Agree but I think crane looks at this season as a year with tiny crowds regardless, so I don't think he feels much pressure. He is betting everyone will come back when the team is good in a year or two and will need this settled by then.
Most people are mad at both sides...but we only have the ability to call providers. I don't have the number to Jim Crane
I'm not mad at DirecTv, I'm mad at the fact that I can't watch the Rockets. If I can't watch them and I'm paying for a package to watch my local sports teams, I might as well get some kind of compensation. And DirecTv offered that compensation in return for customer loyalty. That's what I call good customer service
Exactly. 99% of my anger is at crane and Alexander. At least les is smart enough to keep his mouth shut
So? you're obsessed with my obsession with his obsession? The reason I am dialogging with Cat, is the growing trend of corporate America using the anonymity of the internet to create a false reality, i.e. the sock puppets, writing positive reviews of their own products, negative reviews of competitors as well as inflating google search results etcetera. Cat seems too interested, too informed with CSN talking points and too verbose for me to readily believe he is a casual poster on this subject. I can't say, and that's the point, whether he is a paid advocate or not. He says he isn't and he has a long history posting on these boards, so, OK, he isn't. But, from this point in history on, you are never going to know what is real and what is propaganda on the internet. My interest in the thread is strictly the schadenfreude of this corporate train wreck. I've been around a long time and watched corporate greed screw up a lot of good things. I can't even watch live sports anymore for the amount of commercials that have been jammed into the action. We get a two minute set of commercials every time out, or 3 and out. You can't even get a score update without having to announce who sponsored it. So I always get a good laugh when the "smartest guys in the room" show they're just goobers like the rest of us. Greed and hubris however, never seem to learn, though they can grow too big to fail.
Austin Area Broadcast Excuse my ignorance........I'm moving to Marble Falls, TX, near Austin and Comcast is not offered- Does anyone know if games were broadcast in that area if you had NBA League Pass? Or still blocked out bc of Comcast?
My understanding is that if you are anywhere in the 5 state area that this covers, it will be blacked out. If I am wrong someone will correct
It's true for the Astros but NOT the Rockets. Unless you're in the Rockets' region, which basically is just Houston, Beaumont and College Station, I believe you're in the clear. Austin is bracketed for the Spurs, so if you have LP, I think you get the Rockets games. (I'm not 100% on that, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works... hopefully someone from that way will confirm.)
I think the problem is that there simply isn't enough people who are that upset about this to make that happen. As i've said before, there are some of us on this thread who are REALLY upset, but that doesn't reflect a large percentage of the population. The fact that so few people have switched over to comcast to get these games shows that there isn't a huge, rabid sports fan base here in Houston. We might be the 4th largest market in the nation, but that doesn't mean we are the 4th most passionate fan base in the nation. I honestly feel that there is a very very large portion of the population that would prefer to have the games, but if they don't get the games they are happy to just watch something else. The group of loud and passionate people who REALLY want this channel simply isn't that large here. I think Crane and Alexander are banking that after missing a full season of both teams the number of fans who REALLY miss watching the games will grow and the demand towards the providers will shoot through the roof. That is why I think they wanted to give everyone a taste of them with the free preview, to give back a shot of what they hope is a passion that has just died down. I think the providers simply think the fan base isn't large enough when it comes to fans passionate to see huge numbers to go to comcast, especially when it is obvious that comcast isn't real popular in this area when it comes to people's view of their service and customer service. Those of us on here can be as mad as we want and discuss what we want, as crane himself said though "thousands haven't switched yet, when thousands switch the providers will fall in line" . . .we are the same group of a dozen or so pissed off people, we aren't thousands, and even out of our small group of passionate fans here, how many have switched??
I'm in the hill country SE of Austin & NW of San Antonio. I have DirecTV, but I don't subscribe to LP. However when LP ran a free preview at the beginning of the season, I was able to watch the 3 Rockets games that were scheduled during that preview period. You should be able to watch the Rockets games in Marble falls.
I used to live in Austin. If you have league pass, the only games that are blacked out are the Spurs games, not the Rockets. Austin falls within the Spurs regional territory.
I applaud and thank my current provider AT&T Uverse for not taking this ridiculous offer by CSN. I would have been too tempted to turn on the channel and then become irate all over again once it was ripped away from me a month later. BTW is anyone else upset with the fact that the whole marketing campaign from CSN is for us to tell our providers that we are not happy? Like it is MY job to fix this mess!?!? The only action I have decided to take is to not spend a dime on any Rockets or Astros games or merchandise. I refuse to give either of them a single penny of my hard earned money until I can see the games on TV which should not be a privilege, but a right. I feel like a child caught up in a custody battle with this whole thing. CSN and the providers are looking out for their own interests. As is usually the case when things get ugly the kid is the one who loses in the end. I shouldn't have to do a damn thing. I love the line where they say "why are you paying the same monthly price when your teams were taken away from you and you can't see them on TV anymore". Well, CSN, YOU created your own channel and are not allowing it to be shown on these providers. I wouldn't expect my monthly bill to go up or down based on you taking them away from me. The providers want to show them but you are not allowing that to happen. My expectation is that I would pay the same monthly price and have access to my teams on whatever new channel they move to. Mr. Hutchings you lose.
At some point, the Rockets and Astros WILL need us. The Astros more so than the Rockets as they play twice the games and have a stadium with twice the capacity. You can only let your fan base not be able to see your product for so long before you lose them completely though.
Why can't I get ESPN and CSN on a A La Carte basis. I already have Broadband internet access. I would pay for the channels (if they were priced right). Instead, I choose not to pay for Cable all together (only internet). If more of you did so we wouldn't have this ridiculous setup of only getting those channels by paying for a complete cable package. In today's world of ever expanding flexibility because of the internet, its unbelievable that these idiots can't adapt. They remind me of the record companies when Napster came out. They keep holding on to their old ways. Drop cable!
Him individually? Yeah, probably not. But, 60% of the potential viewership? I think THEY need that. And there is no "We" - Your individual support is just as insignificant as anyone else's.
I agree with a lot of what you say, but I'm incredibly pissed at AT&T for not giving me a month of FREE games. F U AT&T, F U
Why don't they adapt and just stop making big profits? Of course they are going to fight that to the death. On specifically the sports channels, going to a total a la carte setup would devastate sports franchises that would lose a ton of money when subscribers were unwilling to fork over the same rates.
You mean they would lose in the Free Market? With tax payer bought stadiums, corporate naming rights, and commercials every 5 minutes?
