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maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Not just channel owners and/or carriers....

There is a HUGE 3d party not mentioned in the article responsible for programming costs: Sports teams owners.

The biggest example right now are the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Both of them signed a deal with Time Warner Cable for 20 years of broadcast rights, the Lakers for about $5 per subscriber, and the Dodgers for about $4 per subscriber.

It must be noted of course that in this case, TWC made the deal as a channel OWNER, not as the CARRIER, but we all know of course that TWC does not have to negotiate their own network for carriage.

Regardless, the Sports Team owners are partially responsible for programming costs. Granted, TWC is making the offer for so many BILLION dollars, but the teams also DEMAND that kind of money. 3 years ago the Angels signed a new broadcast deal for 3 BILLION dollars (the Lakers deal is said to be worth 4 BILLION), with part of that money (paid by the broadcaster) to be set aside to sign a deal with Pujols, and sure enough, he signed a 250 Million dollar contract for 10 years.

The Angels are charging roughly $3 per subscriber, Clippers is about $2, and Kings/Ducks each are good for about $1.50 per subscriber. Then there is two MLS teams as well.

In any case, a Los Angeles based viewer, will pay roughly $16 per month to see the local teams, where someone may only be a fan of say.... the Angels, and don't really care about anything else.

Add to that the cost of ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC Sports, etc, and the costs per subscriber for sports in Los Angeles probably is closer to $25-$28, and with a little profit to go to the cable and satellite companies, about $30 of your cable/satellite bill.... is purely for sports. (Note: The TWC Dodgers channel has not signed a deal with ANYONE yet, and they are asking $5 per subscriber).

And we just have to accept all 8 major league teams and associated costs. The big providers were sort of pushed to carry the Lakers channel, because it is the most popular sport franchise in the L.A. area (note I said most popular, not biggest in money/value) and people were holding up TWC SUCKS signs at the Lakers games in the first few weeks before DirecTV got a deal.

In any case, the exorbitant amounts of money going on in sports, the extreme salaries (a top player should make 3 million a year imho, not 30 million.), and the greed that sports teams have also have contributed in these mega TV deals. People bought the Lakers. Dodgers.... not so much, and TWC is going to be stuck with only having their OWN customers to charge for that big fat bloated overpaid deal.

It's insane. Cable prices are going up about TWICE the inflation rate each year, in some cases THREE times as much.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory

Member

Re: Not just channel owners and/or carriers....

...and I HATE LA sports. I don't give a hoot about it, and I won't pay for that crap. Total waste for me.

maartena
Elmo
Premium Member
join:2002-05-10
Orange, CA

maartena

Premium Member

Re: Not just channel owners and/or carriers....

said by jjeffeory:

...and I HATE LA sports. I don't give a hoot about it, and I won't pay for that crap. Total waste for me.

Exactly. I'm a little bummed that I can't watch Ducks games now, but I am not letting myself screwed over by the insane prices the Lakers and Dodgers are asking the whole market region audience to pay right now.
jjeffeory
jjeffeory
join:2002-12-04
Bloomington, IN

jjeffeory

Member

Re: Not just channel owners and/or carriers....

Are those available OTA? Just curious, cause I mostly care about College sports that aren't even in the region. I can do without any Southern California sports, and I understand that people like their pro sports here, but I don't need to pay for that.
chances14
join:2010-03-03
Michigan

chances14

Member

Re: Not just channel owners and/or carriers....

said by jjeffeory:

Are those available OTA? Just curious, cause I mostly care about College sports that aren't even in the region. I can do without any Southern California sports, and I understand that people like their pro sports here, but I don't need to pay for that.

About the only sport where you can watch most of your team's games OTA is the NFL. and that's only if you live in the local tv market of the team you follow
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: Not just channel owners and/or carriers....

Yeah, only a couple of college basketball games of any given team are on OTA each season, if you're lucky. Actually, if you're unlucky in my case, because our local CBS's PQ on cable sucks compared to cable channels.
BiggA

BiggA to maartena

Premium Member

to maartena
And the NCAA conferences with their multi-billion-dollar deals.