I traveled last week to Salem, Oregon to testify before Members of the Oregon General Assembly with regard to Comcast Cable’s blacking out of Portland Trail Blazers home games. Thousands of Trail Blazers fans are denied enjoying their favorite past time because of the greed and control exercised by a cable provider who refuses to provide the feed for home games to competitors in areas they cannot and do not service.
SFC struck a nerve in Oregon and challenged lawmakers and fans to take on Comcast, the Trail Blazers, and satellite providers to “do the right thing” by fans. There is no good reason why tens of thousands of sports fans are unable to enjoy Trail Blazers home games in the comfort of their homes, their favorite restaurant or bar.
Now it is up to the fans to get off the bench and take to the court and take on this issue, head on. There is no doubt that fans can make a difference and SFC is there to help.
Sign the petition directing Oregon State representatives to take on this issue.
Become a fan of the Local Chapter in Oregon, SFC-Portland, on Facebook.
Follow SFC-Portland on Twitter.
Doesn’t the FCC ruling of Jan 20, 2010 REQUIRE these bully cable operators to provide the sports content to competing providers now? I know a similar issue exists on Long Island between Cablevision and Version FIOS. Cablevision will not provide the HD feed to FIOS customers, however, they DO provide it Time Warner customers. This battle has been going on for years, but the new ruling, should the FCC decide to enforce it, should hopefully remedy the situation. Go figure. Perhaps the Oregon case will be the precedent.
Ruling info can be found here:
http://forums.verizon.com/t5/FiOS-TV-Programming/Good-news-for-MSG-HD-and-other-similar-channels/td-p/150445