John Canzano writes:
Comcast Xfinity subscribers in Oregon, Washington, Southern California, and other pockets. Consumers may soon discover that live sporting events are blacked out, even if they paid a $10 fee to upgrade to a sports tier. Fans are faced with either dumping Comcast and cutting the cord, or waiting out what one industry expert called “a game of chicken.”
The reasoning is:
Oregon, Washington, UCLA, and USC officially joined the Big Ten in August. Those four new markets were previously considered “outer markets” by Comcast. The distributor paid a modest monthly carriage fee to the Big Ten Network (estimated to be somewhere in the 15-25 cents per subscriber range) to carry live games in those markets.
• Previously, in those four TV markets Comcast situated the Big Ten Network on its “More Sports and Entertainment” tier. It charges a $10 upgrade fee and bundles it with a bunch of other sports stations for value.
• Now, the Big Ten Network (Read: Fox) views those schools as an “inter-market” just like the other 14 conference schools. The monthly carriage fee for in-market live sports programming is much higher (think: $1.25 to $1.50 per month).
• Fox wants Comcast to not only pay the higher “inter-market” rate but also include the Big Ten Network on its basic tier like other carriers (Read: DirecTV, Hulu, Fubu, YouTube TV, etc.). The channel would not only be available to all Comcast subscribers, Fox would be entitled to the ($1.25 per subscriber) fee from all customers, not just those who paid for the sports upgrade.
So you leave the Pac-12 due to Media Rights Revenue and poor distribution and get this instead...
Comcast Xfinity subscribers in Oregon, Washington, Southern California, and other pockets. Consumers may soon discover that live sporting events are blacked out, even if they paid a $10 fee to upgrade to a sports tier. Fans are faced with either dumping Comcast and cutting the cord, or waiting out what one industry expert called “a game of chicken.”
The reasoning is:
Oregon, Washington, UCLA, and USC officially joined the Big Ten in August. Those four new markets were previously considered “outer markets” by Comcast. The distributor paid a modest monthly carriage fee to the Big Ten Network (estimated to be somewhere in the 15-25 cents per subscriber range) to carry live games in those markets.
• Previously, in those four TV markets Comcast situated the Big Ten Network on its “More Sports and Entertainment” tier. It charges a $10 upgrade fee and bundles it with a bunch of other sports stations for value.
• Now, the Big Ten Network (Read: Fox) views those schools as an “inter-market” just like the other 14 conference schools. The monthly carriage fee for in-market live sports programming is much higher (think: $1.25 to $1.50 per month).
• Fox wants Comcast to not only pay the higher “inter-market” rate but also include the Big Ten Network on its basic tier like other carriers (Read: DirecTV, Hulu, Fubu, YouTube TV, etc.). The channel would not only be available to all Comcast subscribers, Fox would be entitled to the ($1.25 per subscriber) fee from all customers, not just those who paid for the sports upgrade.
So you leave the Pac-12 due to Media Rights Revenue and poor distribution and get this instead...
