July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Fans should be able to follow teams (11/26/07)
Editorial
In the larger scheme of things, it's no big deal. And it's equally true that Americans pay far too much attention to sports than necessary.
But, just the same, it's difficult not to find the crazy situation involving the National Football League, the Big Ten, and the nation's cable television companies incredibly irritating.
Within the span of the past several days, Indianapolis Colts fans have been denied the opportunity to watch their team in action and loyal fans of Indiana University basketball have been prevented from watching the guys in cream and crimson in the early games of the season.
The culprit: Greed.
The NFL and the Big Ten, after making gazillions of dollars in lucrative TV deals over the years, decided they needed to make even more. So instead of selling the rights to their games to various networks, they opted to create their own networks.
Now, both are insisting that the cable TV companies include their networks in the basic package for consumers. Cable TV companies, facing increasing competition from satellite dishes and the Internet, don't want to jack up their basic rates to add stations that may be only desired by a fraction of their customer base.
Consumers, of course, don't want to pay more to receive something that they used to receive as part of the basic service.
Free market advocates say this is all well and good, and that government should stay out of the argument.
And they may be right, but only to a point. The NFL is, after all, a business. It's a private entity just like the cable companies. But the Big Ten? Give us a break.
The conference may behave like a business, but keep in mind that it's marketing the athletic programs of publicly-supported universities. By "publicly-supported," we mean taxpayer supported.
When IU or Purdue or Ohio State play basketball, the taxpayers who help build the fieldhouses and pay the salaries of coaches have an interest in the game. And when a greed-driven dispute like this one comes between taxpaying fans and the games they want to watch, it may indeed be time for the government to flex its muscle.
Legislators may not have standing to intervene where the NFL is concerned, but they do when we're talking about public universities.
Convene a committee hearing at the Indiana General Assembly, and we'd guess there are plenty of questions worth asking: How much money will the Big Ten be making? What are the salaries of the executives involved? If the athletes are making a trade-off between the exploitation of their skills and a scholarship-paid education, how well is that deal working out for the kids in terms of graduation rates?
Time for somebody to bang the gavel and get some answers. - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]
But, just the same, it's difficult not to find the crazy situation involving the National Football League, the Big Ten, and the nation's cable television companies incredibly irritating.
Within the span of the past several days, Indianapolis Colts fans have been denied the opportunity to watch their team in action and loyal fans of Indiana University basketball have been prevented from watching the guys in cream and crimson in the early games of the season.
The culprit: Greed.
The NFL and the Big Ten, after making gazillions of dollars in lucrative TV deals over the years, decided they needed to make even more. So instead of selling the rights to their games to various networks, they opted to create their own networks.
Now, both are insisting that the cable TV companies include their networks in the basic package for consumers. Cable TV companies, facing increasing competition from satellite dishes and the Internet, don't want to jack up their basic rates to add stations that may be only desired by a fraction of their customer base.
Consumers, of course, don't want to pay more to receive something that they used to receive as part of the basic service.
Free market advocates say this is all well and good, and that government should stay out of the argument.
And they may be right, but only to a point. The NFL is, after all, a business. It's a private entity just like the cable companies. But the Big Ten? Give us a break.
The conference may behave like a business, but keep in mind that it's marketing the athletic programs of publicly-supported universities. By "publicly-supported," we mean taxpayer supported.
When IU or Purdue or Ohio State play basketball, the taxpayers who help build the fieldhouses and pay the salaries of coaches have an interest in the game. And when a greed-driven dispute like this one comes between taxpaying fans and the games they want to watch, it may indeed be time for the government to flex its muscle.
Legislators may not have standing to intervene where the NFL is concerned, but they do when we're talking about public universities.
Convene a committee hearing at the Indiana General Assembly, and we'd guess there are plenty of questions worth asking: How much money will the Big Ten be making? What are the salaries of the executives involved? If the athletes are making a trade-off between the exploitation of their skills and a scholarship-paid education, how well is that deal working out for the kids in terms of graduation rates?
Time for somebody to bang the gavel and get some answers. - J.R.[[In-content Ad]]
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