MLB Network learns lesson

You almost got it unlike most other media columnists. While not the genesis of the problem, what it is has come down to is this. The NFL made a very short sighted deal with directv to give it exclusive control of Sunday Ticket. This does not expire, I believe, till after the 2011 season. Directv is not available to at least half the country because of not having a line of sight to the satellite or obstructions in the way or refusal of some landlords to allow a dish on their portion of the property. This caused the cable companies to lose many of their most ardent NFL customers. The ones that are left are those that don't have the ability to get directv. These blame not the cable companies but the NFL. The result of this is there is no pressure on the cable companies for the consolation second rate package of 8 games. It is very hypocritical of the NFL when they claim they want to make their games available to everybody. What about cable customers who want Sunday Ticket? The other leagues allow their out of market games to be available to cable and satellite alike. It must also be noted that the games offered on NFL Network as, for the most part, stolen from free television. Six of them at least represent the two triple headers that used to be available on CBS, Fox and ESPN (if you want to consider ESPN all but free television). Only the Thanksgiving Eve game is new. MLB was about to go down the same path when Senator Kerry interceded and one thing led to another to allow Extra Innings to continue on the cable networks when directv tried to pull this same garbage. MLB realized they could leverage Extra Innings against the Baseball Network. The rest, of course, as noted is history. If the NFL feels there's lots of money to be made with NFL Network, in order to get it onto wide distribution, they will have to leverage it against Sunday Ticket. The cable networks cannot give in, at this point, to the NFL hypocracy to retain this leverage. Result and prediction. NFL Network will not appear on TWC, Comcast (the original contract is up after this year and NFL Network will be pulled even from the sports tier), Cablevision (a NYC area cable company) and the entire In Demand World until after the 2011 season when the NFL will have to open up Sunday Ticket in exchange for carriage of NFL Network. And if they don't this time around, there's a good chance Congress will intervene.