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Stunt_101 how long have you had D*? Is your receiver hooked up to a phone line? When they changed the programming package (at least a year ago?) I went from getting all the sports stations to getting none of them. I don't have a phone line hooked up to the receiver; I called D* and complained and they turned it on using the satellite.

Or are you just talking about just FNS? My regional sports station is not a fox network, the bastards, so I get no FNS now. You could be getting Comcast, Empire, MSG, New England, Sunshine or YES as your single regional sports station.

But I want to add, they (the major leagues) should offer some wavier that gets around blackout rules. Like Hockey. I only want to watch one team; why should I pay for eight games a night? I'm saying, if I live in Arizona and only want to watch the Detroit, then I pay $50 and get them all season, but other blackout rules apply. It's an easy way for the league to get more money which could be spread evenly between teams; and the fans would be happy. Yes, I know forcing me to pay 4 times as much means more money for them, but if 4 people pay 50, then they are making as much and more fans are watching.

Sorry to all who were offended, I was in no way trying to be condescending at all. Black out rules are a huge pain in the neck, I have dealt with many sat companies and cable and some blackouts are still a mystery to me.

It is really not DirecTV that states these games will be blacked out unless you are in the local area on a RSN or have purchased the sports package, major league sports commissions charge a huge dime for stations to carry coverage of an event. It costs DirecTV a lot to offer someone all these games, so they have to charge a large fee to be able to view them. The language in the package description is misleading, as you have to chance to view all these games if you keep giving them money!

I heard recently that DirecTV will offer the option to purchase individual games for like $4.99 or something like that, on a pay per view basis. Can anyone confirm this?

A "Team Subscription" would also be nice, allowing a person to pay a fee (might come out to like $25 per season) in order to view all the games for a specific team. So if you are a St Louis fan that just moved to Tampa, you can buy the Cards season and only those games will be available to you. That would be pretty cool, and i think a lot of folks would buy into that if DirecTV offered it.

Local games will be blacked out for the sole reason of money. It costs a lot for a local channel (like FSN Arizona) to broadcast a diamondbacks game (who wants to watch them anyways??......). The local channel wants to force local viewers to watch that feed so they can maximize advertising money and earn a return on the cost of the game. It would violate that principal if i lived in Phoenix and watched the Dbacks and the dodgers on the LA feed, i would be watching LA commercials and adding to LAs viewer pool.

In any kind of team subscription type thing, the league would probably only be getting more money above and beyond the normal DirecTV sports package subscribers. I would think they charge networks a flat fee to cover the games, so if you are another viewer to that game you would be making the network you are watching more money by looking at their ads. The league would not make anything else, as they have already charged that network for the price of the game.

Then you get into things like in my home town of Chicago. The Hawks owner will not broadcast any game unless the stadium is sold out. That is where the league loses money, as they are being denied the opportunity to sell the coverage of the game to a network, and makes everyone around angry.

The whole process of all of this black outs and regional coverage is all based on Money. The league wants to make money, the networks do, and so does DirecTV. It is totally out of the question to even dream of having "no blackouts", as this would mean an end to most local networks.


Stunt - You may want to call Directv and see what regional sports network you fall under. They should be able to tell you what you will get as a viewer in a local market.

Ahhh!!! Not Sports !!!

Let me preface this by saying THANK YOU ckudrna !!! Not many people realize that DTV has no control over blackouts. Much less, a sports blackout call is the worst fear of most DTV CSR's due to there being SO VERY MANY reasons that a game can be blacked out ( with the exception of football ).

ckudrna said:

I heard recently that DirecTV will offer the option to purchase individual games for like $4.99 or something like that, on a pay per view basis. Can anyone confirm this?

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This can not be confirmed right now, but I will tell you that the sports division has been working hard lately since under new managment. This is something that DTV has wanted to do for a LONG time now.

ckudrna said:

A "Team Subscription" would also be nice, allowing a person to pay a fee (might come out to like $25 per season) in order to view all the games for a specific team. So if you are a St Louis fan that just moved to Tampa, you can buy the Cards season and only those games will be available to you. That would be pretty cool, and i think a lot of folks would buy into that if DirecTV offered it.

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This has already started to take effect with the ESPN GP and some NFL ST games, they are on a PAY PER GAME or PAY PER DAY basis. The blackouts are still being worked out, but we are in the process of getting it perfected. Hey, it's a work in progress. Something is better than nothing, right?

ckudrna said:

{{Local games will be blacked out for the sole reason of money. It costs a lot for a local channel (like FSN Arizona) to broadcast a diamondbacks game (who wants to watch them anyways??......). The local channel wants to force local viewers to watch that feed so they can maximize advertising money and earn a return on the cost of the game. It would violate that principal if i lived in Phoenix and watched the Dbacks and the dodgers on the LA feed, i would be watching LA commercials and adding to LAs viewer pool.}}


{{Then you get into things like in my home town of Chicago. The Hawks owner will not broadcast any game unless the stadium is sold out. That is where the league loses money, as they are being denied the opportunity to sell the coverage of the game to a network, and makes everyone around angry.}}

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These two quotes are the most difficult to explain. The major reason would be quote number 2. Most times, it's the rights holders wanting people to buy more tickets.

Anything else? More than glad to chime in.

DTV Res Spec
white_knight_2010@yahoo.com

Iceberg said:

college baseball
college football
some MLS games...otherwise college soccer or int'l soccer

If you read the site, it says "blackout rules apply"

I have had the sports pack for 4 years..I knew what it was when I bought it, and have no problems with it.

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not to mention auto racing as well. If nothing else I would sub to the sports pack just to watch all the excellent auto racing on empire sports each week.

Yeah, if they offered a season pass for individual teams (ie. like the Cards and/or Blues) I'd be all over that. But I can't see paying the full pop for the whole league. The only one I'll do that for is Sunday Ticket, but why on Earth would I want to watch a Orioles vs Royals game. Yawner.

Anyway, for me the question wasn't about blackout rules. I understand them and know that DirecTV has zero control over that. My problem was the way they advertise the Sports Package, making it appear as if you will get the baseball/hockey games televised on those Fox Sports stations. Obviously that isn't the case and IMO it should be made very clear of that on their website. The Sports Package is dubbed a premium package, but doesn't include any pro sports. That's my beef.