Baseball, Politics

Sen. Kerry Saves the Day

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As I lamented previously (here and here), Major League Baseball has made a terrible decision in cutting off fans like me from viewing games.

The deal MLB struck with DirecTV this year means that fans who want to watch the home team in his market (the Phillies in my case) and watch other teams out of market, they would need to purchase cable and a satellite. The Phillies games are mostly broadcast on cable; the out-of-market games are available only on satellite due to the financial deal reached with DirecTV for the Extra Innings package.

It’s a bad deal. Baseball fans who want to spend money to watch games are realistically precluded from doing so as few people will purchase cable and satellite.

Senator John Kerry, the man who would be president in 2004, stepped in and promised federal oversight to the deal. Apparently his pressure was such that MLB was able to strike a deal with IN Demand to reach cable customers.

While I welcome it, I cannot purchase what I wanted to all along, I am not in favor of the federal government’s interference. If MLB wanted to spite its customers and make a bad decision, it should be free to do so. Furthermore, DirecTV paid $700 million for an exclusive deal. It is no longer exclusive. Will they receive a refund?

Also blogged on this date . . .

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