<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>Jim Crane says he has heard from "other interested parties" about televising Astros if CSN falls apart <a href="http://t.co/TqOPQvZHOV">http://t.co/TqOPQvZHOV</a></p>— Reid Laymance (@ReidLaymance) <a href="https://twitter.com/ReidLaymance/statuses/387693142410932224">October 8, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
F%$# You Jim Crane! If I can't watch the Rockets again this year I'm going to burn down Minute Made!! I have not gone through and read all of these comments and do not know the latest details on COMCAST but what are the chances that a deal is somehow struck and that I can watch the Rockets on AT&T?? Is there any chance of that happening????
I dont know if there is tension. im sure the rockets are happy with the stros taking the bame in the court of public opinion
You have to wonder what the hell is going on in Jim Crane's head right now. The man has written a textbook on how not to acquire and run a major league sports franchise.
Yeah, when he said that the Rockets were happy to sit on the sidelines and let this play out...happy is probably a strong word. I doubt anyone in the Rockets front office is happy about any of this right now. Man, I wish I could get Daryl Morey or Les Alexander in a quiet room with no cameras just to hear their feelings on this.
Our last 2 all-stars were in our system... Other teams have managed to have terrible systems. We were different in that it wasn't primarily due to trading it away. It was not acquiring it.
Haha yea it's definitely in the Rocket's best interests to sit back and wait while Crane finds the best possible deal so his team can compete with everyone else in 20 years. Would love to hear their real opinions on the matter.
That may be... but until they actually do something about it, they might as well be painted as being "A-OK with all of this!" Its as if they are completely powerless in all of this... again, a situation that they agreed to in the first place. And they can be upset all they want, but they are still in agreement to a partnership and are letting the Astros fight the fight on their behalf.
Astros Motion to Dismiss Bankruptcy is up on PACER now... 1. Calls the Involuntary Petition a "transparent attempt to acquire the Network and gain control over the Astros' most valuable asset, the media rights to televise their own MLB games." 2. Says Comcast has "delivered only informal proposals to enter into long-term affiliation agreements with undervalued rates that would jeopardize the Astros future success in both baseball and business operations. 3. "Just three days before the Astros could terminate their media rights agreement with the Network and find a stronger media rights foundation for the Astros, Comcast orchestrated the bankruptcy to gain leverage over the Astros in their business dispute." 4. Says the bankruptcy should be dismissed for the following reasons: a. not enough creditors that have undisputed, bona fide claims to satisfy requirements of an involuntary bankruptcy petition. Say 2 of the petitioning creditors' claims are based on unauthorized oral contracts to which the Astros did not consent....and the other 2 petitioning creditors' claims were not due as of the date of this petition, and would not come due until AFTER the Astros could terminate the deal. (I noticed this before...the huge obligation to Comcast Lender has interest only quarterly payments...the petition doesn't allege those payments were unpaid, but instead said that they would likely go unpaid in 2014.) "The Network is regularly paying its debts to actual third parties. Both the Astros and Comcast have agree to backstop valid prepetition claims of third-party creditors."; b. Comcast filed it in bad faith to avoid termination of the Astros media rights agreement and to "secure a tactical advantage over the Astros in their partnership dispute; and c. the request for a trustee runs afoul of well-settled bankruptcy and intellectual property law because it seeks the assumption and assignment of partnership and media rights agreements, which are both personal services contracts and cannot be assigned as a matter of law. Goes on to say there are no 3rd party creditors' interests at stake here...that each of the petitioning creditors is a subsidiary of Comcast and each an affiliate of Houston SportsNet Holdings, LLC, which owns Comcast's interest in the Network. "Comcast seeks to use this Court's jurisdiction to accomplish indirectly what it is expressly prohibited from accomplishing directly under its agreements with the Astros. Specifically, Comcast devised the filing of the Involuntary Petition to circumvent the Astros' rights to: (1) withhold consent for the filing of a petition for bankruptcy; (2) terminate their media rights agreement with the Network; (3) withhold consent for the Network to enter into affiliation agreements with undervalued rates; and (4) withhold consent for a sale of the Network. There were bargained for rights between highly sophisticiated entities. Comcast threw the Network into bankruptcy to circumvent the Astros' rights and gain an improper tactical advantage over the Astros in the ongoing partnership dispute." On the Comcast effort to get a trustee appointed: "Intellectual property law and the Bankruptcy Code itself make crystal clear that a debtor-in-possession cannot transfer such intellectual property rights without the consent of the owner and emphatically rejects the notion that these rights can be vested in a trustee. As such, Comcast''s strategy of using Chapter 11 to strip the Astros of their rights is not a legally accomplishable strategy. Comcast and its subsidiary Petitioning Creditors are attempting to use this Court to force the Astros to accept a longer-term, undervalued rate for the Astros' media rights. And now it has organized this collusive campaign in an effort to circumvent the terms of the deal it struck." I didn't know that the Rockets and Astros had been in partnership since 2003. Says that the Astros and Rockets formed the Houston Regional Sports Network, L.P. in 2003 to broadcast their games on a single channel. This allowed the Astros and Rockets to monetize their media rights by granting the Network a license to feature the games as part of the Network's regional sports programming. Says media rights fees are the largest source of revenue for an MLB team. Comcast bought into that partnership in 2010 and were admitted as a limited partner by the Rockets and Astros at that point. --"The Astros Media Rights Agreement is an agreement between the Astros and the Network, in which the Astros granted the Network exclusive rights to exhibit team programming in exchange for the payment of media rights fees." Goes on to say that if the Network fails to make a payment, the Astros have a right to terminate that Media Rights Agreement if the Network fails to cure the default within 60 days. --Also...the Astros have the right to terminate the Media Rights Agreement if the Network becomes insolvent or files for bankruptcy. --"The Media Rights Agreement expressly provides that a bankruptcy trustee 'shall not have any right to continue this Agreement or to in any way use the rights granted under this Agreement' if the Astros exercise their right to terminate the agreement because of the bankruptcy. -- Says Comcast, "in its role as manager through the Management Services Agreement, has brought a handful of informal verbal proposals for affiliation agreements to the Network -- and has pressured the Nework to consider entering into affiliation agreements with substantially lower base rates than those contained in the Comcast Affiliation Agreement." -- Attaches recent Aging Payables Reports that don't even show the obligations to Comcast California as an outstanding obligation. The invoices for Comcast Media total to less than Comcast Media said they were owed in the petition. Further, there had to be unanimous approval among the directors (Rockets, Astros, Comcast) for any transaction between the Network and a Member, Partner or respective Affiliate....the Astros are saying that the verbal arrangements with Comcast Media and Comcast California were not approved at all...that approval was never even sought. That would kill the BK. You need to have at least 3 petitioning creditors to an involuntary bankruptcy, and the debts have to be bona fide and without dispute...this means there are only 2, and those 2 weren't actually unpaid by the Network as of the date of the filing, apparently. If that's true...then this bankruptcy proceeding won't last very long. Goes on to quote this very Court in a recent case where they wrote: "The good faith requirement does not permit a partner to throw his partnership into bankruptcy to secure a tactical advantage in disputes with his partners or to enrich himself at the partnership's expense." If they are not able to resolve their disagreement at the negotiating table, Comcast and the Astros can dissolve their partnership and liquidate its assets according to the specific procedures they bargained for when they became partners. There is no legitimate reason why a bankruptcy court or trustee should referee and dictate the outcome of disputes governed by contract and state law, or why the Astros should be forced to participate with their hands tied behind their back. The Comcast Credit Agreement was thoroughly negotiated. Because the Astros' media rights are their most valuable asset, the Astros did not agree to contribute their media rights to the Network or to grant a security interest in them. Instead, the Astros retained control over their media rights, and Comcast Lender agreed to receive a security interest only in the Network's and the General Partner's assets, which do not include the Astros' media rights. Nor did Comcast Lender protect its loan against the so-called deadlock it now complains of. Instead, Comcast squarely agreed to a number of provisions the Astros required to protect their media rights. By invoking the automatic stay to prevent the Astros from terminating their Media Rights Agreement, Comcast Lender seeks to use the bankruptcy process as a proxy for a secured interest in media rights that it failed to obtain at the negotiating table. Cites to case saying: in intra-partner dispute where creditors were 'mainly insdiers and affiliates' petition was filed in bad faith and was properly dismissed. Says Astros are prepared to backstop all the legitimate 3rd party debts that exist as of now...and that "if Comcast were truly concerned about the rights of the creditors, it would have brought the Petitioning Creditors' claims to the Astros' attention and asked for emergency funding before rounding up Comcast affiliates to unilaterally throw the partnership into bankruptcy." Bottom line...having read the petition, the Motion to Appoint Trustee and the Motion to Dismiss...I have a difficult time seeing how this BK will survive the Motion to Dismiss. Which is good news, because it means we won't be stuck waiting for this case to play out.
The one thing that could push this deal through is that the rockets could be so good that they will have to be on television. no one will want to miss out on the potential revenue
So your thought is that maybe the carriers will start offering more for the channel because the Rockets season is starting? I'd love it if that happened, but I think it's doubtful at this point. I do think the Rockets will be on the air this season..at least for most of the season....I don't know if it will be on CSN or not, though. Sounds like CSN doesn't continue without the Astros.
Even when they had Tmac and Yao their ratings weren't very good. I would say both Tmac and Yao were bigger stars than harden or dwight. A lot of houston just doesn't care about the rockets. If they had to pick one texans game or the whole rockets season I bet they would pick a texans game.
