Fw: NBATV and the playoffs....

["Josh Ozersky" <jozersky1@xxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mcnois" <mcnois@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: alt.sports.basketball.nba.boston-celtics
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2003 4:20 PM
Subject: NBATV and the playoffs....


> As if gypping NBA League Pass subscribers out of regular season games
> isn't bad enough. NBA TV will also be exclusively broadcasting some
> first-round playoff games.
> 
> What this amounts to is the NBA is forcing it's fans to do its dirty
> work by pressuring cable systems into carrying the network. Whether
> this will be possible in markets that aren't NBA-friendly is
> questionable.
> 
> Anyway you look at it basketball fans get the shaft -- and are paying
> for the privilege.
> 
> 
> http://espn.go.com/nba/columns/stein_marc/1535010.html
>  
> The latest on getting back our NBA TV
> By Marc Stein
> ESPN.com
> 
> Editor's note: As part of "The Stein Line" every Monday, ESPN.com
> senior NBA writer Marc Stein takes you around the league for the
> latest news in "Coast to Coast."
> 
> As part of that visit with the Commish, we naturally raised one of our
> primary concerns here at the Stein Line.
> 
> As in: What the heck happened to our NBA TV?
> 
> Apparently what happened is that, as of Jan. 1, NBA TV started pulling
> marquee games off the League Pass schedule and began airing up to four
> of them a week. Which meant that NBA TV suddenly had a rate card
> attached to it for cable systems that were previously carrying the
> channel for free. "We're moving toward programming NBA TV on a
> 24-hour, seven-day-a-week basis," Stern said, "and there's a cost
> associated with that. It will only be shown on those systems that
> subscribe to it for their subscribers."
> 
> Thus, on digital cable systems across the nation, NBA TV was suddenly
> deleted from the channel menu -- even for League Pass subscribers --
> and replaced by a worthless NBA Preview Channel. NBA TV, at present,
> is only available on the Dish Network and DirecTV.
> 
> Purchasing League Pass, whether you have digital cable or a dish, is
> supposed to guarantee the consumer every "non-nationally televised
> game." But NBA TV broadcasts are considered national TV broadcasts by
> the league, even though the viewership is a fraction of what an ESPN
> game gets.
> 
> From a Stein Line perspective, this is like changing the rules in the
> middle of the game. If you pay almost $200 in the fall with the
> expectation that you will get every game that isn't televised on ESPN,
> ABC or TNT, you don't want to hear that the arrangement no longer
> holds in midseason.
> 
> Stern acknowledged our protests and says he is "very optimistic that,
> by the beginning of next season, NBA TV will be available on the
> majority of cable systems."
> 
> "To mix a metaphor and use the wrong sport, we're on third base (in
> negotiations) with some (cable operators), at second base with others
> and still standing at home plate with others," Stern said. "But with
> some luck, perhaps, we might be able to make a deal with some systems
> so they can get the playoff games."
> 
> You can only hope. The league plans to televise up to seven
> first-round playoff games on NBA TV, which means they'll only be
> available nationally to dish subscribers unless deals are made with
> Comcast, Cox, Cablevision, etc. Without a deal or two before the
> post-season, playoff games on NBA TV would be available on cable only
> in their two teams' local markets.