John Kerry To Probe MLB Dish Deal
During the past few weeks Major League Baseball has announced that it intends to sell the rights of several out-of-market games (Games that cannot be seen in your area) to DirecTV. DirecTV plans to offer the games for $179 games a year. However, Senator John Kerry has publicly criticized the pending deal, and is going to try and put a stop to it. Kerry says that Major League Baseball and DirecTV are, "marshalling their forces to go out and make money while cutting out fans." He continued to say, "There's a whole movement towards fans being screwed by consolidation which raises prices and lowers options. John Kerry plans to probe the deal, but in the article he expressed doubts on whether or not he would be successful. This story, is also similar to another story I heard a while back. Most people believe that in the very near future, in order to watch a particular sporting event you will have to buy it through pay-per view. Is this fair to the public or does that even matter any more?
5 comments:
Jordan, forget about the fairness (or normative) aspect of this isse. Focus your attention on the actual (or predicted) impact of the deal for consumers and producers. Your analysis should consider measurable and testable hypotheses.
Personally it's a matter of keeping MLB going. With all of the negatives coming from baseball like steorids, high ticket prices, and athletes who "play for the money, not the game". There has been a decline in baseball fans. To keep the players paid with the incomes promised to them. MLB has to go out of it's way to be able to make money. $179 dollars might not seem like much, but in the long run the sports fans will pay for it. Thus, helping to make money. I don't believe fair is ever a question when it comes down to making money.
The idea could be a good way to make money in theory, but baseball seems to be losing its fame in many markets. To put an expensive price tag to watch games that aren't even geographically close seems strange to an average fan. Although, selling the games pay-per-view style could create a hot market for MLB.
What MLB seems to have forgotten is the same thing as the majority of professional sports: the customers and fans are what make the sport. Without the paying customer, the over-paid "professionals" in baseball would not be making the multi-millions that they are making today. Yes, MLB is a business, and like any good business they try to maximize their profits. However, I do not believe that we are to the point where MLB needs their own cable or dish channel to broadcast all the games and to charge several hundreds of dollars for the fanbase to see these games. I believe that the costs would outweigh the benefits here and that too many fans would be lost if such a dish deal took place.
I definately agree that this sort of deal would cut out fans because most people do not have the money to spend on such things like a baseball package. This is a terrible thing becuase baseball like any sport, fans are what makes the game what it is. If no one cared or ever watched, or went to games sports probably wouldn't even exist. By raised the price of being able to watch the game some people might start to way the cost of purchasing the package and decide that it is not worth. This is why sports lose interest is because of stupid things like this, it is just another example of people being greedy. But I have no clue what John Kerry has to do this the whole thing, he is just simply trying to gain publicity.
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