It's Official : Extra Innings Package and 24-Hour Channel Headed Exclusively to Direc

[Peter Parker]

Baseball could not be named ina n antitrust suit (at least not successfully) because of its antitrust exemption. Congress could remove it or alter it first but as it satnds it has one. The NFL had a limited exemption to merge with the old AFL but does not have an exemption like baseball.

But sucha suit would likely take years. The Cubs could win the Series first. OK maybe that won't happen. But it would take areally long time.

 

[Greg Bimson]

If MLB loses it's anti trust exemption the organization will lose it's ability to control tv and radio broadcasts..Those rights would belong to the individual member clubs...

So let's go back to NFL Sunday Ticket a few years ago. Someone in Florida sued the NFL and DirecTV because they wanted only one weekend's games, while the NFL and DirecTV set up Sunday Ticket as an all season's games or nothing package.

The guy in Florida won. DirecTV and the NFL then offered a weeks worth of games for about 1/6th the price of the entire season. The plaintiff's win in this case did not dismantle the television contracts.

Fast forward to now. Any law that would be passed would strictly force MLB to open Extra Innings, not dismantle the national broadcasting contracts. And judging by Congress' and the FCC's willingness to force Comcast to offer CSN Philadelphia to all satellite subscribers, I can foresee absolutely nothing being done in Congress or the FCC to address this.

 

[jrbdmb]

merged YET another thread

japple...quit opening threads with the same thing. You're getting to the spamming phase

Yes, thanks for you work here on SatGuys.

BTW, while you are merging all of these threads, could you modify the title of this one? Because no matter what Lucky says, the move to DirecTV is not "Official", and with the flak MLB is getting an about-face on this issue is still possible (if unlikely).

 

[dishcomm]

If MLB is named in an anti-trust case I bet you the NFL will be named as well.

You can bet your last nickel the NFL is very intersted in what's going on with this..And I bet they wish John Kerry would just go back to being the do-nothing politician he really is..

 

[Peter Parker]

MLB EI started out as an exclusive and the level of griping was pretty low. Now that it has been out there available to all though there is a n expectation that it will continue to be available that way.

If sunday Ticket was available to all for awhile and then went back to beingan exclusive i think that we would see a similar outcry.