Is Comcast stacking the cable TV deck in their own favor? Photo Courtsey of Comcast
A lot of the time it seems like it is Comcast versus every sports fan in America, or Comcast versus the world. It seems that Comcast is always waiting to cash in on the new vogue as each major sports league launches its own network.
A few things one should know about Comcast is that they own the Philadelphia 76ers of the NBA, and the Philadelphia Flyers of the NHL. On top of that they own the Versus Network that now holds the majority of the NHL’s TV contract. Now conflict of interest is a legal term I would let lawyers argue about but it would seem that the folks over at Comcast would have a vested interest in keeping other sports off of their cable system.
That is a different issue.
Over the last few years Comcast has waged a media war against not only the NFL network, but the Big Ten TV network as well. The powers that be at Comcast did not want these channels to be offered as part of their digital basic service. They wanted the sports fans who wanted these networks to pay a fee to get elevated to a sports tier of programming.
While one can understand Comcast’s desire to charge their customers more money for additional service it is important to note that the Sports channels Comcast owns are offered in their digital basic package. I speak of the aforementioned Versus which has NHL hockey and IRL racing, as well as the Golf Channel which has been a basic channel since its inception.
These facts seem to suggest that Comcast is trying to stack the deck in their favor, allow more people to view the networks with which they have a vested interest, while keeping other sports programming harder for their customers to access.
This is the problem with companies has big as Comcast. Are they a cable provider, a programming developer, or a company that owns and operates sports teams? When they try to be all three ethical questions such as these seem to arise.
Ultimately Comcast had to reach an agreement with the Big Ten Network to allow that network on its digital basic package. Much the same thing has happened with the NFL network and we can all imagine at some point the same will happen with the MLB network, and with a rumored NASCAR network.
However if Comcast were to offer all of these channels as a premium package I would expect many sports fans to purchase it. As a Comcast customer myself I would definitely purchase a package like this, but I think we can understand how other Sports organizations feel as Comcast acts in a way that is highly suspicious.
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