Serious question. What does moving on look like to you if the Judge tosses the case and Crane gets his media rights back? Because Crane has had his opportunity to talk to others about all options and presented nothing of substance to the court to review after 6 weeks. I agree that it was a 100% futile effort if the goal was to get a magical deal because that ship sailed a long time ago. I think the goal was to give Crane an opportunity to prove that there was a better deal and it now appears Crane was wrong. There may be an agreement between the Rockets and Astros where the Rockets secure a deal and the Astros get bought out of CSN H in the process. That would be the best case scenario for the Network but does that or for example going back to Fox give Crane a built in excuse to "not be able to compete". Does Crane have to be an owner in high profit TV Network to compete?
Yes, it has been stated that it would lose money by Crane. Yes, it has been stated that it would take additional deals to make profit by Comcast. The math shows that the deal proposed would likely cause the Network to lose money faster. A deal with one provider just isn't enough to get the network to lose money less slowly unless it is over approximately $2.33 per subscriber. The deal would have had to be significantly over $2.33 for CSN-H to be available to pay the Astros media rights fees, but we know that isn't the case based on needing other deals to be profitable. Unless you think Comcast is lying.
I think we first need to understand that this team is going to be financially at a disadvantage for a long time regardless. Two teams in our division are lapping us financially on the TV market. The Texas Rangers signed a deal with a 10% stake in Fox SSW that paid them $100 M up front and will pay them $150M annually beginning in 2015. The Seattle Mariners now own a large share of Root NW and heir deal will pay them roughly $120M per year. Without a profitable CSNH, the $80M per year the Astros will get, coupled with a relative lack of revenue sharing in baseball will lead to a distinct disadvantage.
Then he can make a simple solo media-rights deal with a place like FSH that doesn't involve CSN in any way, shape or form. It means not needing an agreement that is workable for the Rockets or for Comcast or having to buy out any partners. It means FSH doesn't need to get entangled into buying into CSN or whatnot. That's not something that Crane could negotiate as part of this current process because it inherently involves trying to make CSN work.
The $80 million per year is probably not the best the Astros could do by selling their rights on open market. They would be at a big disadvantage to the Rangers and probably a slight disadvantage to the Seattle.
So we agree that Crane isn't going to get the deal that he feels he needs to have a top tier payroll.
But does that solve Crane's need to get huge money from a TV deal to be competitive? I don't think he ever gets what he thinks he needs just from media rights.
You know I am referring to the length of the 20 year deal and also what the Judge has or in this case has not said??? BTW.. Here's what Crane said about 10 year losses.. Comcast only brought the Astros one deal they could have agreed upon for carriage. Crane said that deal would have lost the network $200 million over 10 years and that the network needs $150 million to function every year, including rights fees, trucks and on-air talent.
Crane said it and Comcast chose not to refute it in Court. Therefore, that would likely become part of the Court's findings of fact as uncontested testimony. That being the case, you really expect he judge to sign off on a deal that essentially says we will lose $200M over 10 years, but if we survive those 10 years, we might make money later? That is not something that bankruptcy judges usually sign off on.
The media rights fees he gave up from FSH was more than what he agree to from CSN-H. Add to that the fact that he wouldn't be losing money from CSN and he'd be substantially better off under that deal than now. Being "competitive" is not a binary function. Getting $100MM is better than $80MM is better than $50MM, so getting more in the media rights and not losing money from CSN makes the Astros more competitive.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284360/Allegations-cloud-Democrat-donor-Jim-Cranes-past--theyre-handicap-playing-golf-Obama.html I always wondered why the Libs in this thread defend Crane with his controversial past.... Racism allegations, anti woman allegations, war profiteering... Yet they forget all that to buy in to his sob story of being duped. The guy is a bully who met his match this time. "But the deal quickly soured with Apollo claiming that the Merger Agreement was ‘the produce of a sham process, controlled and manipulated by Crane, with the tacit or express connivance of the remaining defendants’ – among them Milton Carroll also on the President’s recent boys weekend. Apollo argued that Crane dominated and manipulated board members, excluded them from key meetings and with-held vital information" Now I know where Crane came up with the with holding information tactic and excluding his partners from meetings with Fox (iirc) last spring....
Probably because no one here is defending Crane. Most people are looking at the facts of the situation at hand, rather than the individual personalities or teams involved. Crane's past or present or his financial resources or anti-womanness all ahve nothing to do with right or wrong or the math of this particular legal case. You're the only one basing your thoughts on an opinion of Crane.
Plenty of people are defending Crane's methods of doing business. The way he treats people when doing business is part of the problem. Providers, fans, business partners, employees. The man is a jackass to deal with. Also I just posted something that shows you that he has others who feel he is an untrustworthy business partner. I gave you examples of him being accused of doing the very things he is accusing others of doing. You can't process that because you are too far down the rabbit hole of believing his sob story. He's going to need fans like you when he cries remember when I got duped... That's why we will still have a low payroll and continue to serve as a farm team for the rest of MLB. The man did go behind his partners back to negotiate with Fox. That was a dick move but somehow there are folks defending that like he has no obligation to act in the best interest of CSN H which is also currently one of his companies he has ownership in. His financial resources have everything to do with this.. HE CAN'T AFFORD TO BE INVOLVED IN RUNNING A TV NETWORK. That's what you just can't get in your head. Running back to Fox will be proof of that.
Show me a guy that is ok with owning a business that loses $200M over 10 years and I'll show you a ****ty businessman. The fact that you can't wrap your brain around that concept is boggling.
That's not what I asked. Answer the question that I asked. In the context that Jim Crane spoke of being competitive, is going back to Fox going to make Crane feel like he can compete for a championship?
Les Alexander is ok with it. In fact he's ok with buying out Crane. Comcast is ok with it too because it's a long term investment that they can't keep waiting on Crane to **** or get off the pot. It looks like you can't grasp that fact.
Glad to see you guys can still have a terrible impact on a thread. "Hallelujah! Holy ****! Where's the Tylenol?"
Let me start out by saying I've known about Crane's anti-women, anti-black history since charges were first leveled many years ago at Eagle. I'm also familiar with Eagle's overcharging for Iraq logistics and how it changed the way the U.S. government does business with forwarders. I could go on but that's probably enough. I've got more stories to tell about him and Eagle than you can dig up on the internet. Some of them are very very bad. There are likely others on the forum in the industry that could also. Bottom line: You don't dislike Jim Crane any more than I do. That is a promise! The man has no character at all in my book. But please let's leave all of that out of this discussion. It's tiresome. Can we just let this thread be an update of current factual information that pertains to CSN and getting the Rockets and Astros on TV? If you want to debate about "Libs", golfing with the president and whatever, start a thread in the D&D and pound away. But keep that trash where it belongs (which is not here). Thanks.
