Jim Crane has a history of bully tactics. all bullies meet the same fate eventually they get punched in the mouth. Isgur knocked that ******* out. It wasn't a rope a dope wear em out knock out either. It was a taste this fist mofo knockout
Gold. Crane got hustled, now he's crying like the poor little rich guy he is. Take your ball, go home, let us watch the games and be the awesome fans we are.
Remember initially that Rocketball and the related Rockets entities were not petitioning creditors. Their arguments regarding dismissal for failure to meet the requirements of an involuntary sounded a lot better when it was Comcast-related creditors only.
Crane isn't stopping you from watching anything. The Rockets tried to find an acceptable deal and failed too. The judge has said no workable deal has been presented by anyone. At this point, it's the bankruptcy that's preventing you from watching games.
Not sure I see it that way. Had he appointed a trustee, I would be more inclined to agree. But this is ultimately a business negotiation with a judge forcing issues in the context of a legal proceeding. I think the judge has been pretty even-handed and fair. He's been pretty clear that there hasn't been a good deal presented by anyone that would make this thing work...so he's hoping reorganization will allow for them to make it profitable. We'll see, I guess. I'm really skeptical that they can effectively reorganize this thing, but Isgur is certainly privy to a hell of a lot more information than you and I can read in the paper or even in the redacted pleadings.
And Houston fans are no closer to watching the games... and likely just got this process even more convoluted since there's little chance MLB allows one of their team's media rights to be stripped away from them when the company was in breach of contract (if the bankruptcy proceeding makes that plan as part of the restructuring). I like it how there still is no real plan on how to make the network viable... just that they know for sure its bankrupt.
While I completely agree with the truth of this statement, it seems to me that it is important to keep in mind the *timing* of the lone offer. Maybe I am wrong, but didn't the only actual offer Comcast received (the one everyone keeps referring to as the 'one which would result in 200mil in losses) come well AFTER many months of CSNH essentially making it clear they had no intention of lowering their egregiously-high per-subscriber price, like, EVER? In other words, it really doesn't sound like this 'only offer' was even a serious offer - more like a 'What the heck, let's toss CSNH a bone at a laughably lowball price, just throw it against the wall and see if it sticks!' kind of thing. So really, it seems to me that none of these developments give a true indication of the carriers' willingness to negotiate *in good faith* with CSNH to find a reasonable price they can all live with. It's just that the carriers, en masse, have made it just as clear they will NOT pay Crane's demanded price as Crane has made it that he fully intends to GET that price, come hell or high water. Maybe Judge Isgur either knows this or feels it intuitively to be true, and is simply hoping that forcing the parties to move forward may force Crane to accept *slightly less*, which may be enough to prime the pump and get this all resolved. The point being, I don't think everyone should keep hanging a hat on the often-repeated phrase 'only one offer has been provided, and it was too low', because I think the 'too low offer' is actually a *symptom*, rather than a cause. The real problem seems to remain that the demanded price is too high, the carriers won'y buy it at that price, and CSNH - ie Crane - is not willing to come down from it at all. Something has to give, and my guess it is Crane who is going to give, whether he wants to or not. I don't mean this to say that he is going to have to accept the '200mil in losses' - I think that is silly, and is based solely upon the symptomatic lowball offer Comcast received. But he may have to accept receiving less profits than he originally dreamed he would be getting.
No - just the opposite. The first offer was made by DTV, supported by Comcast, brought to the CSN-H board, and that's when it was rejected by Crane. That's when Crane made it clear he wanted a higher rate. This wasn't some fake low-ball offer by DTV - it was one that Comcast and DTV negotated and Comcast supported.
Yep. Maybe if they wait long enough, Comcast will just own the entire pay TV industry, and nobody will have to worry about different carriers. TBH, I think the whole provider-specific model of pay TV is in jeopardy as is... and the providers know that. Comcast themselves have significantly upgraded their on-demand/streaming/ala-cart viewing options over the last two years to make the transition (should it ever come to pass) as seamless as possible.
Actually, according to the judge's order: It is certainly true that the historical operations of the Network have been problematic. Comcast Services brought several formal or informal proposals for affiliation agreements to the Network. ECF No. 64 at 15. The Astros, believing that these proposals would have undervalued the Network’s services, rejected each proposal. ECF No. 64 at 15. Although Comcast has complained about the Astros’ rejection, the proposals made by Comcast would not have led to a profitable network. The proposals were appropriately rejected by the Astros. The Court largely accepts the Astros’ version of pre-petition events and the Astros’ view of the Network’s potential. What seems to have gotten lost on some is that Isgur largely agrees with the Astros on the question of "how did we find ourselves in this mess?" He obviously strongly disagrees however with Astros on the more relevant question "Where do we go from here?"
No, the judge clearly dropkicked Crane and then forcibly sodomized him cause he clearly deserves it for doing whatever in the world it is he did to Granville.
Ok, but I still don't know WHEN these offers came. Plus, these actual numbers seem to still be among the 'redacted' information. Heck, even the $3.40 per subscriber number is still officially nothing more than a rumor. On a side note, why in the heck are those numbers being kept secret? The only people involved who this is being kept from is the fans, right? Why do they care if we know those numbers? Anyway, it seems the timeline is still important. All the carriers knew that CSNH was coming, and presumably they knew well in advance what the asking price was going to be. And all along CSNH was making noise along the lines of 'We are 'negotiating' every day!' with the carriers, implying that there was SOME kind of 'back and forth' on the asking price. Ok so, then, all through this 'negotiating' process, eventually it becomes clear that CSNH's idea of what 'negotiating' meant was obviously different from what every other person in the world thinks it means. So at some point, someone among the carriers made counter-offers, as negotiators do, and rather than come back with some kind of slightly lower asking price (you know, the way negotiations work), Crane just says sticks his fingers in his ears and says NO NO NO NO NO, That will make us lose 200mil over 20 years bla bla bla, I want every penny Comcast said I would get! Now if that is not a reasonable way of looking at how the process went down, then so be it. But it's the way it *appears* to me, and nothing I have seen has altered that appearance. But let's say it's not accurate. Ok then, so how did it really happen? Did Comcast *deliberately* bring lowball offers to CSNH, because.. why? Because of the MFN clause? Or did the carriers collude and decide that Houston is the proverbial 'line in the sand' regarding RSNs, and it has to stop sometime, and we are just the unlucky ones? Is Comcast merely incompetent when it comes to reaching deals with carriers? Or is the asking price just too high for the product being offered for sale? Does any of this really even matter? Maybe a little. But I think it's notable that, as mentioned above, nobody seems to have a plan on how to actually make this thing work. The Astros clearly don't even WANT to, while the Rockets and CSNH do. Ugh, this whole thing is one of the ugliest messes I have ever seen.
It's the subject of negotiations...proprietary information...kept confidential from competitors and from other carriers who they'll presumably be negotiating with in the future.
Wait, what? I don't understand that. Confidential from competitors? What competitors? There ARE no competitors showing Astros or Rockets games. Fox? Can Fox really even be called a competitor, since they do not offer a competing product? Confidential from other carriers? Again, what does that mean? You can't negotiate a deal with a carrier by keeping the price secret from them. And every carrier as an entity nationally knows exactly what the deals in place are in every market, so they are not keeping the information from them. So who exactly is NOT privy to this information? I understand the word 'confidential', but who among those entities involved in these negotiations doesn't already know this 'confidential' information? I am not disputing your claim, I guess I just don't understand it. It still seems like 'John Q Public' are the only ones being deliberately kept in the dark on the real numbers involved...
Must every sentence have its own paragraph? Between that and the long sig, every Nero posts looks like War & Peace. I Guess I Should Be Thankful It's Not Every Word.
I can't prove it, but this has been my opinion since well before the last year. The whole market is in a warped bubble, and providers owning networks only complicates everything when compared to simple media rights deals because so many more things have to go right to make it work. As to the rest of your post, I would go with the KISS philsophy. Again, can't prove it, but the logical chain is this: CSN-H wanted to maximize value. The providers didn't want to pay the asking price. DTV, the most sports-oriented of the different providers, made an offer well below CSN-H's asking price. Not ideal, but Comcast benefits from said offer due to MFN and nothing else is going anywhere, so they bring it to the board to approve. Rockets, who just need the network to stay afloat for CSN-H to be a good deal, agree. Astros, who need the network to be profitable for CSN-H to be a good deal, disagree and veto. Different parties have different interests, and the thing was structured only to go forward if deals worked for everyone. Therefore, the thing falls apart. Now, the Rockets want to save it at any cost because they have a great deal on the media rights portion alone. Comcast wants to save it at any cost because its a huge market that they get to control, and any financial losses are peanuts to them. This also sets precedents for them with other sports networks they might try to create. Astros want to dissolve it because they don't see a good deal for them. There's no need for behind the scenes shenanigans or providers making fake offers or anything like that to explain what happened. All the parties involved (providers, CSN-H, Astros, Rockets, Comcast) have different goals and interests, and there's no good intersection of them all.
