I’d just like to thank you fine, fine folks at TWC for not being interested in negotiating a national contract with the NFL Network.
See, I’d gotten used to having the NFL Network from my old cable company, Adelphia. But when you took over at the end of July and yanked the NFL Network without warning as your first order of business, I took notice. I soon learned that you’d allegedly been trying to negotiate a national deal, unsuccessfully, with the NFL Network for three years despite the fact that so many other TV providers (Adelphia, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network) didn’t seem to have problems doing so. It quickly became apparent that the real reason you don’t have a deal is because you want to make your subscribers pay extra money for the channel, and the NFL prefers its channel to be part of a more basic package.
So I switched. On August 8th, a SWAT team of DirecTV installers (seriously – three or four guys were at my house, including a supervisor) paid me a visit and put a shiny new dish on the top of my house. Now, not only do I have my NFL Network back, but I also have a better DVR and a couple cool new channels. Boomerang comes to mind – old Hanna-Barbera cartoons 24/7? Yes please. Most importantly, I now have NFL Sunday Ticket, which was the reason I had considered switching in the first place. All I needed was a reason to pull the trigger – and removing the channel I watch more than any other was motivation enough. I get to watch my 49ers once again even though they suck and, as such, probably won’t be on a national broadcast for another 5 years at least. Woot!
Good luck with that little FCC lawsuit, TWC. Your NFL Get Real site was hysterical, by the way. You claim that only the people who want the NFL Network should have to pay for it – but now that you’re getting rid of the network altogether, are you going to lower everyone’s bill? Of course you won’t. Oh, and one other thing – I can get DSL for half the cost of your cable internet. Yeah, it’s much slower, but I don’t really need super high speeds anymore. So don’t screw up my cable too, or I won’t hesitate to pull that trigger either.
Are you ready for some football? Now that I switched to DirecTV, I sure am!
(Some details on the FCC/TWC/NFL romantic triangle can be found right here)