From what I can remember, YES they are... Another question.... are the rox going to be on 51 again this year? Has 51 gotten their ish straight with DirecTV?
I sent a letter to direct TV last season inquiring as to why they never showed any Rox games televised by the Houston Crew (ie: Bill &Calvin.) I was very disapointed because I grew up watching Bill & Calvin call the games. I've lived in DC for two years now and the first year I was here, the Rockets broadcasting team was televised roughly 50% of the time...home and away games on NBA League Pass. Last season I watched every game and only once did they show a game with Bill & Calvin announcing. I never got a response to my letter but I just read your post, Jeff from Vandy, and apparently there were some issues with 51 and Direct TV... can anyone elaborate on this?
Yes, the year before last, the Rockets had a contract with FSN, NBALP is highly associated w/ FSN and shows their games 98% of the time, the ROckets couldn't come up w/ an agreement w/ FoxSports Net last year to televise their games.
And what about the black-out rule for non-local Houston area? Are they going to do that again like they did last year? (I live in Beaumont area, I ordered the nba Pass last year and all the Rocket games got blacked-out.)
That's a kick in the head! Yeah, the blackout rule will be in effect for next year, and all the following years. If they didn't have that rule, they'd be getting sued for all the people that would get blacked out from the overload from the circuits and airwaves.
Channel 51 is on the satellite as long as your receiver is set up in a ZIP code that is in the broadcast area. I thought I heard that Les was in the process of creating a channel specifically for Rockets/Comets/Astros games. Maybe that fell through, anyone know?
Our plans for a regional sports network are moving forward as planned. It's been in the press numerous times, but the plans have always been to start with the kick off with the Comets in summer of '05, the Rockets in fall of '05, and the Astros in the spring of '06. So ... no delay. It's just one of those things where there's not always going to be a lot of new news this far out; most of the work right now involves finalizing plans, setting up infrastructure, etc. Non-glamorous stuff. We're working on this little project right now where we're opening up an arena, and that's getting (and demanding) all the attention at the moment. (By the way, as a reminder, since people keep e-mailing the question -- the Toyota Center Test Drive is our open house event on 9/13, and we hope everybody comes out to kick the proverbial tires on our new home. The finishing touches are going on right now, and it's looking great. Tickets are free, and you can get them at any area Toyota dealer.) As for the original question -- yes, the plan is to televise every pre-season game and every regular season game. We're just finalizing our deals with stations. Bear with us -- until negotiations are final, we can't talk about which stations get which games or any of that. We should be able to make an announcement relatively soon, though. Tim
Thanks for the info and encouragement...I'm not in Houston anymore, but for the love of human decency, nobody above 39 on the dial should even be considered. I'm only saying this because negotiations aren't final, and y'all still have a chance to correct the wrongdoing if somehow a deal was about to be accidentally struck with KNWS or something. But I'm really looking forward to the open house...me and 'meggoleggo' (of BBS fame, at least) are gonna be down there kicking every tire and pushing every gear to the red line. Oh, and swinging from every rafter...
WTF that sure as hell wasn't me, I guess I forgot to logout from the computer, well at least it wasn't anything bad.
I STRONGLY second that. If the Rockets can get FSSW I can watch the games; if not, then I can only watch the games on TNT and ABC. PLEASE make it happen Tim. Sincerely, Rockets Fan since 11 years old stuck outside of Houston
Just a personal thought, but I would seriously doubt that FSSW will sign any deal with the Rockets for a single season considering they will be in direct competition with the Rockets new regional sports network in 2005. In addition, FSSW is suing the Astros because they Astros are trying to get out of their deal with FSSW to make the jump with the Rockets. There were a couple reasons why Bill & Calvin were not shown on League Pass: 1. Channel 51 was not available to DirecTV because of a loophole DirecTV held against them. When one satellite system does not carry a channel League Pass cannot broadcast the games. It has to have the cooperation of all the broadcasters. As a result, they showed the away game broadcasts. 2. When the games were locally televised on WB, many of them were also being broadcast by the other team on a Fox affiliate. The NBA has a deal with Fox that gives them first dibs on any game on League Pass if the other broadcast option is a non-Fox local broadcast. So, if the Rockets played San Antonio and the game was on the WB channel locally but the Fox affiliate (FSSW in this case) in San Antonio, League Pass was required to show the Fox feed from San Antonio. If I had to make a guess, my guess would be that the Rockets will be back on 51 for games this season. I don't know anything, but I do know that WB and UPN both were unwilling to move around network programming to accommodate the Rockets on a regular basis and that weighed heavily into the decision to go with 51. In essence, it was either 1/2 or fewer of the games on WB or UPN or ALL of the games on 51. They, understandably, chose the latter. Until 2005 when the regional broadcast network comes online, I'm afraid we'll be stuck with whatever station the Rockets can get. Locally, the best option, unfortunately, is very likely 51.
