Comcast’s “hostage taking” of the Blazers broadcasts is bad for the Blazers, for Oregon, for the NBA, and for Comcast, itself. Comcast thinks that they can exploit the emotional ties between Oregonians and our team for the sake of some tawdry profits, but I know that we can do better.

I am one of the many rabid fans that populate this city. We have only one major league team and only one national championship in the entire state. We put everything we have into the Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers are a link between Portlanders, between Oregonians.

That is just as major league sports should be, that is what we fans pay for. In Oregon, perhaps more than anywhere outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin, professional sports work. When we come in to work in the morning, in the midst of our days, we talk about the Blazers. Chit chat about the Blazers is what brings us together.

We are famous for our fandom, and for our sellout crowds. A year ago, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons said in an interview with Ian Ruder published in the Oregonian:

The Blazer fans are crazy. They’re like the crazy dude at the bar who’s just so irrational you don’t want to get into a full argument with them because you might get a beer bottle smashed into your head. It’s because they’re on the team, so it’s like they’re arguing about their kids almost.

If you have ever been in the Rose Garden when the Lakers come to town, you know what he’s talking about. When we walk through the Rose Garden doors, we go from friendly latte-sipping hipsters to blood thirsty Cro-Magnons defending our turf.

We are blessed with an organization that is committed to our community and many of our team alumni choose to make a home in Portland after they retire. After Maurice Lucas passed away a couple of weeks ago, several friends of mine relayed their personal stories of Lucas around town. His presence here after his career was over means just as much as the championship that he helped to win.

Watching the games is a communion for us fans. We do it as families, with friends. A win means a lot, but so does Coach Mo Cheeks saving the young national anthem singer.

I myself was honored to once have dinner with Terry Porter, who offered me relationship advice. Terry, I am sorry. I still have not married her.

Comcast has put a ransom on our extended family. They promised to negotiate with other providers, to compete in a fair marketplace. Instead they are making every effort to function as a monopoly.

In addition, how does the NBA feel about Comcast’s anti-competitive activities? The league is trying to build a fan base while Comcast is limiting their potential audience.

I am certainly appreciative of the effort that Comcast goes to in providing the games and I believe that they should be fairly compensated. They have an opportunity to be a part of our family and benefit from that goodwill. It surprises me that they should choose to instead inspire their customers – and potential customers to begrudge their very services. Is that they way that they want to do business?

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Joel Barker is a freelance writer and lifelong Oregon resident. You can email him at Joel@wordlions.com.

Blazer TV access: Stop hogging the ball, Comcast

The Portland Trail Blazers’ season tips off in less than two weeks and Blazers fans can expect more of the same — from Comcast, that is.

In late February, Brad Blakeman, a board member for the Sports Fans Coalition, flew out from Washington, D.C., to testify in front of the Oregon Legislature. Blakeman spoke on behalf of Blazers fans who were unable to watch games because of contract disputes between Comcast and other satellite and cable TV carriers.

In 2007, the Blazers signed a 10-year, $120 million agreement with Comcast, giving the company the rights to show Blazers games on Comcast SportsNet Northwest. Not surprisingly, Comcast then jacked up the access fees for other cable and satellite carriers in the region. In effect, Comcast is forcing customers to switch to Comcast in order to see Blazers games. (Comcast has signed agreements with local cable carriers who don’t compete with Comcast.)

Nevermind that Blazers fans in rural areas can’t even get Comcast service (or local cable service) if they wanted to. And bear in mind that fans in Portland kicked in $35 million to help build the Rose Garden.

While the Trail Blazers organization is certainly not without fault, it’s not happy about the situation and it’s fighting back against Comcast. Team President Larry Miller wrote the Federal Communications Commission recently stating that Comcast has broken its promise with the team to increase the Blazers’ exposure. Miller complained that Blazers fans were being “held hostage.”

Blazers fans aren’t the only ones. Sports fans in Philadelphia have had to deal with Comcast flexing its muscles in the local market for more than 10 years. Not only does Comcast own Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia, which carries three of the four major teams in town, but it also owns two of those teams — the Flyers and the 76ers — and the arena they play in. As a result, satellite providers have been squeezed out of Philadelphia, and sports fans and media consumers have little choice but to play ball with Comcast.

Since the Sports Fans Coalition last weighed in on the issue in Oregon, nothing has changed. Comcast still hasn’t made good on its promise to make Blazers games available to more fans regardless of who provides their TV. Many Blazers fans who want to watch the team this season will be forced to subscribe to Comcast or miss the entire season.

But there’s still hope.

In January, Comcast, GE and NBC Universal filed papers in Washington, D.C., asking the government to approve Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal. Given its need to maintain a positive public image, Comcast would like to keep the situations in Portland and Philadelphia under wraps. When Blakeman arrived in Oregon to speak up on the issue, Comcast scrambled several representatives to fly out and defend the company. Comcast clearly sees the public perception of its treatment of sports fans as a potential Achilles heel in efforts to acquire NBCU.

Considering how Comcast has used these two regional sports networks to drive out competition, imagine what it could do with a national broadcasting network. (Don’t have Comcast? Will you miss out on NBC Sunday Night Football? The Olympics?)

Comcast should be forced to account for how it has broken its promise with Trail Blazers fans immediately. Oregon citizens should contact their elected officials and ask them to speak out publicly against the merger until Comcast stops abusing the loyalty of Blazers fans. If ever there was a time for sports fans to demand answers from Comcast, it’s now.

Brian Frederick can be reached at bfrederick@sportsfans.org.

This means that Philly fans can’t watch their local teams on DirecTV or DISH Network. Unless they can afford to pay for both Comcast and DirecTV, sports fans in Philadelphia who want to watch DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket so they can see all the NFL games must sacrifice watching Philly teams. As a result, satellite TV providers reportedly only have an estimated 16% share of the Philadelphia market, half of what they have in other markets.

Meanwhile, sports fans in New York have had to endure not just James Dolan’s mismanagement of their beloved Knicks franchise, they’ve also been victims of his strong-arm tactics as President and CEO of Cablevision and Madison Square Garden, Inc. Dolan and Cablevision have withheld MSG Sports programming in HD from New York fans who want to use some other carriers, including Verizon and DISH. And any true sports fan can tell you it’s infuriating to watch a sports game without HD.

Comcast and Cablevision have been exploiting a loophole in the law to prevent its competitors from carrying their respective regional sports networks. Here’s how the AP explains the “terrestrial loophole”:

While content owners generally cannot stop competitors from getting access to its channels, there has been an exception since 1992. If the channel’s signals travel through a land-based network instead of satellite, the owner of that channel doesn’t have to give every rival access. The purpose of the exception was to encourage development of local programming.

Comcast and Cablevision Systems Corp. have counted on that loophole to block access to some of their sports channels by their satellite TV and phone company rivals.

But in January of this year, the FCC closed the loophole (and in March a federal appeals court upheld the decision). Here’s what FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said at the time:

The loophole gives free reign to cable-TV operators to lock up local sports events and other popular programming and withhold them from rival providers … Consumers who want to switch video providers shouldn’t have to give up their favorite team in the process. Today the commission levels the competitive playing field.

To most observers, the FCC’s ruling meant that Comcast now has to offer CSN Philadelphia to its competitors and Cablevision has to offer MSG in HD. Not that that’s happening anytime soon. Both have refused to follow the FCC’s ruling.

DISH Network wrote to Comcast in June requesting to carry CSN Philly and received what it said was an outright refusal from Comcast two days later. DISH subsequently announced plans to file a complaint with the FCC.

Comcast spokesman Tim Fitzpatrick said in a statement:

The FCC’s recent Terrestrial Order does not require Comcast to offer Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia or any other terrestrially delivered network to every distributor. It only allows claims where the provider has suffered a competitive injury, and there is no evidence Dish has suffered such an injury.

Comcast says it will give the rights to CSN Philadelphia if DISH and DirecTV give up the rights to their exclusive content, namely DirecTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket. But there’s quite a difference between not allowing other carriers to show in-market games and withholding out-of-market games.

So for the time being, sports fans will continue to have to choose between watching their teams and satellite service, a choice that, as Genachowski emphasized, no sports fan should have to make.

If the situations in Philadelphia, New York and Portland don’t make sports fans wary of the pending Comcast-NBCU merger, they should. Comcast has used its control over two regional sports networks to withhold sports programming from competitors, thus treading all over consumers. Imagine what it could do with a national broadcast network.

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Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. His favorite teams are the Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, and whichever team his brother is coaching for. And the underdog. Email him at sportsfanscoalition@gmail.com

Comcast is the biggest villain in Portland right now.

While Portland may seem pretty distant for those of us on the East Coast, the situation is Portland is actually a cautionary tale for the rest of the country. If the Comcast-NBC merger is successful, sports fans around the country may end up feeling like Blazers fans.

In 2007, the Trail Blazers signed a 10-year, $120 million agreement with Comcast, giving the company the rights to show Trail Blazer games on Comcast Sports Network. Not surprisingly, Comcast then jacked up the fees for other cable and satellite carriers in the region to show Blazers games. In effect, Comcast is forcing customers to switch to Comcast in order to see Blazers games. (Comcast has signed agreements with local cable carriers who don’t compete with Comcast.)

Nevermind that Blazers fans in rural areas can’t even get Comcast service (or local cable service) if they wanted to.

And bear in mind that fans in Portland kicked in $35 million to help build the Rose Garden.

While the Trail Blazers themselves are certainly not without fault, they are not happy about the situation and are fighting back against Comcast.

Blazers team president Larry Miller wrote the FCC stating that Comcast has broken its promise with the team to increase the Blazers’ exposure. Miller complained that the Blazers fans were being “held hostage.”

Without an NFL, MLB or NHL team, Portland fans – and fans around the state of Oregon – have only the Trail Blazers. Their fans are called Blazer Maniacs for a reason. It’s crucial that all those Blazer Maniacs join SFC Portland chapter chair Sarah Moon and demand that Comcast quit holding Blazers fans hostage.

As for the rest of us, Portland should serve as a wake-up call for what can happen when content providers and cable/satellite providers merge. If the Comcast-NBC merger is ultimately allowed to go through, sports fans around the country who don’t subscribe to Comcast may lose NBC Sports – NBC Sunday Night Football, the NHL, the Olympics, etc.

And if Comcast withholds The Office and 30 Rock … watch out.

Brian Frederick is the Executive Director of Sports Fans Coalition. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication and lives in Washington, D.C. His favorite teams are the Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, and whichever team his brother is coaching for. And the underdog. Email him at sportsfanscoalition@gmail.com

In February, SFC board member Brad Blakeman testified before the Oregon General Assembly against Comcast’s decision to withhold games from fans in Oregon more than 3 years after promising to provide them access. Now, the Portland Trailblazers have taken the next step in requesting that the FCC force Comcast’s hand in providing broadcasts to the multitudes of Oregon-based fans who are unable to subscribe to Comcast.

Let’s keep the pressure on Comcast to do right by Blazers fans and keep their promise to the people of Oregon.

Sign the petition to the Oregon General Assembly to give us our Blazers games.

Tell us your story.

Become a fan of SFC-Portland on Facebook.

Follow the Local Chapter on Twitter.

Taxpayers would have to help pay for whatever the Blazers design.

Isaac declined to disclose any financial estimates, saying he’s still working on them. But he told city officials that the total cost of an earlier proposal would have been $100 million to $150 million.

As for the public subsidies, the city’s urban renewal agency has budgeted $5.4 million. But the city has the capacity to offer more than $50 million if it takes on riskier debt in one urban renewal district and redraws another district’s boundaries to swoop into the Rose Quarter.

Read the full article here. Sounds like the City will be footing part of the bill for whatever the Blazers decide to do. We can’t take these actions for granted.

Sign the petition to the Oregon General Assembly to give us our Blazers games.

Become a fan of SFC-Portland on Facebook.

Follow the Local Chapter on Twitter.

Phil Knight, Nike’s founder, wants to live by his own rules and privately construct this athletic facility of his own design assuming the local political powers that be allow him carte blanche all the way up to cutting the rope and claiming mission accomplished. What appears on the outside to be a huge philanthropic endeavor presents deeper issues for tax paying sports fans in Oregon.

SFC-Portland Local Chapter Chair Sarah Moon contributed to this article.

Visit the SFC Portland page here.

Become a fan of SFC-Portland on Facebook.

Follow the Local Chapter on Twitter.

More recently, Brian Smith from The Columbian interviewed the Blazers Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing Sarah Mensah, and it appears that this practice will not only continue, but is going to increase across the board.

With the rise of StubHub and similar ticket resale organizations, Mensah claims that the increase in data has provided a more accurate measure of ticket values.  To take it a step further, it has allowed the team to raise prices on particular season ticket-holders, pricing them out, with the knowledge that fans will pay more money in the resale.

Season ticket-holders have plenty of reasons to be frustrated. While many are worried about the increase in price for their specific sections, there is growing fear that the Blazers will tinker with other variables like row-by-row pricing, increasing the complexity of section pricing, raising costs and reducing the number of league minimum seat prices.

While it boggles the mind why any organization might emulate the airline industry, that’s exactly what Mensah says they are attempting to do. The adjustable pricing is barring the die-hards from entering the doors. While those without the cash are left at home, many aren’t even able to watch the games on TV.

Fans are not so eager to anger the team by protesting such tactics. Fans fear the Blazers might find a way to go the way of the Seattle Supersonics and escape from their contract with the city which was part of the $34.5 million which built the Rose Garden. However, it is not likely for fans to be effective without organizing their efforts and raising their voices in unison expressing their discontent.

SFC-Portland is your home to let your voice be heard.

Visit the Facebook and Twitter pages to become a fan and follow what the Local Chapter is doing about the issues that affect sports fans.

Also, sign the petition to demand your Blazers games today.

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.

Watch the video of Brad’s testimony:

Comcast promised to provide competitors access to games so that the areas where Comcast is not available in Oregon, fans would still be able to watch their games.  Furthermore, the FCC has ruled that it is not lawful to maintain local sports exclusives.  In other words, even where Comcast is available, they need to share the games with competitors so consumers have the choice of carriers.  Almost 3 years ago, this deal was struck, the promise was made, and the fans are still left out in the cold without access to their Blazers games.

The media recognizes that the activist state that is Oregon will not settle for this mistreatment.  Blakeman’s testimony was mentioned in Willamette Week Online, The Oregonian, KPTV, The Oregon Politico, and BlazersEdge.com.  His interviews on The Lars Larson Show and on The Game 95.5 helped spread the word to current and future members of the new Local Chapter SFC-Portland.

SFC has built the avenue to channel the frustration of so many Blazers fans who are signing the petition asking the state legislature, ‘Where Are My Blazers Games?‘  Sports Fans in Oregon are taking action deciding to JOIN THE COALITION, to become a fan of SFC Portland on Facebook, and to follow the local chapter on Twitter.

We need to keep the pressure on Comcast, the team, and the state representatives to make this right.  We Want Our Games!