The Network already owns the media rights. I am presuming this figure would be about buying the equity each team has in the Network.
Yeah, I know the renegade negotiating Crane did with Fox was worse. But you do know Crane came out and made public statements about not blinking aimed at carriers. Which is in itself negotiating.
Well, technically they aren't making payments on those rights... so who knows if they really have the right to "own" them.
He would be an idiot if he wasn't exploring opportunities with other networks, specifically Fox who was the prior network for this franchise. If you aren't getting what you need from the current set up, you explore options to see what is available if you indeed get your rights back. Would be stupid to get those rights back and then you are starting from scratch not knowing what you might get
Hehehe this is true. Although, that is pretty much exactly what they DID do when they started up CSN without having any assurances that the carriers would pick up their channel at their asking price.
Craniacs seem to ignore the point here, the Network was in discussion with providers and this roque activity weakens leverage. Crane is a partner in the Network and should conduct himself as a good partner would.
Crane should look out for the best interests of the Houston Astros. You don't seem to understand that in any way And you me mention craniacs, I haven't seen anyone here who speaks out in a way to make an intelligent person think they fully support Crane. Lot of people want what's best for the Astros and want the games on the air though You really have some issues you need to work out man, wish you the best
Just because you think Crane shouldn't look out for the best interests of CSN H doesn't make it true. Crane has a moral and fudiciary responsibility to balance the interests of both companies and has failed miserably to do that. The judge was quoted as hammering a point home to the Astros attorney that it was troubling that Crane had an interest in the Network failing. Work out your own issues and don't assume you know anything about me.
The only reason he is a partial owner of the network is because he owns the Astros. It isn't the other way around. If not for the Astros and Rockets csn Houston wouldn't exist. The ASTROS should be his main concern. Anyone who thinks differently doesn't understand the situation at all. And the people who think he should have taken a bad deal just to get a deal worked out are the same ones who would complain about our payroll being lower than Texas and the Angels and Mariners.
Fair point. Out of curiosity, have we heard exactly what that 'bad deal' was? If that information has been put forth, I either didn't see it or don't remember it. The reason I ask is, I am wondering how it compares to what the Astros received from FSSW in recent years.
It's not an apples-to-apples comparison. FSSW was paying the Astros media rights fees. The bad deal being referred to here is the DTV carriage offer - that is money paid from DTV to CSN-H, which is separate from the media rights. The money from all those carriage deals would be used to pay a media rights number that's already pre-determined. The question here is whether the DTV offer would help get CSN-H to the revenue targets they wanted. We don't have all the numbers, but we know that: * the Astros (prior to Crane) went with CSN-H and accepted a lower media rights fee than FSH was offering, on the assumption that they would get a profit from CSN-H on the back end. * The DTV offer alone did not increase revenues for CSN-H because it reduced the amount Comcast was paying. The projection from this offer was losses to the network for the next 10 years. Unknown after that. * The Astros and the judge thought this was a bad offer. Comcast thought it was a good one (but also benefited on the back end from it) * The basis for assuming future profitability was assuming the DTV Deal would have a domino effect with other carriers. We don't know if that would have happened, and there's no real evidence (as far as we know) either way to support or oppose this theory.
The evidence to oppose the domino theory is Portland...where some, but not all, of the providers carry their regional sports network. The domino theory failed there. Of course that's not dispositive of what would happen in Houston..but it's evidence from another market, nonetheless. And it's absolute evidence that you can't assume the domino theory would work without question.
Judge Isgur must not understand the situation since he ruled against Crane's motion..... I'd hate to be a business partner of yours if that was your attitude. Who the hell would ever enter in to a partnership with someone who out and out said they had a conflict of interest and were going to put that over the interest of the partnership even if destroyed the company they were partners in. We are not going to have their payroll anyway since Crane said he had to have that pie in the sky revenue and it's obvious to anyone who "understands the situation" that the money isn't out there.
You are trying to compare this to any other business situation which is ridiculous, one business only exists because of the other. This is a waste of time trying to discuss with you, you hate crane so much you refuse to look at the situation realistically For the record, as I've stated many times on this board, I think Crane is a bad person. Doesn't mean everything he does is wrong
So, why is it that the Dallas or Seattle market is able to support that revenue, but the Houston market isn't? Feel free to ignore the question, and put another Crane insult in there.
Why don't you go ask the carriers that for 2 years have refused to pay the fees CSN H asked for? Feel free to start thinking logically. What changed in this market to suddenly get that revenue?
Part of that was because they were still paying for FSN, despite no sports teams on it. Apparently the carriers got rebates on it, without automatically passing that savings on to the subscriber. F Are you saying it is impossible for a Houston baseball team to get similar TV revenues to a Dallas or Seattle baseball team? Hell, even Pittsburgh and Washington DC have channels at a similar fee as CSN does.
