
NFL, MLB Warn That Aereo Could Trigger End of Free TV Game Broadcasts - tvon
http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/nfl-major-league-baseball-warn-supreme-court-that-aereo-could-trigger-end-to-games-on-free-tv-1200847089/
======
nanoanderson
"Aereo, the startup that features unauthorized streams of local broadcast
signals."

That statement isn't even loaded, it's just wrong. What makes Aereo so
interesting to me is that its premise is unbelievably simple. It's a regular
old [ridiculously small] TV antenna, but instead of plugging it into your TV,
it's plugged in a few dozen miles away and it connects to your computer over
the internet.

When the leagues say that Aereo cuts into their retransmission fees from cable
companies, what they're saying is "we want people to use cable tv, and making
broadcast tv easier to use makes that less likely."

~~~
untog
Well, no, when they say that Aereo cuts into their retransmission fees they
mean that Aereo is retransmitting their signal without paying fees.

I don't support their fight against Aereo but I do get where they're coming
from. If Aereo do it for free, why can't the cable networks turn around and
say "we're not paying you retransmission fees any more, we're just going to do
what Aereo does"? That would mean the networks lose a _lot_ of money, and
they're not exactly profit machines as it is. Get ready for a lot more ads.

~~~
Touche
Pedantic but Aereo doesn't cut into retranmission fees, antenna viewing cuts
into their retransmission fees. They are saying they don't want more people
using antenna instead of cable. We can speculate why that is, probably antenna
customers are less profitable or perhaps retransmission fees are a more stable
income.

~~~
untog
Yes- and that's why I don't support what they're doing. They're directing
their legal wrath against Aereo (and so, Aereo's users) rather than attempting
to solve what is actually a problem between the broadcast networks and cable
companies.

 _But_ I do still get the root cause of what they're doing. And I don't
particularly want my cable company to make even more money than they do
already.

------
timje1
>> _Aereo, the startup that features unauthorized streams of local broadcast
signals._

This is a pretty loaded statement. As every legal objection so far has been
struck down, and the streams are authorized by the Aereo user, it seems like
disingenuous reporting to call the streams 'unauthorized'.

~~~
nanoanderson
Hah, I had the same exact thought when reading that. Though like I said in my
comment, I think the statement goes well beyond "loaded". It's just false.

~~~
timje1
I meant loaded because it could _technically_ be considered true (the
broadcasters certainly haven't 'authorized' Aereo's behaviour), but the term
is obviously chosen to sway public opinion before the legal battle.

~~~
fryguy
They didn't authorize me to eat a ham sandwich today, but that doesn't make it
unauthorized.

More to the point. If I recorded a game on my DVR, and the DVR streams it to
another DVR in my house, that is not an unauthorized transmission, either.

------
theg2
It feels like the NFL is making every effort possible for me to be unable to
watch games these days. They continue to do this, I might just give up on
watching live games all together. The legal options are A) pay an expensive
cable bill B) go to a bar C) have an antenna and live in a city.

Keep going NFL, eventually you'll piss off enough younger fans where you'll
end up like the NHL _.

_ I say this as a diehard football fan.

~~~
modeless
This year there was another legal option, not well publicized: $99 for NFL
Sunday Ticket. That's every Sunday game live streamed over the internet.

The only problem with Sunday Ticket is the restrictions that are there to
protect the broadcast industry: local game blackouts, no Monday Night
Football, etc. I say, good riddance to the broadcasters! Go all in on internet
broadcasts and get rid of the restrictions. It's not like the major networks
are going to actually drop NFL games. Call their bluff.

~~~
kevincrane
I bought into that deal and have been hugely disappointed. Half the streams
don't load and many other games are blacked out locally so I had to buy a TV
antenna to watch them live. Despite my best efforts to follow the rules and
watch legally, I still end up on sketchy free sites because they work more
reliably.

~~~
modeless
The blackout restrictions are annoying, but I haven't had any problem with
loading the streams that aren't blacked out. My major complaint is the poor
quality of the streams; the bitrate is far too low. Hopefully the NFL comes to
their senses and takes internet streaming in house soon.

------
kadabra9
This is nothing more than a huge bluff from the NFL/MLB on behalf of the major
networks.

The networks have seen the lower courts mostly rule in favor of Aereo, and are
now pulling out all the stops to play the scare card by floating the
possibility to the public of losing NFL games on Sundays.

I'm not sure what the exact legal details of the NFL's current broadcast
agreement with CBS/FOX are, but I believe they currently receive upwards of
$1bn a season from each network, extending out to 2021. Are they seriously
just going to leave all of that on the table and take their chances with
plummeting viewership and/or bank on the majority of fans purchasing some sort
of season package?

~~~
walshemj
Funny how the USA goes all socialist over football and other sports - in the
uk you used have to pay that nice Mr Murdoch to watch most soccer.

Which makes my ex employers kick in the balls to the sky monopoly even more
sweeter

------
avolcano
I got Aereo purely to watch NFL games legally. If this goes away, I suppose I
could go back to pirating streams.

To be fair, NFL Sunday Ticket is a really great subscription service if you
want to follow out-of-market teams (I considered getting it this year to keep
up with the Falcons now that I've moved to NYC, though in retrospect I'm glad
I didn't). It's too bad that local games are subject to arcane blackout and
broadcast restrictions.

------
gtaylor
The frustrating thing is that more people would pay up for MLB.tv if they
didn't have these stupid blackout rules in place. It's the way business is
done in the industry, but I can't stand it. Let me throw my money at you, MLB.

Right now I have to hit Aereo for a good chunk of my team's blacked out games
since I'm in a terrible spot for reception, thus I can't get it on my TV. They
can still see me in their viewer metrics, and I am still adding value for
their advertisers with Aereo. For the stuff I can't get on Aereo, I can
sometimes find it on MLB.tv, but not always (depends on which network is the
primary on the game and whether there are blackouts).

Sports broadcasting rights are a mess, and they're missing out on a lot of
money by not doing something less stupid.

~~~
devonbarrett
As a non-american MLB.tv was great this season! No blackouts, every game, hi-
def, choice of home or away commentary. I would gladly pay for that every
season, and for the NFL. I would even rather they show commercials instead of
a blank screen.

~~~
gtaylor
That's somehow ironically funny. Someone outside of the US gets a better
selection than someone inside the US, where the actual product "lives".
Blackouts are messed up. And pretty easy to circumvent for online stuff like
MLB.tv (if you have the knowledge and want to hassle with it).

------
ryankshaw
The other day I was talking to someone that had a source at one of the
satellite companies (I can't remember if it was dish or directTV) that said
they were working on putting a digital antenna in their box. Basically, the
idea was that the vast majority of customers could just use the digital
antenna to get the local channels and since it was built into their box it
would be 100% seamless to the user. And then they would only have to pay the
retransmission fees for those that couldn't get good enough signal. Even if
they didn't turn them on, they would have some leverage as the networks tried
to rake them over the coals for retransmission fees

------
macinjosh
I am an Aereo subscriber and they go through great pains to ensure I live in
the market I say I do. So I don't understand how the networks view this as
anything different than me putting up an antenna on my roof and watching their
sports ball that way.

How does this impact them at all? If anything technology like this could tell
them more about their audience then they could ever hope to know via
traditional OTA broadcasts. But maybe that's the rub? They're scared that
people will finally realize that not as many people are watching as they
think?

~~~
joezydeco
See discussion above. It's all about the retransmission fees that the networks
are getting from the cable companies. Aereo is breaking that model.

~~~
evandena
Call me obtuse, but I still don't get it. Specifically, how is it any
different than me using my own antenna? Does it just boil down to an OTA vs
Cable war, and the networks/NFL/etc would rather everyone pay for cable
instead of installing their own antenna?

~~~
joezydeco
The NFL doesn't really matter here. They are getting their rebroadcast fees
from the networks no matter who is watching.

The _networks_ are the ones making extra revenue by forcing the cable
companies to pay _them_ to carry shows on their systems. The historical
reasons for this are complex but I would refer you to a nice NPR podcast that
explains it better:

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/27/226891181/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/09/27/226891181/episode-488-the-
secret-history-of-your-cable-bill)

So back to the problem at hand: Aereo has found a way to skip around those
carriage fees that the networks demand. The courts have backed them up. So the
real problem is that the cable companies are now asking "why should _we_ pay
if Aereo is not?"

It's not a cable-vs-OTA war, it's the networks-vs-everyone-else.

------
wiml
What's funny to me is… isn't this exactly how cable TV came about in the first
place? Putting a broadcast-TV receiver on a hilltop with good reception, then
piping the signal to homes without good reception? Cable's business model has
changed over the years, but I wonder if most of the case law supporting
Aereo's use would be cases originally fought by the cable companies
themselves.

------
parennoob
Wow, could this mean the end of overpaid, media-hyped sportspersons being on
American TV all the time, and American people actually getting off their asses
and going out and reducing the obesity rate? Yay! I hope they cut "free" game
broadcasts and force people to pay $1000/month to watch them.

Also, The NFL and the NHL are registered as "tax free organizations", which
means that those of us paying taxes have to pay more because these
corporations are too greedy to give up a fair share of their (enormous)
profits. This makes the hypocrisy of them crying about "free" broadcasts
extremely irritating.

~~~
jat850
A comment like this reeks of ignorance and adds nothing to the dialogue.

If you wanted to vouch for the reduction of sports on broadcast television
with reasons related to health that are backed up with facts or citations,
rather than speculative opining, you could have, and should have, done so.

~~~
parennoob
I'm not entirely sure which side is 'reeking of ignorance' here.

Go to any so-called sports bar. The majority of people are obese or overweight
and look as if they'd be hard-pressed to run a hundred yards. Look at the
majority of commercials during sports games broadcasts. They are typically
Doritos, McDonalds, or something else related to fatty, unhealthy food. To go
shopping in most places, you have to get your ass in a car since the bloody
mall is like 20 miles away, and when you get there, the aisles are full of
frozen pizza and cookies instead of fresh produce and meat.

Don't bother nitpicking my statement (it is obviously an exaggeration) -- just
notice all these things about your "game Sunday" next time. But since you seem
almost slavishly devoted to
"omgsomeoneinanewspaperorscientificjournalsaiditsoitmustbetrue" sources, here
are some.

1) Map of obesity rate in the US for all states from 1985-2010.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Obesity_state_level_estima...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Obesity_state_level_estimates_1985-2010.gif)

2) In 2012, the NFL generated $9.5 _billion_ in revenue
[http://www.businessinsider.com/sports-chart-of-the-day-
nfl-r...](http://www.businessinsider.com/sports-chart-of-the-day-nfl-revenue-
still-dwarfs-other-major-sports-2012-10). Yet, it is registered as a non-
profit organisation, which essentially means that all of us are indirectly
subsidizing it as taxpayers.
[http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/25/1241265/-Wait-
the-N...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/09/25/1241265/-Wait-the-NFL-is-a-
non-profit-organization#)

~~~
jamesaguilar
You've done nothing to connect obesity rates to sports viewing in this
comment. At best, your anecdote connected obesity to being in sports bars.

~~~
mullingitover
I'll bite: Look at the map of searches for 'college football' here -
[http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-
of...](http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-
football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/) Now look at obesity rates at the county
level here -
[http://www.maxmasnick.com/2011/11/15/obesity_by_county/](http://www.maxmasnick.com/2011/11/15/obesity_by_county/)

~~~
ewoodrich
Here is a map of poverty rates at the county level:

[http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/percent-
of-...](http://filipspagnoli.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/percent-of-
population-in-poverty-by-county.png)

I have a hard time believing that obesity is causally related to "college
football" or televised sports in general. Except perhaps the fact that it's a
sedentary activity, but a sizable chunk of HN probably spends far more time
working in front of a computer.

~~~
m_myers
No, no, football causes poverty. And obesity causes football.

------
josephby
“The court’s intervention is now necessary to restore clarity and certainty in
this area and to prevent the unraveling of marketplace built upon the
licensing of rights rather than the expropriation of such rights through
technological chicanery,' the brief states."

The hypocrisy of an industry built, in large part, on the suppression of fair
use rights through "technological chicanery" is amazing. I just threw up in my
mouth a little.

------
jccooper
I keep forgetting why extending the reach of a free broadcast is such a
problem. More viewers==more ad revenue, right?

Oh, right, it's because the major broadcast stations don't actually want
people to watch their broadcast; they'd rather people buy cable, watch their
programming there, and be paid by cable for the privilege. Plus the ad
revenue.

A guide to laws surrounding cable retransmission:
[http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cable-carriage-broadcast-
stations](http://www.fcc.gov/guides/cable-carriage-broadcast-stations)

And why do the sports leagues care? Kickbacks out of the same system. The
article even says so: "The leagues collect about $100 million of the $300
million broadcasters receive from “compulsory” license fees paid by cable and
satellite outlets, the brief stated". Plus the money the broadcasters keep is
used to buy the sports content.

So: this is just another attempt to discourage cord-cutting and preserve the
(huge) cable money stream. If people can actually watch the broadcasts (which,
I'm convinced, only exist due to historical and political inertia), it's one
less reason to have cable.

But why do we need trickery like Aereo to watch OTA programming? Some of it is
convenience, but a large part is because the "digital TV" transition seems to
have removed reliable reception for lots and lots of people. I'm 13 miles from
a whole host of 1000MW towers, and can barely get a decent signal. That's just
terrible. It ought to work fine 50 miles away. I'm not big on conspiracy
theories, and it's probably just poor execution, but it sure is tempting to
think that the digital broadcast transition was subtly sabotaged to push
people to cable.

So good luck to Aereo. I don't think they're breaking any laws, just
threatening an old business model. And that shouldn't be illegal. Sorry,
entertainment industry (including the leagues): cable is gonna fade, whether
you like it or not, so you better learn to deal with it. Deal with less money,
lean more heavily on ads, or, even better: use the Internet! I'd pay the NFL
directly for a decent streaming solution, but that'll never happen because it
would tread on the toes of the networks. Maybe let the networks sell streaming
directly? That would tread on the toes of the affiliates! Oh well. Figure
something out.

------
rjohnk
The NFL is as large as it is because of Free TV (Network) broadcasts. While
cable tv is largely thought of as ubiquitous, it's still the ONLY sport where
I can watch 80-90% of local team regular season games and all of the playoffs
OTA.

It's a TV sport.

EDIT: local team

~~~
mosburger
I'm a Patriots fan and their game is on ESPN tonight - this is one of the
10%-20% weeks for me. :( The NFL network Thursday night game earlier this
season against the Jets was another (fortunately I was in the actual stadium
for that one). Red Sox games are only available on cable (NESN). Because I
"cut the cord" this year I basically missed the Red Sox season (although,
quite honestly, my interest in baseball has waned over the years anyway).

It's felt like the tide has been going _against_ OTA broadcast of sports for a
while now, and that 10%-20% is growing instead of shrinking, so this story is
a bit disconcerting. :-/

And, like almost everyone else here, I'd be willing to fork over cash for NFL
Sunday Ticket and/or MLB.tv if it weren't for the archaic blackout
restrictions... grr...

~~~
kgermino
Check your local listings.

If you're in a "Primary Market" for an NFL team the game should be on
broadcast. I'm not sure if/how it works for NFLN games but ESPN usually
simulcasts on ABC in primary markets.

~~~
greg5green
The primary markets can get it OTA, but the secondary markets are out of luck,
which makes zero sense since the games can be blacked out in secondary
markets. Eg. Rochester and Syracuse are secondary markets of the Bills. If the
Ralph doesn't sell out, Rochester and Syracuse get blacked out along with
Buffalo, but only Buffalo can get NFLN/ESPN games OTA. Rochester and Syracuse
fans without cable cannot see the game.

In the parent's case, if they lived in Providence or Worcester or Portland,
which are definitely Patriots markets, it wouldn't be on OTA :s

~~~
mosburger
Yep, Portland here. Found a crappy stream for now. :-/

------
taude
In Boston, the RedSox are only available on NESN, which required a $50-$60
cable package to get last time I checked. So from my view, the end of Free TV
broadcasts is already here. Because cable tv isn't free.

------
bloopletech
As a non-US non-sports fan, can someone explain the context for this? I have
no real clue what this fight is about.

As far as I can tell, this fight seems to be between two ways to watch a
sports game:

1\. on over-the-air broadcast, which is free to receive. 2\. cable television,
which is not free to receive.

Apparently Aereo makes (1) easier, which presumably means more people will
choose (1) instead of (2).

What I don't understand: * If I could watch the sports game for free, why
would I ever choose to pay for it instead? * If they (I think in this fight
'they' refers to the NFL and MLB) don't want me to watch the sports game for
free, then why do they allow/provide free broadcasts in the first place?

From what I can tell, the whole sports game watching market looks even more
ludicrous than the arbitrary restrictions online TV/ebook market (the number
of books in the kindle store that are available - then suddenly disappear when
I log into my Australian amazon account - presumably publishers/authors love
losing money).

~~~
ijk
To answer your questions about the context: over-the-air broadcasts generally
only include the games for that particular region of the country. (Here's this
week's map:
[http://506sports.com/nfl.php?yr=2013&wk=11](http://506sports.com/nfl.php?yr=2013&wk=11)
)

Having regional broadcasts allows the sports leagues to essentially sell the
games twice: once for the local network and once for the cable network (though
I'm sure the actual licencing is more complex than that). Access to all of the
games is a selling point for cable, particularly when your favorite team hails
from a different region than the one you are currently living in (which is
fairly common in the US, particularly since team attachment is often based on
where someone grew up or which college they went to).

This setup makes sense for the leagues, since it was based on the limits of
the original technology. Aereo removes the technical limits, and is
threatening to remove the legal limits.

------
jowiar
I'm curious what the optimal PPV price is for the NFL. I'd easily pay $10-15
PPV, any game. For now, they seem to actively make their product impossible to
consume for fans of non-local teams.

~~~
twoodfin
Would you buy 20 out-of-market non-national games per season? That's about
what they'd need to make up the revenue from the current Sunday Ticket
package, if DirectTV's pricing (around $300/season) is any guide.

Maybe more consumers would buy access to games if they could buy them
individually, so you'd end up with 4x the number of current Sunday Ticket
subscribers buying at least 5 games a year. But that seems like a lot.
Eventually you run out of sufficiently motivated out-of-market fans. Remember
that the teams with big out-of-market fan bases are just the teams that get
picked routinely for national coverage. I could easily see 6-8 Dallas Cowboys
or Green Bay Packers games/year for free already.

~~~
jowiar
Maybe not 20, but 10 -- definitely. Try being a fan of any other Eastern Time
Zone team in DC (and presumably NY suffers from the same situation). Even if
your team has a pretty national audience (i.e. Steelers, Eagles, Patriots,
Giants, etc.), the R __ __ __s and Ravens block out two weekly TV slots.
Anyway, you end up with perhaps two games where your team is playing the local
team, another 2-3 games of national coverage, but I 'd definitely be willing
to PPV at least 10 games (and I'd definitely consider dropping cable and PPV-
ing all 16).

------
joezydeco
How much of that NFL and MLB broadcasting money was going back to the
government from the use of those OTA broadcast licenses?

Maybe the broadcast networks need to implode sooner than later.

~~~
VLM
Very little revenue from broadcast stations goes back to the feds as renewal
fees.

Visit

[http://www.fccfees.com/query_all_2008.asp](http://www.fccfees.com/query_all_2008.asp)

And enter your local station callsign, it seems my local NBC affiliate in a
top 30 market paid $23550 last year to the FCC. This is actually pretty
extortionate for the FCC compared to my ham radio license which ends up being
less than a buck a year. From memory marine radio licenses were like $5/yr?

Note that you need more than a broadcast license, many stations have microwave
studio-xmtr links and maybe a mobile van or two it can all get complicated.
Maybe its $16K for the big xmtr and everything else boosted it up to $23K.

So license fees are not being used as a centrally controlled market or
whatever, it really pretty much only accounts for the costs of paper filing
and professional evaluation of facilities WRT safety etc.

Auctioned off licenses for new stations can be quite expensive and that's a
different problem.

An excellent way to make a small fortune is to start with a big fortune and
then go into the broadcast industry. There's not much room for innovation or
leadership, its pretty much all about financing. He who raises the cash the
cheapest, wins.

This is a fed issue, as for municipals, the feds let them charge up to 5% of
gross cable co revenue as a franchise fee, which is a separate issue.

As far as I know the state level usually doesn't get involved beyond
tangential DNR wetlands protection type issues.

I think it inevitable that OTA broadcasting will end soon enough, except
perhaps for PBS stations and religious broadcasters. The future of the TV
bands looks a lot like the shortwave broadcaster bands today.

~~~
joezydeco
Exactly my point, and that kind indicates the endgame here.

As people cut the cord and try to get back to watching television OTA, the
broadcasters could just vacate their licenses and auction the spectrum off to
mobile carriers. They win both ways: the windfall from the spectrum auction
_and_ the move of OTA viewers back to paid-retransmission carriers.

------
chris_mahan
Can they really get sports off TV? That would be awesome!

~~~
jacobquick
No it would mean you'd have new mandatory sports channels to pay for along
with all your other mandatory sports channels.

~~~
chris_mahan
Aha! Doesn't apply to me, as I do not pay for cable at all!

~~~
hsod
So why do you care if they are broadcasting sports?

~~~
chris_mahan
Because if there was some good stuff on cable TV then I would pay for it
again.

------
donretag
That would mean less sports on OTA TV. For people like me, that is a win/win
situation.

~~~
edhebert
How is that a win/win?

~~~
MichaelGG
Plenty of spaces like restaurants or airports leave sports on TV. If it cost
them more money to show sports, they might not play the games at restaurants,
and perhaps might even turn the TV off. That's a win for folks like me that
dislike background screens displaying anything[1], and particularly dislike
sports playing. Now if only CNN, Fox, and other "news" stations would do the
same...

1: After not having TV for years, I'm drawn to any screen like a bug to light.
I find it extremely difficult to focus on things if there's a screen in the
background showing any sort of moving image. I notice people that do have TVs
seem to be able to just leave them on as ambient audio/video.

~~~
shock-value
CNN and Fox News are already cable only... ?

Also, I'm not sure I've ever been to a bar or restaurant with a TV that was
OTA only (without a cable or satellite hookup).

------
a3n
"if Aereo prevails, it would mean sports programming would likely migrate to
cable."

Which is fine. Either their new cable revenue will make up for the long term
loss of public interest in these sports and the resulting loss in merchandise
and advertising, or they'll slink back to broadcast.

But they don't have a right to make a living playing sports.

I don't see the problem, at least not _this_ problem.

------
swang
I would pay to watch NFL and NBA games in HD in a format that doesn't require
me to download additional plugins besides Flash.

The NFL won't even show you live games in the US. You can watch them only
after the broadcast. Also it took them forever to provide te All-22 stream
where their only excuse was "we don't think fans should have this footage
because they might criticize the coach"

The NBA website is just a mess to use and if im paying something like $250 a
season for it I expect it to at least function properly.

And don't even get me started on stupid blackout rules. Ugh.

------
drawkbox
If they were smart they'd see this as a market tell and come out with a
competitive product for it. Cable companies, let me get my cable tv on my
digital devices, same wire, just more usable. HBOGO is a nice start but I want
all the channels I pay for.

I hope sports goes away from basic tv though so they might also finally open
up NFL online for the US (available for the rest of the world). Why make it
painful to watch, why not take people's money that want it.

------
bruceb
MLB with declining viewership is without a doubt bluffing.

------
jeffdubin
If the NFL is taken off network television, major broadcasters will lose many
local affiliates and a large portion of their audience. Ad sales will collapse
across all network programming. It'd effectively put the studios out of
business. That's not Aereo's fault, it's the NFL's decision to take their ball
and go home.

------
cafard
That sounds to me a great way to alienate the casual fan. What will be the
effect when the team decides that it needs a new stadium and wants tax breaks,
subsidies, and so on? This could be the beginning of an era of common sense--
but probably won't be.

------
bo1024
So are they making some sort of legal argument, or is this just a thinly
veiled threat?

------
neurotech1
Maybe we need a TV-B-Gone[1] over IP so that bars streaming too loud can be
shut off.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-B-Gone](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV-
B-Gone)

------
dd36
Is Aereo a clever trick by cable to destroy broadcast TV?

Step 1: Get declared legal

Step 2: Have cable companies stop paying retransmission fees or threaten to
stop paying them.

Step 3: Cancel local broadcasting in response

Step 4: More subscribers for cable

------
forgotAgain
Not going to happen. Decades of growing income inequality isn't a problem for
DC politicians but take away an opiate from the masses and they'll raise hell.

------
thrillgore
Meanwhile the NBA gets which way the wind is blowing in, and I CAN watch
nearly every game without having to have cable through a Game Time
subscription.

------
dyselon
It seems weird that the NFL would complain about this when NBC already streams
Sunday Night Football, their biggest game every week?

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KurtMueller
I guess I won't be watching NFL games then. I can live without them. As for
baseball? Boring sport anyway.

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noarchy
Great, can we also end public subsidies to help build their stadiums, while
we're at it?

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jrs99
great way to spread the publicity of aereo

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frodopwns
good riddance

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brianwawok
Good riddance to sports.

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HarryRotha
I generally find broadcast sports to be incredibly boring, but saying 'good
riddance to sports' is a great way to lose the political battle, which is what
this really is.

