Bag of Mail

Comcast Adds ESPNU To Digital Tier


Comcast's move hasn't gotten very much attention. But for notorious Comcast haters like me, it's a big deal. I've wanted ESPNU for a while here in Nashville. (I still want CBS College Sports as well.) Why did Comcast crumble? They were afraid of the outrage that SEC fans would bring to bear if we couldn't watch every football game we wanted to watch. Here's the story from FanHouse.

I'm out for the weekend of celebratory festivities surrounding my friend Tardio's birthday. If you're out in Nashville this weekend, there's a good chance we'll run into you.

Oh, and our beaver pelt trader of the week? The dude who jumped the balls in the kayak. Scroll back down and you'll find him.

Here's a takeaway from the column:

What's your No. 1 fear if you subscribe to cable and you're a sports fan? Aside from the signal dying on the first day of the NCAA basketball tournament or on any Saturday or Sunday in the fall, it's that through no fault of your own you might not be able to watch your favorite teams play because of rights disputes between major companies.

We've seen it with the Big Ten Network and several cable companies, and we've seen it with the NFL Network and virtually every cable company. Nothing sucks more as a sports fan than being a paying subscriber, being willing to pay whatever you have to for the games you want to see, and still not being able to watch your favorite team play from the comfort of home. It's a constant dance between content providers and cable distributors over how much channels should cost, and fandom is the collateral damage.

The latest rights dispute that seemed likely was between ESPN and Comcast. Only it never materialized.

It hasn't gotten much attention, but ESPN scored a major victory over the nation's largest cable company this week, Comcast agreed to carry ESPNU on their digital tier package. Why? Because Comcast didn't want to fight SEC fans who can't watch their favorite teams play.

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Posted by Clay Travis at 6:34 PM

1 Comments:

Blogger Oskie said...

One more request: Sports South and CSS in HD please! I'm tired of not watching the Braves in HD.

May 23, 2009 3:22 PM  

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