[NU Sports] 12th game blues

[Dennis W. Brandt]

> I want to see 1-2 home non-conference games to give our new players a
> sense of game speed and to get me back into the football groove, but
> no more than that.
>
> Football should always be played on cool, crisp mid-October days with a
> mix of sun and some winter-hinting gloom.

And the sound of a train should be a steam whistle, not a horn.  I agree 
it's sad, but it's the way of sports these days.  If the World Series goes 
seven games this year, even without one rain or freeze-out that last game 
will be played on November 1.  The NBA finals just ended a week or so ago, 
and in three more months they'll be back in training camp.  And there have 
been Super Bowls played in February.  I won't be surprised the day the NCAA 
announces the advent of April Madness.

Before Comcast bought York's Suscom cable system, customers were literally 
being gouged by ESPN who charged the company increases in the area of 20% 
and more virtually every year, knowing that the cable company could not drop 
them without losing thousands of customers.  ESPN is not alone in the greed 
factory.  When Suscom wanted to add the Speed Channel to their digital 
package, the demanded price was $240,000 a year for one channel plus 
additional demands for several other sports channels at even more cost. 
Comcast Philadelphia wanted $2.50 from every extended basic subscriber to a 
single Philadelphia sports channel.  Suscom refused, and now that Comcast 
owns our system, they still won't add the channel for the same reason.

On the other hand, I believe it possible that the big TV sports contracts 
will start to level out.  There are millions of cable and satellite 
subscribers who never turn on a sporting event even though the cost of those 
broadcasts is the single largest factor in their bill.  (On a similar vein, 
there are also guys like me who resent paying his money to support the 
detested MTV.)  There is pressure for an increase in tiering and a la carte 
services, and the public will turn to Congress for a solution.  Washington 
is hardly the ideal place to resolve the issue - they're on the verge of 
undermining satellite radio, for example - but go to them the public will 
because there seems to be no alternative.  That will mean that either the 
sports contracts will have to stop their upward spiral, or they will grossly 
increase the cost for those who do want the channels.  In either case, it 
will cause an erosion of the customer base.

Price gouging is not limited to TV.  As Bill Giles' book, Pouring Six Beers 
at a Time, so well points out, my tax money helped build four new stadiums 
in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but I couldn't buy a good seat in any of 
them, if I could get one at all, and then they black out competing 
broadcasts whenever they feel like it.  There's a point at which you say, 
screw it.  I have to do something.

I hope the poor goose doesn't rupture from being squeezed so hard, but 
something has got to give.