He was tweeting yesterday that he'd probably spend the night on PACER reading the filings to help himself fall asleep. It was apparently in the Astros' brief.
In his tweets, he mentions that it was supposed to be redacted but someone made a mistake and the number was left in some filing or other.
This makes sense in a perverted sort of way. Astros are going to have 160 games to broadcast, and the Rockets, far less than half that. In fact, as weird as it sounds, having both Harden and Howard may actually devalue the Rockets' worth to Comcast because their number of 'regional' broadcasts not also broadcast nationally by TNT or NBATV or whoever has left them with around 60 games. So you are looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of about 40% of the ad revenue potential for the Rockets, based solely upon the number of Rockets games CSNH would be exclusively showing. I'm sure there's a lot more to it, but it would make sense that the Rockets and Astros rights would not be worth close to the same amount.
In terms of viewership though, I'd venture that the Rockets far outnumber the Astros. So in that sense, while there might be MORE Astros games to broadcast, each individual Astros game is worth far less than each individual Rockets game. Advertisers would pay more money to advertise during a Rockets game than they would an Astros game, so while the money might not directly add up, it would probably be much closer than you think.
$500M? That seems like a lot of money for the Astros ownership (which was valued at $326M when Crane bought it).
So do we know if Crane was ok with $500M or rejected it? Or did he accept it and the Rockets veto it? Also with this, it is a buyout of his ownership stake I would have to guess that Comcast would try to make sure it did not include the Astros taking their media rights back and from what they have said the Astros seem to want to do just that. The ownership part could be why the Rockets weren't able to get the same amount (they own a lesser share) and the Astros holding on to their rights would be motivation for the Rockets to want to bolt too.
Can anyone tell me what the bankruptcy means for the chances of getting Rockets games on the air for the 2014/15 season? Is this bankruptcy most likely going to drag this out for years like in the Portland case?
In fairness, I think that by the point that this lowball offer was being made by one of the providers, the writing was already on the wall - the Astros had prevented any 'real' negotiations ('pay our full price or no deal!' is NOT negotiating) from taking place, and just like in the NBA, when other teams know you NEED to trade a guy, no one is going to offer you fair market value for him. Once the providers saw that they were winning and CSNH had devolved into infighting amongst themselves, all they have to do is wait for whatever emerges to come crawling to them.
The offer referred to is the first and only offer made by DTV. The Astros at the time weren't even involved in the negotiating process - they didn't get involved until after the bankruptcy was filed in October. The only role the Astros and Rockets had was to accept or reject offers that Comcast brought to them.
We will probably know more Friday after they meeting they are supposed to have. It will also depend on any appeals to the initial judgement and whether the Astros file to have their media rights returned to them and if that goes thru. there are a lot of factors that will affect this, unfortunately most will set this up for a long battle.
By reading what was posted, I figure the Rockets vetoed it, though it isn't clear if the Astros had accepted it (their veto ability might not have been contingent on acceptance). It would definitely include the network maintaining the Astros broadcasting rights.
Right now you are right, but for a 20 year deal that wouldn't be the case. I don't have the numbers in front of me but I would guess any 10 year period the Astros would have as good or better ratings
There's probably a lot of different things that go into this, but it's clear that the Astros' media rights are worth more than the Rockets simply by the amount they each get paid. As far as ratings, you have a lot of different things - fewer Rockets games means more interest in each one. Astros games over the summer when there's less competing programming helps them. Etc.
Then maybe you should have written not at the expense of being competitive instead of this... I've supported Crane this whole time because if he had succeeded and gotten the case thrown out, there was a better chance the teams would be on TV soon. Since that hasn't happened, it'll be even longer until they get on TV which is all I really care about. In fairness, I can only respond to what you actually write. Kind of been over the bleeding money thing many times too. The bleeding money projections only included DTV and Comcast and not the other providers. We don't know what that projection would look like and neither did the Judge when he said it was a rotten deal. It would help if we had a little context around Isgur's statement. All we know, rotten deals and all, Crane got denied in his court. Agreed they are 2 separate issues, but you did ask why I don't like him and I gave an honest answer. Coulda added the move to the AL, the signs in left field, the fans write a check for 10M comment, the "dynamic pricing" for when good teams come to town meanwhile he has a minor league team on the filed at major league pricing, the dumbass lawsuit against McLane, the we're not going to blink bravado aimed at providers, etc.....
It would be silly for the Rockets to get the same amount as the Astros. They don't have the same ownership precentage in the Network.
