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Time Warner/MSG deal not reached - no more coverage


Claude Balls

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When you sign up, you have to declare your favorite team. I'm not sure if they go by that or by your IP. I'm almost certain it's your IP but I don't know for sure. You can go back and watch 4 years of archives too, not to mention a ton of old classics. They've got 39 classic Sabres games mostly from the early 90's to mid 2000's plus game 6 of the '75 finals. Don't bother trying to share your membership with somebody else. You can only sign on at one computer. If you sign on some place else it automatically sign you out of the other computer.

 

I've used it before. It goes by your IP address. Should be able to bypass the blackout restriction with a proxy, but I'm not very technical with that stuff. I did a little research and will probably try a few things out for tomorrow's game...

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So what will happenwhen MSG decides to put the screws to DirectTV? Seeing that Dish and T-W got ransomed by MSG, what makes anyone think DirectTV won't be next when its contract is up (I already saw in one thread that Direct essentially caved in.

 

Once again, the major league sports industry is finding anotherf way to screw the fans out of even more money. Easy for me, I ain't switching, and I ain't watching. I'll find something better to do.

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So what will happenwhen MSG decides to put the screws to DirectTV? Seeing that Dish and T-W got ransomed by MSG, what makes anyone think DirectTV won't be next when its contract is up (I already saw in one thread that Direct essentially caved in.

 

Once again, the major league sports industry is finding anotherf way to screw the fans out of even more money. Easy for me, I ain't switching, and I ain't watching. I'll find something better to do.

 

Well, that's just it. DIrect already caved. Unless they decide to grow a pair in the next negotiation there isn't a problem.

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I wonder what the Msg contract with the Sabres looks like and if one could argue that due to the loss of 1/3 of MSG's promised viewers the contract has been breached.

 

Even if it had... if the Sabres went down that road then NO ONE would see the games since MSG would pull broadcasting resources away. The Sabres would never get a setup fast enough to resolve that unless they were already working on things in the background. It's not the easiest thing in the world to put this together especially for road games.

 

Of course Ted Black knows all about it so that's a bonus at least.

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So what will happenwhen MSG decides to put the screws to DirectTV? Seeing that Dish and T-W got ransomed by MSG, what makes anyone think DirectTV won't be next when its contract is up (I already saw in one thread that Direct essentially caved in.

 

Once again, the major league sports industry is finding anotherf way to screw the fans out of even more money. Easy for me, I ain't switching, and I ain't watching. I'll find something better to do.

The reason to assume that D-TV won't lose MSG next time it's up is that it has gone to the brink with several content providers (MSG and Fox immediately spring to mind, though there have been others) and always ended up with a deal at the last minute.

 

Though past outcomes don't guarantee future results, their track record leads me to pretty much ignore the pissing matches.

 

And the whole reason I have D-TV is because back in the late '90's TW decided to make Empire one of the channels on its next level up service (don't remember what it was called, just that they wanted me to pony up $5 extra a month when ESN was the only channel that I'd watch there, and it was one of only about 10 channels I'd ever watch on TW's entire lineup). I've been w/ D-TV ever since and have been happy w/ it for the most part. Think TW might have made out a little better through the years by giving me a $5 break on that money grab? Having seen my satellite bills the past 15 years, I'm positive they would have.

 

Oh, well. They'll lose more customers permanently with this little bruhaha as well.

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T. Pegs should offer to give MSG a one-time payment for the remainder of the season to agree to the amount that TW had been willing to pay. Basically, it would make up the difference for the next six months. That would give both sides what they wanted in the short-run, and give the Sabres some time to figure out what they want to do in the long-run.

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T. Pegs should offer to give MSG a one-time payment for the remainder of the season to agree to the amount that TW had been willing to pay. Basically, it would make up the difference for the next six months. That would give both sides what they wanted in the short-run, and give the Sabres some time to figure out what they want to do in the long-run.

 

Not a bad idea.

 

WGRZ reported on its 6pm-ish newscast that the Sabres are looking into opening the Arena Friday to show the Carolina game if a deal isn't reached by then.

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Maybe I don't understand how TV and broadcasting stuff works, but I don't see what is stopping the Sabres from buying some cameras and doing their own online feed. It wouldn't be cable but it could be a good temporary fix. I watch in-house online streams all the time for college games.

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Wow, that's really unfortunate. I'd be a very unhappy customer right now! Too bad you guys don't have U-Verse up there yet. I've been really impressed. Can always go to NHL Game Center as a last resort I guess.

 

You get NHL Center Ice through U-verse??

 

I was told they aren't offering it, yet...

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Maybe I don't understand how TV and broadcasting stuff works, but I don't see what is stopping the Sabres from buying some cameras and doing their own online feed. It wouldn't be cable but it could be a good temporary fix. I watch in-house online streams all the time for college games.

 

Internet streaming(I mean pirating)is supposed to be illegal, thats probably why. Now if they charged you for it, it would be no different then AHL Live and whats on nhl.com

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Maybe I don't understand how TV and broadcasting stuff works, but I don't see what is stopping the Sabres from buying some cameras and doing their own online feed. It wouldn't be cable but it could be a good temporary fix. I watch in-house online streams all the time for college games.

The largest impediment to them doing their own online feed is their contract with MSG to distribute their games through MSG.

 

The 2nd largest impediment would be getting advertisers to shell out the same/ a comparable amount of money to what they pay to MSG to advertise on MSG.

 

The 3rd largest impediment is that to a large portion of the veiwing public, having the games online would be equivalent to/ or worse than blacking them out.

 

(Note: 2 & 3 probably should be swapped.)

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The largest impediment to them doing their own online feed is their contract with MSG to distribute their games through MSG.

 

The 2nd largest impediment would be getting advertisers to shell out the same/ a comparable amount of money to what they pay to MSG to advertise on MSG.

 

The 3rd largest impediment is that to a large portion of the veiwing public, having the games online would be equivalent to/ or worse than blacking them out.

 

(Note: 2 & 3 probably should be swapped.)

 

All valid issues, but you have to figure those that have cable probably have Internet anyway. Even so, buy out the MSG contract and work out deals with local networks to carry the in house feed or something. Rochester has TWCSN, I don't know what Buffalo has, but there have to be other stations out there that would be willing to pick up the games.

 

The priority of the Sabres is to market their product. Doing so in violation of their contract must be worth taking some chances and being creative.

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Wow, that's really unfortunate. I'd be a very unhappy customer right now! Too bad you guys don't have U-Verse up there yet. I've been really impressed. Can always go to NHL Game Center as a last resort I guess.

 

U-Verse up here YET?

 

AT&T is only allowed, by our government, to sell landline products in 22 states.

 

New York is not one of those states.

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You get NHL Center Ice through U-verse??

 

I was told they aren't offering it, yet...

U-Verse up here YET?

 

AT&T is only allowed, by our government, to sell landline products in 22 states.

 

New York is not one of those states.

 

You're right, CI isn't available on U-Verse yet. I'm stuck with GameCenter (which isn't so bad). Just an inconvenience to hook my laptop up to the big screen every time the game's on. Didn't realize it wasn't up in NY until I looked at their coverage. Too bad, it's a great alternative to DirectTV in my opinion. I've had both and U-Verse wins hands down. Our only other option is Comcast.

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^ Yep, that's what I have now, Comcast.

 

I was interested in Uverse until they told me CI wasn't available as of yet. My Mother-in-Law has it and loves it, though.

 

I really can't complain about Comcast, other than not being able to get CI games in HD, which goes for all cable companies. Other than Sports, I rarely watch TV. I've been tempted to switch to DTV just to be able to watch CI in HD, but for the longest time the Sabres Home Feed wasn't (and in most cases still isn't) offered in HD anyway, so Standard Def. has been good enough, so long as I get to watch the games.

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All valid issues, but you have to figure those that have cable probably have Internet anyway. Even so, buy out the MSG contract and work out deals with local networks to carry the in house feed or something. Rochester has TWCSN, I don't know what Buffalo has, but there have to be other stations out there that would be willing to pick up the games.

 

The priority of the Sabres is to market their product. Doing so in violation of their contract must be worth taking some chances and being creative.

For those in their 30's and younger, that is a reasonable expectation.

 

For those in their 50's and up, the correlation is much lower.

 

And, as a separate aside, for those in Ra-cha-cha that don't have TW, TWCSN is not available.

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I don't see how things could get any worse for the Sabres and the fans right now. Expectations not being met, not being able to watch the Sabres play, etc...

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If anyone is interested, I know of a site that will carry the Sabres games and unlike most internet feeds, this one does not delay to reload every 15 seconds and the picture is very good. It does require a donation, which is pretty minimal, depending on the length of time you want to sign up for. I've been a member for about a year and never had a problem watching BILLS (blacked out) and Sabres games. If interested send me a PM and I'll send the address. I have no affiliations with the site other than being a member, so the only thing I gain is helping out fellow Sabre's fans.

 

Great feed quality, (uninterrupted) 3 years in service and excellent/expert on hand management.

 

I highly reccomend this site for Bills/Sabres/Nascar fans (also just another member)

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MSG chairman just spoke on CNBC.

 

TW deal was signed in 2005 when NHL was going into lockout. All MSG is looking for is a comparable deal to DirecTV which was signed recently. Since last deal Knicks ratings up 100% and he mentions the Sabres by name.

 

Comes across as rational, but doesn't sound like anything will happen soon.

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I just want to add a cautionary note to the TWC loyalists. I had Dish network last year. Because I live in Erie, PA I reside in the Sabres Market. This meant that all the MSG games were blacked out on Center Ice (even opposing feeds) and the NHL.com feed. I do not know if it will be the same in Western NY, but you might want to check before anyone purchases either one of these services.

 

Oh and the free feeds you get on some of those european sites really blow.

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