Monday, May 30, 2016

How the NBA, MLB, and NHL have screwed up their Television contract deals.

Today is memorial day, a day to remember that millions of american soldiers sacrificed their own comfort, and in many instances their lives, whether they wanted to or not. Many times we only focus on those who "gave" their lives, or "sacrificed" their health as a soldier. The presumption being that they wanted to either give or sacrifice their lives. I would suggest it does not matter whether a soldier wants to sacrifice, or not, if their lives were forever altered by being in a war time situation, it's an epic act.

There are probably veterans out there who cannot afford cable tv and are also big time sports fans. It seems cruel that people who actually put their life on the line in war, can't even sit in their own residence on Memorial day and enjoy the seventh game of the NBA Western Conference finals between Golden State and Oklahoma City, because it is only on cable. I just find this so offensive and I'm not a vet.

The irony of doing lip service at each and every professional game that is played by singing the national anthem. In baseball, there is even a seventh inning stretch God Bless America.  Yet Veterans can't even turn on a television and watch a ballgame after putting their lives on the line.

What is even more freakishly wrong about this situation is its just bad capitalism. No matter what deal professional sports works out with the television industry, veterans should be allowed to watch playoff games even if they can't afford to pay for cable.

As for the rest of the country, the free-TV'rs who miss out on 75% of all playoff games of the NBA, MLB and NHS  because they are only on cable tv, one would think the NBA, MLB, and NHL would provide some type of rider in their contract in which a network could put sports programming on their free tv channels if its obvious that the audience would explode.

These sports conglomerates enjoy many perks because they are free to run their sports empires without being under the  magnified eye of the federal government with the exceptions being scrutinized for safety, health and fraud issues. It seems that since our professional sports system enjoys many tax free perks, that the least they would do is offer more free tv options, most definitely for all veterans, and even for the american who cannot afford cable tv.

Which brings  us to the seventh game of the Golden State vs Oklahoma NBA western conference. Irrespective of how well the ratings are for TNT, the ratings would be five times higher if the game was simulcast on a major network. One would thing some creative contracting would reward TNT handsomely for "sharing" the game with a network, while still reaping rewards for the network, free tv fans, and our vets.

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