This evening, after a week’s worth of progress, NBA Commissioner David Stern announced that two more weeks of the season would be canceled (through November 30). Stern also said there was no way to hold a full 82-game season at this point. Stern is currently addressing the media in New York…

There are basically two types of blackouts — the kind that happens when the stadium isn’t sold out and the game is blacked out in the local market and the kind that happens when broadcasters and cable/satellite providers clash over money and one side takes down the signal. A case of the latter is about to occur, as Fox and DirecTV are warring over carriage fees for some FOX networks, including FX and Fox Sports South. These Fox networks will vanish from DirecTV if a deal is not reached by November 1. This means that many college football fans who subscribe to DirecTV will miss out on some games. (In addition to “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “Sons of Anarchy.”)

So both sides are engaging in a public relations battle, accusing the other side of being unreasonable. (In the height of absurdity, FOX in-game programming during the World Series featured numerous plugs for DirecTV while the network ran commercials against FOX during the breaks.) DirecTV says FOX is asking up to 40% more for the right to carry these networks and FOX says it’s asking DirecTV to pay what its competitors are paying. Further, FOX says it has offered to keep the networks up at the same price until an agreement is reached.

Sports Fans Coalition is fighting to end all blackouts and has filed formal comments at the FCC asking the agency to allow sports programming to remain up during these “retransmission consent” disputes. “Sports should not be used as a weapon during retransmission consent disputes,” we wrote.

SFC is looking into the latest dispute on behalf of sports fans everywhere…

Don’t want to jinx it, but there has been some steady progress this week in NBA labor negotiations. So much so that the New York Daily News is reporting that both sides are saying there’s a possibility an entire 82-game NBA season could be played. Even if a deal was reached this week, games still wouldn’t start until late November, so there’d likely be some back-to-back games, but still, that would be welcome after the threat of no season.

For more read the NY Daily News article here.

Over at SI.com, columnist Ian Thomsen has a great column up about how this lockout may not be like other lockouts. Even though owners and players assume fans will come back, Thomsen writes that this time, fans may see themselves as the “Occupiers” of the Occupy Wall Street movement and cast off the NBA.

Thomsen writes:

Here is what has to be worrying the NBA. The owners and players ought to be frightened that fans will come to view this ongoing lockout as a symbol of something bigger. What if it strikes the larger public nerve, so that the NBA’s $4 billion shutdown is turned into a high-profile example of something deeper and much more important than a game?

Several commentators have drawn parallels between the bailouts that the NBA and Wall Street have asked for — most notably, SportsFans.org board member Dave Zirin– so the time seems ripe for a Occupy the NBA movement. What say you, sports fans? Anybody up for camping on the steps of league offices?

Wednesday night, the Arizona Republic reported that Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson said that he sent around last month a proposal for a 16-team playoff to the conference commissioners and Notre Dame. Thompson said a playoff could generate an additional $500 million annually. More importantly, for the Mountain West and other non-Automatic Qualifying conferences, the money would be distributed more fairly.

Curiously, reporter Craig Harris’ article did not even mention the recent merger between Conference USA and the Mountain West and whether that would affect the playoff proposal. Nor did Harris explain how this proposal is different from the one the Mountain West offered up in 2009. Perhaps the Mountain West feels that given the climate of realignment and the diminishing power of some of the traditional power conferences, there is a greater chance for support.

Regardless, we have been calling for a playoff since Sports Fans Coalition was founded and although we haven’t seen the exact proposal, we support their overarching goal.

Of course, the