Extra Innings Exclusively on DirecTV

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

This sucks:

="New York Times"]Extra Innings Exclusively on DirecTV By RICHARD SANDOMIR Major League Baseball is close to announcing a deal that will place its Extra Innings package of out-of-market games exclusively on DirecTV, which will also become the only carrier of a long-planned 24-hour baseball channel. Extra Innings has been available to 75 million cable households and the two satellite services, DirecTV and the Dish Network. But the new agreement will take it off cable and Dish because DirecTV has agreed to pay $700 million over seven years, according to three executives briefed on the details of the contract but not authorized to speak about them publicly. InDemand, which has distributed Extra Innings to the cable television industry since 2002, made an estimated $70 million bid to renew its rights, more than triple what it has been paying. Part of its offer included the right to carry the new baseball channel, but not exclusively. The baseball channel is scheduled to start in 2009. M.L.B., DirecTV and InDemand officials declined to comment. DirecTV is also the exclusive outlet for the N.F.L.�s Sunday Ticket package, for which it pays $700 million annually. Sunday Ticket has about 2 million subscribers; Extra Innings about 750,000, according to The Sports Business Journal. Extra Innings lets subscribers, for a fee, watch about 60 games a week from other local markets except their own. The only other way that fans without DirecTV will be able to see Extra Innings will be on MLB.com�s mlb.tv service, but they must have high-speed broadband service. About 28 million homes have high-speed service, less than half the number of cable homes in the country. The picture quality of streamed games is not as good as what is available on cable or satellite. DirecTV is available to about 15 million subscribers. Last month, Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, who was then the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, cited DirecTV�s exclusivity with Sunday Ticket as a reason to strip the N.F.L. of an antitrust exemption to negotiate all TV contracts for its teams. Comcast, which has complained that it cannot carry Sunday Ticket, is a Philadelphia-based company.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

That suxx! I had really enjoyed having Extra Innings on cable

[soupcan]

Totally sux.

For the first time last summer we were able to watch the Mets at my in-law's house in Massachusetts. That's over unless my father-in-law buys a dish.

The article doesn't indicate when this is going to start though. the '07 season?

I'll tell you though, DirecTV made a good deal for themselves. Lots of people are going to go buy themselves that dish.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I loved having Extra Innings last year. If this deal goes down, I think I'm going to have to get myself a dish.

[Frayed Knot]

As mentioned there, this is what the NFL has done for years now - withhold their 'Sunday Ticket' service from Cable operators in exchange for the big bucks they get from Direct TV's exclusivity agreement.

In an interview on WFAN a few weeks back, Cablevision honcho Jim Dolan was asked why they're not carrying the NFL channel (something which had Rutgers fans PO'd about the possibility of missing their Bowl game until a temp deal was struck). Dolan answer was, that while the NFL is running around telling the public that it's Cable TV's fault that the channel isn't available in their area, they'd agree to carry it in a minute if the much more valuable 'Sunday Ticket' package were also made available to them. The NFL neglects to mention that part.

It's not often I side with 'Cablevision' is these sorts of fights but they're right in this case. And now MLB decides that bringing more games [u:6a611545f7]to fewer people[/u:6a611545f7] is a good way to launch their own channel.
Whether they turn out to be correct or not remains to be seen, but these sports leagues are betting that the future of their televised product lies in controlling it all through their own distribution system rather than the networks. A number of golf tournaments - long a staple of winter weekends - have been taken off the air this year and placed entirely on 'The Golf Channel', thus reducing the audience immensely.

[metirish]

This sucks donkey balls....

[Guest KC]

Fuck them and their ancestors. This would have been my fourth year with
the package but I ain't getting no dish just to watch baseball. I'm getting
sick and tired of sports leagues and teams looking for ways to fuck people
like us who pour our stupid little lives into something only to be shit on by
the almighty assholes in the sky just so they can make more money.

(I'm on fuck sports kick - talking with the hommies yesterday about the likely
ass fucking we're about to take from the Jets and seat licensing)

[Guest cooby]

You know, the thing is, it seems like even you folks who live closer to NY have to change the way you watch the Mets and other teams every couple of years.

[DocTee]

I already have DirecTV, but much preferred when we had DISH network. I'll have tosee what it costs-- I do like NFL network, which comes free and re-broadcasts many Sunday games during the week (in addition to several Thursday exclusives).

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I'm not quite on a fuck sports kick, but I'm not buying a dish just to watch out of market games.

Even I have my limits.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

I wouldn't get a dish for out-of-market games either. I only watched Mets games on Extra Innings anyway. But if I want to follow the Mets in 2007 like I did in 2006, and I have to switch to DirecTV to do it, then I just might go ahead and make the change.

[Guest KC]

Responding to SK's post ...

Well, you're a little more level-headed than I am (a little). And you're one of
the first people I think of when stuff like this goes down because I know you
like to follow certain players. I'm just disheartned by the way we're treated.

Coobs, it doesn't effect how we watch the Mets ... if effects being able to
watch the other games which I've become quite used to being able to access.
I was very happy to fork over the fee to watch the Royals at Oakland and
feel used and abused if I have to put an ugly stupid piece of hardware some-
where that doesn't work when it's raining out just to watch a baseball game.

I have a breaking point with MLB and it's fast approaching.

[Guest cooby]

We had a dish for a few years just to watch the Mets, I'm not immune...

I will say this though--since I can't watch the Mets on ESPN, my games are limited to Fox on Saturday (and I'm outside on summer Saturdays) Fox Sportsnet Pittsburgh, Comcast in Philadelphia, and any Atlanta games that are carried. So I only saw the Mets on TV about 10 times last summer. And it's amazing what you can get used to.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

We just like being able to watch baseball games, even when the Mets aren't on. We're particularly fond of NESN, not due to any affinity for the BoSox, but because Jerry Remy's Bahston accent cracks us up. But not enough so that we're putting a dish up.

[DocTee]

Living in California I see more than ten Mets games: six vs. the Giants, and whatever is on TBS or WGN (Braves and Cubs). Plus whatever FOX and ESPN have to offer-- I'd have to say I get like 30-40 games each season.

[metsmarathon]

well, i already have directv, and am gloriously unaffected this time around.

i do have some advice for any of y'all out there who may be considering the switch to the dish.

do yourself a favor and ignore the urge to get the directv receivers with the DVR built in. get a tivo instead.

[Guest cooby]

Right you are Doc Tee, I forgot about WGN; I think I get that too


The problem for us remote access fans is that now all the other previously super-stationed ball teams such as the Braves, Cubs, etc, now offer slim pickin's too

[Farmer Ted]

Fuck MLB. I don't want their shit channel. I have the NFL network and it's ass. Cookie-cutter bullshit hurts the fans.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

metsmarathon wrote: do yourself a favor and ignore the urge to get the directv receivers with the DVR built in. get a tivo instead.

I already have TiVo. I read this morning that DirecTV and TiVo are having some kind of compatibility issue. Shows sometimes don't show up in the Season Pass and don't get recorded. Have you experienced that?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Whats wrong with mlb.tv?

And why does Kase have a single red letter in his post?

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Because it's a red letter day?

Actually, I don't see any red letter.

[Guest KC]

I edited poor to pour and was pointing it out in red.

I'm a teenage lobotomy.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Edgy DC wrote: Whats wrong with mlb.tv?

I don't want to sit in front of my PC to watch a game. I want to watch from the comfort of my family room. I had MLB.tv in 2005, and it was a far inferior experience.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Certainly. But when the alternative is springing for a new TV system...

For what it's worth, the quality of MLB.tv improved a lot in 2006.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

The alternative isn't springing for a new tv system. The alternative is mentally telling MLB to fuck off -- if they're not going to make it for us to view their product, we're not going to go out of our way to do so.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Again, it's different for you Scarlett. You use Extra Innings to see the Twins and the Brewers. I use it to see the Mets. I enjoyed being able to watch all the games I watched in 2006. If I want to repeat that in 2007, and I do, I may have to sign up with DirecTV. Whether or not I actually do that or not remains to be seen, but I'm considering it.

If I have to watch it on the PC I'll only catch a spare inning here and there. I won't ever be able to sit and watch an entire game. So if this announcement comes down as expected I'll have a decision to make.

I suppose I could tell MLB to fuck off, but I'd miss their product more than they'd miss me. If it was a product I cared little about, it would be easier to walk away.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

You're right - I'm in a market with more local options than yours.

I'm in a position to tell MLB to fuck off without losing Mets coverage. What I'm losing will be the games from other markets with their local announcers. Fun, but not anything I care about as much as I care about Mets games.

[Guest KC]

I think it's total bullshit what they do (in case my profanity laden tirade this
morning didn't make that clear). It's a silly little microcosm of an example,
but here's two people in Yance and Mrs. Field's who love baseball (run state
of the art fan site/plan vacations around which ballpark they haven't visited
yet) and they are totally dissed by the very product they adore. I'm writing
Sealeg a letter tommorow.

I'm shouting at the wind, but that's the way I look at it.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

You're right. It is bullshit.

You're preaching to the choir here. And I'm sure that more than a few of us would be happy to sign off on your profanity-laden tirade to Selig.

[Guest KC]

Here's their swanky addy ...

Major League Baseball
Allan H. (Bud) Selig, Commissioner
245 Park Avenue - 31st Floor
New York, NY 10167