NFL Network continues its war of words with Big Cable
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The NFL Network’s exclusive game on Thursday night -- the Patriots against the Jets -- won’t rival last year’s blockbuster, in which the Patriots defeated the Giants to complete an undefeated regular season. So don’t expect the NFL to do what it did last year -- bow to public pressure and put one of the NFL Network’s exclusive games on a widely available channel.
Who is at fault for the continuing stalemate that, late each NFL season, keeps a significant number of fans from seeing football games?
It depends upon whether you side with the NFL, which has opted to hold back eight late-season games for its proprietary NFL Channel, or the several big cable companies that refuse to give the league the broad carriage it is demanding.
NFL Network is available in 43 million homes, according to the NFL, but sports juggernaut ESPN is available in 96 million homes. So, unless or until Big Cable bends or breaks, many football fans will continue to miss the games that the NFL reserves for its network.
Steven M. Bornstein, president and chief executive of the NFL Network, earlier today issued a challenge to cable company executives to ‘heed the FCC and offer NFL Network now.’ The issues in this stalemate haven’t changed that much since Bornstein penned a similar letter two years ago.
Here is a bit of what Bornstein has to say:
It is clear that several big cable companies continue to turn a deaf ear to football fans, blocking or charging extra for our most popular programming on TV. We in the NFL have been trying without success for months to negotiate with these companies for broader coverage. The good news is that our nation’s regulators are paying attention and keeping the fans in mind. Just last month, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Media Bureau found that Comcast did discriminate against independent networks like NFL Network. The FCC Media Bureau found Time Warner guilty of the same type of anti-competitive behavior in a similar sports case. It is once again a reminder that these cable companies need to negotiate fairly, not discriminate.
-- Greg Johnson