fees] is due to the team doing well. When the team is doing poorly, the rates will jump just as much because they need money to rebuild the team. Cable and satellite companies grudgingly succumb, no matter how illogical the deal. Every provider feels forced to carry the same channels, lest customers flee to a competitor.

The networks see sports as a no-lose racket, with ESPN as its piper. The sports channel charges cable companies $5 a month per customer, by far the highest monthly fee in national television. While that may seem a pittance, it's big money when spread over the 100 million U.S. households with pay TV.

NBC and CBS have launched their own sports channels. Another from FOX is on its way. Even regional sports channels are starting to broach that $5 mark. Their bet is that viewers will always be willing to pay more. And more. And more.

Though baseball has long played with a rigged financial deck, it's about to get perilously worse. Still, it's safe to say that these fixed odds have deposed generations of fans in smaller cities across the land. In any given year, half the teams are in the midst of three- to five-year rebuilding projects, since they're financially barred from the faster route of free agency. At the same time, the league has done little to make all that losing bearable. While the NBA and NFL constantly remake rules for speed and action, baseball's last significant change was the designated hitter. In 1973.

During the '70s and '80s, the Royals were a power on par with the Red Sox, despite playing in the country's 31st-largest market. The Kansas City Royals stopped playing for titles in 1985 when the financial disparity became too great for them to overcome. Players like Carlos Beltrán, Johnny Damon and Zack Greinke were traded before their contracts expired because the Royals said they could no longer afford them. Local TV will bring them just $20M this year. Even with an estimated $25 million in revenue-sharing, they're still at a four-to-one disadvantage against the Dodgers whose $200M payroll gets covered by their TV deal. Toss in a potential fan base that's but a speck of LA's, and the Royals become a mom-and-pop clothier parked next to Walmart.

The problem is that non-fans are picking up most of the check. Here's how it works: Just six companies control 90 percent of America's TV programming. And they won't let your local provider simply carry the channels you actually want to watch to keep your bill modest. When Disney negotiates contracts, anyone who wants ESPN is usually forced to buy a bundle that includes lesser fare like ESPN Classic or ABC Family, whether they want them or not. The same goes for programmers like Viacom. If you want Nickelodeon or MTV, you're also required to buy Logo and VH1 Classic, among the lowest-rated channels in television.

Baseball rides comfortably in the back seat of this strong-arm game. According to the research firm NPD Group, the average cable or satellite bill will reach $200 by 2020. Half of that fee will go to sports. And everyone pays, because most providers are barred by contract from moving sports to a premium package. That's why FOX can double its payments to carry the World Series. Though only 10 percent of America will watch, the remaining 90 percent will cover the freight.

There's more of course but the economic issues the article raises are very clear. They also provide an explanation as too why Crane & CSN won't budge from their $3.40 per subscriber demand because they know that there is no way for them to survive if they have to rely on revenue from fans coming to the stadium and the $25M they get from MLB. Without that potential CSN money, they will never be competitive against the likes of a Texas, New York, Boston or an LA whose TV deals will allow them to do what Kansas City couldn't do: keep the players they have spent years developing.

The problem I have with this is not so much as what they are asking but who they are asking pay this fee because the carriers will simply pass this on to their subscribers which means that we all will be paying for Astros baseball whether we watch them or not. And it's not Crane & CSN but rather the economic model that MLB operates under that is the true villain here.

 

I'm just bitter perhaps :grin:

Crane's quote on urgency now and the rumor about the Astros being a major culprit in this nonsense pisses me off.

 

The Rockets are a FINANCIAL partner. They stand to make money by an expanded footprint for this channel, regardless if they're in season or not.

 

There's just no way these deals are being unilaterally approved or shot down either way. Way too much at stake for both to do that.

 

But I'm glad you now know the Rockets regular season is almost over. Not sure you knew that.

 

Tongue in cheek... just uber frustrated. If it was just the AL move or just a sucky team or just the lack of a tv deal, I wouldn't be so annoyed.

All 3 together and then telling me to call and beg to see the team makes me really mad.

 

Whew.

 

Welcome back.

 

What the crux of the "took games away" argument comes down to is whether you believe cable providers have an inherent obligation to air the games of local professional sports teams. To me, they do. Quite frankly, it's one of the only reasons I pay for cable. Local sports are important, and cable providers have the resources to bring them to us. They've done it for decades, adding many new networks in the process (the FSN networks weren't around until the late 1990s) as the industry evolved. Basically, the extended basic tier includes the local sports teams and adds channels as necessary to make that happen. That's the way the industry has always been, that's why I pay for cable, and I expect it to continue.

You apparently don't think there's an obligation on behalf of cable providers to offer sports. That's fine, I suppose, but I think there's a very valid counter argument.

PS: To arkoe's statement, Tad Brown said the other day that FSSW had given money to the providers to compensate for not having the Houston teams (and thus lower ratings). The providers aren't lowering your bill in accordance, though. That's why you ask for a "bill reduction" -- you deserve your small part of that money that FSSW is refunding for not delivering on their stated contract. You deserve it!

 

You are not the kind of person that this whole deal really affects anyway, it really affects those of us who are die hard Astros fans

 

And yet earlier, you told me that money was just "hush" money.

 

How on earth does a private business have an "inherent obligation to air the games of local sports teams"??

So even if they have to pay so much that they lose big money over it, they are obligated to do so? Sheeesh

 

Yeah, they have none. Just like Target has no obligation to carry Rockets and Astros t-shirts.

 

Money can serve multiple purposes. I'm sorry if that blows your little mind.