Done deal. Goodbye 51. Hello cable. http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2890663 FSN reaches deal to televise Astros, Rockets Chronicle News Services FSN Southwest has reached a multi-year deal with Houston Regional Sports Network to sub-license the local TV rights to all Astros and Rockets games not selected for broadcast on national television. As a result of the deal, all related legal wranglings have_been dropped_between the parties. The agreement was announced today by Astros owner Drayton McLane and Rockets president George Postolos, Bob Thompson of Fox Sports Networks and Jon Heidtke of FSN Southwest. “Despite all the legal wrangling, which I’m pleased is behind us now, all parties worked long and hard_over the last several months to reach this agreement,” Thompson said._ Houston Regional Sports Network owns the local broadcast rights for the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets. HRSN is jointly owned and controlled by the Astros and the Rockets, and was created to allow the teams to work together to market their local television rights.
In the past, all the Rockets home games were on Fox Sports Net and the road games were on wb39 or Paramount 20. Does this mean the road games will also be on cable? I think that's kind of pathetic.
i remember those days....those were the good old days...only thing that sucked was the pay per view playoff games.
A couple notes about this... First, since the Rockets control the broadcasts, they control the halftime, so Coop still will be on. Second, the reason there won't be any local broadcasts is because none of the major local stations would give them airtime. UPN, WB39 and KRIV refused to pre-empt network programming for most of the games. The last time they were on WB, they had to pull off the network in mid-season because of scheduling conflicts with network programming. UPN had the same problem. The tried channel 55 - KTBU - and that failed miserably, so they went with 51 as a stopgap measure. They don't like using 51 because of the reception and because it severely limits their ability to sell advertising simply because only die-hard fans know where to find them. When they were on larger networks, the advertising they got on the station helped to bring in viewers. Unfortunately, with the way local networks have gotten in terms of showing their own programming, the Rockets really had no choice but to go to a single network.
Ags (or College Station residents), Let's get onto Cox immediately about this. I'm sure they have to do something in connection with FSN now to broadcast these full-time. Ya'll know how Cox is...let's get on them.
The fact that this is a regional sports network that is subleased by FSN, means much more $$$$. Meaning, the Rockets and Astros get virtually all ad revenue (since they own the network), and they get the rights fee (it was $18 million for each team). Also, FSN is basically paying to be able to be the broadcasting channel of the netowrk, thus, that's more money added on top of the original rights fee (~$20 million per team). All I can say is : CHA-CHING for those owners (of course this cost will probably just be passed on to the viewers in the form of increased cable fees... but you would have gotten that anyways if you subscribed to the new netowrk).
Hmm...being in the Dallas area, does this mean I can watch Rockets games without NBA League pass, or is this locally only?
It depends on the Mavs. Generally, when Fox has broadcast rights to multiple teams, it will only show that region's team on its network.
This sounds like real good news to me. I'm in Dallas but have lived in Houston every year of my life except two. Even if the Rockets and Mavs play at the same time and I don't get all Rockets games, the ones I do get when the Mavs aren't playing are more then it'd be with the current situation. Awesome to know that I can see more then just the nationaly televised games now.
Man, I bought my portable tv specifically so I could watch rockets games at work. Sure, the reception wasn't that great, but it was something. I'm sure I'm not the only one who'll be missing out.
What I wonder about is this... So, are they just buying FSN time on the network like an infomercial buys time on tv stations late at night or will they eventually have their own channel on the local cable network? If they are just buying time, will that mean pregame, halftime and postgame shows? I used to LOVE pregame stuff. Ah, Kevin Eschenfelder.
Probably not. FSN probably gets to pick where they will get slots and Austin would be considered Spurs territory, not Rockets.
I don't get to visit the chats anymore, thats the only downside since I had a TV Tuner on my pc w/ OTA but I gotta watch in the stupid living room now with all the noise and crap it was gonna happen anyways no one even watches UPN, the reception was great when they were on 20, I wish they could go back. I understand the situation with WB but UPN? come on!
I hate to burst your bubble, but no Rockets games will be shown on Fox Sports Net in Dallas. Each FSN affiliate is restricted to one team per area. And in Dallas it's the Mavs. In Houston, FSN will never show any Mavs games. If the Mavs are off, then FSN in Dallas will shown the best damn sports show at 8 pm.
