>>The league now is expected to ask cable operators to make the channel part of their basic services
The same thing happened in Boston where New England Sports
Network (Red Sox, Bruins) was $10/month extra. They made a deal to get on the expanded basic tier (for a slight increase in subscriber fees!) and now both teams are exclusively on
cable. Only time during reg. season that the Sox are on
free TV is when they have a Sat. afternoon game on Fox,
while the B's only hit "free TV" when there's a game on
ABC (they have hockey now, right, or am I thinking NBC...)
Anyway, NESN wound up with many more viewers _and_ it
was a prime prize for the eventual buyers of the Red
Sox. The channel is a license to print money, in some
ways...And NESN's website is tied into the Boston Globe,
aka the New York Times Jr. (The Times owns 17 per cent
of the 2004 World Champions).
http://www.boston.com/sports/nesn/
>>(for a slight increase in subscriber fees!)
i.e., instead of being $10 extra, it was included "free"
in expanded basic, only prices for that tier went up
$1.50 or something--whether you watch NESN or not you had to pay a lil' more.