04/24/24
December 08, 2003
ESPN, Fox Sports and other sports networks have raised their rates to cable providers 59 percent in the last three years and are seeking more hikes, according to the Boston Globe. One irate cable company has responded with MakeThemPlayFair.Com , a site hoping to "keep ESPN available at a reasonable price."
You said "medium"...
posted by StarFucker at 04:31 PM on December 08, 2003
rocketman, even though I couldn't go very long without my tube, uh-huh, I think it's commendable in this day an age to choose your media. I used to get my hockey on the cheap, but eventually went into HNIC withdrawl and caved to the CenterIcePackage. Unlike the big-3, NHL.com provides free radio broadcasts of all league games.
posted by garfield at 04:34 PM on December 08, 2003
SF: You said "medium"... SF, huh? Medium = singular Media = plural or are you being silly?
posted by worldcup2002 at 04:43 PM on December 08, 2003
Medium? Or Medium?
posted by lilnemo at 05:03 PM on December 08, 2003
damn it, how do you guys post the pictures?!? ESPN and the other networks are jobbing the shit out of cable companies, who are then simply going to pass the increase along to you and I, friend. Think it about — what's gone up for our friends at FOX Sports? Hair gel? Kleig lights? Not much, other than the normal price of doing business. If they can't control costs, let them go under, not drag us all down. The solution here is to make every single damned cable network available a la carte. I want ESPN, I pay $5 a month, which I would. I want Oxygen, I go directly to the shrink ... and I would.
posted by wfrazerjr at 06:06 PM on December 08, 2003
ESPN's response. I think a la carte would be great as well. I gave up cable when I moved apartments about a year and a half ago. Now I can pull in two channels with the rabbit ears on my TV - NBC and PBS - which means the only time I watch sports on TV is for my regular MNF get togethers and the occasional trip to a sports bar for a big Duke basketball game. I am grateful for the sports radio station in town though - they carry the MLB Sunday night games, as well as NFL on Sundays, Mondays, and playoffs. They even had the SEC championship game Saturday night. I got all the NCAA tourney games on the radio last March. All the same I'm looking forward to hooking into the (landlord supplied) cable in an apartment building I'm scoping.
posted by mbd1 at 06:22 PM on December 08, 2003
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posted by garfield at 06:40 PM on December 08, 2003
"MakeThemPlayFair.Com" Pot, meet kettle.
posted by 86 at 07:08 PM on December 08, 2003
I'm kind of like rocketman. I have a television, but I've got no cable, so I listen to all the Mavs game (and Stars playoff games) on the radio or watch them at bars/friends' houses. I've really gotten used to it and I can often accomplish more while I'm listening. That said, if they offered a la carte cabling, I'd probably jump all over it like a Babylonian whore.
posted by Ufez Jones at 07:48 PM on December 08, 2003
I was just being silly...
posted by StarFucker at 10:40 PM on December 08, 2003
ala carte cabling, like not paying for incoming calls on your cell phone, is an idea that makes sense to everyone but the people who actually sell the product. But just because: i'd get the major networks, C-span, noggin, espn/2/classic/news, comedy, cartoon, food... and i think that's it. what'll that run me?
posted by forksclovetofu at 11:02 PM on December 08, 2003
I don't know what you guys are bitching about. Here in the UK, I pay about £20 a month to get Sky Sports. That's on top of the basic cable subscription. Of course, I get 4 channels of sporting goodness for that, but it's still pricey. Maybe it's time for ESPN to follow a similar business model? If people knew exactly how much ESPN cost then those who wanted it could pay for it.
posted by salmacis at 03:31 AM on December 09, 2003
noggin?
posted by mbd1 at 08:43 AM on December 09, 2003
Let's not forget the VegetableOne is a teenager!
posted by billsaysthis at 11:26 AM on December 09, 2003
Maybe this is unrealistic for most sports fans, but I get all of my broadcasts through the radio. It's true that I only listen to the baseball season - and that I can only get Brewers games and whatever ESPN runs on Sunday night - but I can supplement this with reading online news during the day, the odd newspaper I pick up in a restaurant, or conversations with fellow sports junkies. I'm a notorious cheapskate, so I don't have a television. But I've found the radio serves my needs nicely, and I can catch the occasional football or basketball game, if I'm bored. It's a great, underappreciated medium.