Sports Fans,
Today’s announcement of a merger between Comcast and NBC-Universal raises some pretty important questions for fans:
Will you have a harder time watching your home-town games after the merger?
Will you have to pay to watch online sports video or participate in online fantasy leagues?
Will we see more places like Philadelphia, where one company (Comcast) owns the team, arena, sports channel, and cable system, then makes you subscribe to the cable system in order to watch the games?
Sports Fans Coalition will ask whether this merger is bad for fans. We’re going to ask tough questions in Congress, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and elsewhere.
But we need you! Join the SFC, submit your thoughts on the issue, and send a signal that your government needs to make sure that sports fans don’t get played.
We want access to our local games, online sports, and not get held over a barrel.
Sports Fans Coalition
This is a horrible idea. It was bad enough that a major media outlet that cheered the invasion of Iraq was owned by a defense contractor, but this deal is just the making of a vertical monopoly. All that Comcast would need to do is buy up a company that makes TVs!
We all can be glad it isn’t China that bought it.
You’ve got my questions & some. Keep up the good work.
Thanks
It’s bad enough when there are 2 separate powerful corporations, but when they are allowed to become one mega corporation, there will be no consumer rights at all. It will just be making as much money as possible and screw the public.
It is already hard enough for me to get Phillies games on TV…. and I only live an hour outside of Philadelphia.
I think it is anti-competitive and bad for the country. Comcast is already monopolizing most of the Cub games that used to be shown free on WGN. I am a Comcast subscriber and the digital picture breaks down all the time.
I also worry about the control of NBC and the censorship of liberal voices like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.