Despite Criticism, ESPN360 Broadband Model Spreads

This is actually the first time i've heard of this and now I have even more reason not to pay for television services.

It's a shame TimeWarner seems to be the ONLY major provider not signed up.

I am actively boycotting ESPN360, in that I have never gone there, nor have any desire. Boycott Complete!

They keep this up and you will see HSI package with different tiers...

10/2 $35
10/2 + Sports + Social Networks + Games + $45
10/2 + News + Movies $50
....

I just got it as part of the Cox deal and it is really lame. ESPN360 is so overrated it is laughable. These horridly useless things should be options instead of forcing everyone to pay for it via yearly price increases. I'd rather have a .50 price cut than this stupid garbage.

I would welcome that. Let those who want this garbage, pay for the garbage. Same goes for the sports networks on video. They should put these overpriced channels on their own tiers, or better yet be compelled to offer channels a la carte in addition to the packages.

If these channels had to get subscribers by the content of their channels instead of blackmailing providers into carrying them by threatening to pull other content (ABC/ESPN/Disney is notorious for this), content would improve and prices would come down.

Amen.

Why not give everyone Rhapsody while they're at it. More people would probably want free music than this.

It's also a bigger issue than sports, so are we saying screw the RIAA and all associated artists while favoring sports over the arts???

Edit:
And how come ESPN gets away with this crap while the RIAA still can't get it and continues to sue (and screw) their customers?

it depends on the time of year your opinion might change.

Why would any ISP pay this to them ?

Cut them off the network or inject an ad to the user saying why they have cancelled it.

I hate that these companies pull this crap.

The economy is bad enough , and to keep making huge profits they want to rape pillage and plunder. Really have we not had enough of this ?

The government does it , companies do it, now even normal people are doing it. We expect the economy to recover ? It's just a giant money shuffle. And this will cause yet another "downturn" when people realize that this is just a shell game.

Anybody else tired of these corporate extortionists ?

But wait, it's offered at "no charge". So, can we expect ESPN to send us money for the next $1-2/month price hike in or service?

I'd love to see the day where ESPN was put on an a la carte tier, for $29.99/month. I'm a big sports fan, but I hate the way the content providers seem to have the IPS's, and their customers, over a barrel. Sure, there would certainly be some defectors, but ultimately the price would come down if a major TV provider held their ground.

What's next, only Toyotas can have air conditioning installed? If you want to be cool in the summer, buy a Toyota, or sweat it out in your Honda. (complain to Honda if you want A/C in your car, too, or make the switch to a Toyota) This is a terrible practice, and it seems that some kind of regulation should be imposed. Anyone with access to the internet should be allowed to purchase ESPN 360. No ISP should be discriminated against. (is that even possible?)

I'm not watching Pardon the Interruption this evening.

Take that ESPN!

You're still paying for it so they don't care. (If your ISP does)

How many letters do they get from people complaining about not having ESPN 360, especially when ESPN makes it so simple to generate an email complaint that goes directly to your ISP? Now, how many letters does your ISP get from people thanking them for not pushing ESPN 360 on them? See where this is going?

And that's where the problem lies for me. If I'm paying for my connection somewhere the cost of ESPN 360 is being passed onto me. How that's legal I have no idea. Perhaps the solution is for a class action against ESPN for basically dipping their hands into our collective pockets. Is it fair for 90% of the ISP's customers to finance the 10% that actually use it? Imagine all the medicine grandma can buy if she did not have to pay into this mess.

Seriously people get all riled up over government spending, but here we have a company stealing money hand over fist and nobody will probably do anything. In both cases the people causing the problem will continue business as usual.

Doesn't this in some way violate Net Neutrality? I know in the current political extent, Net Neutrality means ISP's not giving preferential treatment to or restricting any connection to various content. Content providers have been complaining that ISP's may start chargning them for their consumers accessing their content, which caused an uproar among content people. Now, a content provider wants to charge the ISP to deliver the content. No uproar from ISP's, WTH????

Couldn't you just use a proxy server to that is accepted to ESPN? Are there any?

Buy a T1 if you don't like it.

A $28 CD or $3K settlement is worth alot more than a subscription with unlimited songs.

While I despise the ESPN360 model it they charge ISPs 5 cents per subscriber to carry it. So the whole "granny is paying for content she doesn't use" argument is not really valid.Well that's 60 cents per year so I would say NOT MUCH.

you'd welcome that? So instread of me being able to go to any of MILLIONS of sites I'd be limited to just afew dozen? that's better. Hey Einstien what if your ISP decided that it's not worth paying for dslreports.com and thus prevented your access to it?

Explain how something that costs 5 cents a month leads to a $2 a month increase in rates?

There might be a few college fotball games a year I might be interested in seeing, but as long as ESPN keeps MNF off of it it's pretty useless.

»espn.go.com/mediakit/res ··· ics.html

»blog.nielsen.com/nielsen ··· and-web/

quote:

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Overall, 123 million people accessed ESPN on TV and another 21 million visited ESPN.com in March 2008, according to Nielsen. Among households with either TV or Internet access, 84% of users who accessed ESPN content via TV, 10% used both Internet and TV, and 6% used ESPN.com exclusively, Nielsen found.

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That right there explains why ESPN is a power house. 1/3rd of america watches it. To diss ESPN will promote a reaction similar to the reaction of ESPN viewers to you burning an american flag infront of them. This whole controversy is the same thing as the NFL network, »Comcast Sues NFL. If professional sports endorsed a presidential candidate, they would seal the results of an election.

»www.allbusiness.com/serv ··· 0-1.html

$16 billion is a huge market/customer base to get money off of.

DSLReports has a very bias membership base, DSLReport members a tiny minority compared to joe six packs, and most/all businesses will obviously target joe six pack before they target DSLReports members.

Agreed. Really fun to go to that site and watch Podunk University in their big badminton tournament. I agree with amungus, would rather have Rhapsody myself....

Sooner or later, people are going to wake up and figure out that the enemy is not the cable & telco companies but Disney(ESPN) and all the other Hollyweird companies. It is they that have the monopoly and are the prime drivers behind cable & Telco TV rate increases.

But don't expect to hear boo from the consumer rights groups - because it is Hollyweird and Google and the large content companies that have bought them lock, stock, & barrel.

If you have a buddy that has Cox, you might talk him into putting a proxy server in his house connected to his cable modem!

You mean like bandwidth consumption? Anyway, ESPN is merely carrying there well serving business model from pay TV to the Internet. Can't fault them for that, but we can fault our ISPs for succumbing to their antics...just as we can blame our pay TV providers.

I am happy to see that Cablevision is not a member of this cabal.

I agree in that grandma should be left out of the argument unless she wants to join in. However, it is a clear case where an ISP either through use of profits and/or by passing a portion of the cost to all subscribers is circumventing a normal open free economy by subsidizing a business model and company that most likely is broken.

That's exactly what I keep telling my cable company.

I used to have it during Adelphia days until TWC RR took over, and now it's gone. I used it at work that is on AT&T backbone, and it was rad to watch NBA feeds.

Except you're looking at it wrong, the ISP is not preventing your access to DSLReports or ESPN360. In this case, it is ESPN360 that is electing to only allow certain people to enter their website. I think the poster's point was if you want the content and the provider (ESPN) wants to charge for it, get out your own credit card.