This makes zero sense. Right now, the court of public opinion is strongly in favor of the providers (relative to CSN partners). If someone is more pissed after the trial, which I doubt, odds are they'd be pissed at the CSN partnership -- not the providers. Keep in mind, this isn't some new concoction. The people that are missing the games and upset -- most have watched the Astros and Rockets for 10, 20 or 30+ years. They know exactly what they've been missing since the games went away in October 2012. Most who were inclined to blame the providers and potentially switch -- the scenario you described -- have already done so. The vast majority of the people currently with UVerse, DTV, etc. who would be interested in CSN fall into one of two categories (and possibly both): 1.) They're mad at the CSN partnership and largely blame Comcast/Astros/Rockets for the carriage issues. 2.) They're at least somewhat upset with their provider but stayed because of concessions given to them by UVerse, DTV, etc. If you're in group 1, why would you suddenly decide to blame the provider and not CSN once the 45-day period ends? I'm fairly certain you'd still have the same beliefs on the underlying dispute. If you're in group 2, and you were already pleased enough by whatever UVerse/DTV offered you to stick around the first time, why would you then be angry enough to leave after they made another concession for your benefit? The only people who would conceivably change their positions after a "free trial" scenario are those who didn't know the benefits of the "trial service" in the first place. That's not applicable in this case, because 99.9% of impacted people have watched Astros/Rockets games for many years and already know exactly what they're missing out on. In other words, the value of the product the "free trial" is offering has already been factored into their decision-making.
The focus has been on DirecTV because they're the only group that's even made an offer....albeit, an offer that all partners acknowledge is very disappointing.
