Sports Fans Coalition has launched the Local Chapter SFC-Portland in order to organize and mobilize those frustrated Trail Blazers fans who continue to be shut out from being able to watch their home team play home games on TV unless they pay Comcast’s ransom. Furthermore, many sports fans in Oregon do not have Comcast in their area, and therefore, can not watch their team play.
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SFC to Testify Against Comcast in Oregon, SFC Launches Portland Chapter
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
State of Oregon Seeks Remedy to Trail Blazers TV Contract
SFC Testifies Against Comcast in Oregon General Assembly
SFC Launches First Local Chapter in Portland, Oregon
Washington, D.C. — At the request of the Oregon State Legislature, Sports Fans Coalition sends board member Brad Blakeman to testify in the Oregon State House Committee on Consumer Protection and Government Accountability concerning Comcast’s egregious practice of shutting out Portland Trail Blazers fans from the ability to watch their home games on TV. While Comcast seeks permission to merge with NBC Universal, Blakeman asks, ‘Why can’t Trail Blazers fans in Oregon ask to see their home games first?’
At the outset of the ten-year contract struck between Comcast and the Portland Trail Blazers, Comcast promised Oregon sports fans that they would eventually get to view their home games regardless of who provided their TV. “Almost three years after the Comcast/Blazers deal,” Blakeman notes, “only Comcast cable subscribers and a few subscribers to small cable systems can watch every game the Blazers play at home.”
To more adequately address the issues that face sports fans in Oregon, Sports Fans Coalition launches the first Local Chapter today based in Portland. The Chair of SFC Portland, Sarah Moon, shares the experience of many Trail Blazers fans with friends and family currently shut out of Blazers’ broadcasts much to their discontent. SFC Portland will serve as a home for sports fans to share their frustrations and as a voice for the local community seeking to organize consumers to speak up and demand results from government and industry.
If a media giant like Comcast acts in such a way as to provoke an entire state of sports fans today with such disingenuous behavior, it is evident that preconditions should be applied to the company’s bid to acquire NBC Universal before real consideration is given to approval of the merger. “Oregon sports fans,” Blakeman continues, “you deserve better.”
The Sports Fans Coalition’s agenda advocates that sports fans should be able to watch their local teams play, regardless of how fans get their games. There should be no local sports exclusives. Now that the FCC has voted in favor of the sports fan, the Sports Fans Coalition will be acutely focused on the execution of the ruling in Oregon as well as in every state across the country.
On February 19th, Sports Fans Coalition joined a group of twelve industry associations, labor organizations, and public interest groups in creating and sending a letter urging Comcast President and CEO Brian Roberts to drop litigation seeking to overturn the FCC’s decision to ensure that programming owned by cable operators is shared with competing cable and satellite TV providers so that sports fans are not left out in the cold asking ‘Where are my games?’
Read the letter here.
Sign the petition here.
View the SFC Portland page here.
Become a fan of SFC Portland on Facebook.
Follow SFC Portland on Twitter.
Start an SFC Local Chapter in your town.
Comcast/NBC Merger Engagement Could Last a Year
According to The Washington Post, the two current stake holders of NBC Universal, Vivendi SA and General Electric, Co., are playing hardball with respect to the price of shares sold to Comcast in the proposed merger deal. Vivendi which holds a 20% stake in NBC says the current figure is ‘several hundred million dollars off. While this news on the surface would appear to be a sign of some relief to consumers and sports fans, it’s really only delaying the inevitable.
While the big players in the $30 million deal will walk away with smiles on their faces, this level of consolidation will surely bring more pain and suffering to sports fans across the country. As SFC has reported, a merged Comcast NBC giant would flex its muscles as owner of programming, distribution on the local station, and broadband in more than 11 TV markets including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston, Miami, Denver, Hartford and Fresno.
Furthermore, that list fails to include the harm Comcast currently poses to Trail Blazer fans across the state of Oregon. Fans of Portland’s NBA team are forced to pay Comcast’s ransom to watch their games. What’s even worse is that entire regions of the state, and locals across state lines in Washington are unable to subscribe to Comcast even if they could afford to do so.
Comcast has claimed repeatedly that they would make the games available to competitors so that all Oregon could watch the games, but at what price? If Comcast is pricing out the competition, what’s the difference between this and a ‘local sports exclusive’ in which the media giant just says, ‘no’?
It’s these types of examples that spawn the action the SFC has taken in petitioning the FCC and joining a coalition, as it did on Friday, to write and send a letter directly to Comcast President and CEO Brian Roberts urging the company to withdraw it’s litigation seeking to overturn the FCC’s pro-sports fan ruling to close the ‘terrestrial loophole’.
At some point, the greed needs to stop. Sports Fans Coalition will not count on these media giants to act in the best interests of sports fans. SFC will not rest on the laurels of a positive decision by the FCC.
A delayed merger approval process does not build confidence in the company to act more socially responsible when business practices and behavior of the past will surely dictate how it will act in the future. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
© 2010 National Sports Fan Coalition. All rights reserved. Download SFC Bylaws (PDF).
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