Blackouts suck! Can anyone explain this????????

[Iceman]

Okay, get the picture. I go to ESPN's website to see if the 1p.m. Georgia/Marshall game will be available on the gameplan PPV and it is.
So I invite about a dozen of die-hard Dawg fans to my house to watch the game. About 11a.m. I double check the guide to be sure of the channel and price. Yep, channel 456 and $19.95. The receiver asks me "Do you want to purchase"? For some reason I click "no" and think I will just click yes closer to game time.
At about 12:45 I go ahead and plug up my phone line and attempt to purchase the game. This time is says that it is blacked out and doesn't offer me a chance to purchase. Here I am with a house full of people and no game. I immediately call Dish to ask what's going on. They confirm that it is blacked out in my area. I don't understand. What happened from 11 to 12:45?
Dish said it is up to ESPN. ???????
Comcast and Charter both carried the game. Charter cable services my neighborhood. How can they carry the game but not Dish? How does blackouts not affect two cable companies but affect Dish Network?

 

[BFG]

If the game was blacked out it was probably available on your local ABC, if it wasn't then it must've been a screw up.

 

[charper1]

There is also a blackout guide for each game that will attempt to show what areas will be a blackout ahead of time.

 

[lovswr]

Yes I saw that too on the guide. First it was the little $ dollar symbol, but if you clicked the info button it came up & said blackout. However I did watch some of the game. It was on 420 (I think)

 

[Bama Mac]

Just a general rule about games on ESPN Gameplan is that the game will be blacked out in the state of the 2 competing teams, but the game should have been offered as a separate PPV event outside of the ESPN Gameplan. It should have been on 2 channels on for the gameplan and the other for the separate PPV event, in which you could have purchased. Usually the separate PPV events are 29.95 and the gameplan is 19.99 for a single weekend.

This the case with the last 2 Alabama games I purchased on PPV. The gameplan channel was blacked out in Alabama so I had to purchase the separate PPV event on another channel.