The main thrust of the story, though, is how NFL is crying foul on access to NFLN but has no trouble limiting access to Sunday Ticket, which is easier to get in Canada, Mexico and by internet so long as you aren't in the U.S., then it is to American customers (I think this explains why I've seen links mentioned to NFL games on the net - they are links to torrents from international feeds!).
Easterbrook also says this:
Some cable executives contend there is little point in chasing Sunday Ticket because all the people who want the service already have migrated to DirecTV. Sure -- all the people who want it at $250 a year, plus bundled charges, plus the hassle of installing and maintaining a satellite dish. If Sunday Ticket were $50 a year and came hassle-free through cable or any other hassle-free electronic pipeline that might evolve, instead of 1.6 million households getting Sunday Ticket, 25 million might sign up. Then consumer costs would be lower but business revenues higher -- $1.3 billion instead of $400 million in that example -- and what was once a luxury for the privileged few could be possessed affordably by almost anyone. Just like what happened with cell phones! Come on NFL, let us choose which game to watch. We'll pay, you'll be richer and you can stop speaking out of both sides of your mouth, demanding public access to the NFL Network while restricting public access to Sunday Ticket.
The problem, of course, is that the NFL would want to charge everyone $250/yr for Sunday Ticket, not $50/yr. And the cable companies aren't going to fork over $400 million on Sunday Ticket if they can't make money off it. Even DirecTV isn't making money off it. For that matter, Fox, CBS and NBC are losing money on the NFL too but they do it because they can cross-promote their network shows and hope to recoup the money there. That's why the nets inundate us with ads for their other shows everytime you turn on an NFL game.
I generally ignore Easterbrook’s conclusions, he has serious white guilt/ corporations are evil problems. But the facts are pretty basic. I would think the reason the cable companies would want to treat this package differently is because the NFL works so much differently. The other leagues (including college football) have games nearly every day of the week and TV broadcasts that are largely ruled by local contracts, this means there’s lots of extra games to get with the package. The NFL runs most of the season with 4 time slots, and 2 of those (and any “extra” slots like the game starting now) are single games running nationally with no competition within the league. NFL Sunday Ticket is really only useful for those two Sunday afternoon time slots, a person with “full” (so they get Fox, NBC, CBS, ESPN and NFLN) cable can see just as many games every week as a person with Sunday Ticket, the difference is the Sunday Ticket person can chose their Sunday afternoon games.
Now what all this means from a market perspective is there is a strong reason not to get Sunday Ticket as a full package. I can say that if I could get ST I wouldn’t, picking my games in 2 slots a week isn’t worth $250 for me. Sure once in a while I get annoyed by the networks selections, especially because I’m in the Cards blackout zone and I hate them, but I don’t get $250 a year annoyed. On the other hand I might get $25 a game annoyed 3 or 4 times a year, like last week when Tucson had a choice between Colts-Raiders (dome team I don’t respect, crappy team nobody respects) and Eagles-Cowboys (crappy team that doesn’t interest me, evil team I wish would cease to exist), I might have spent $25 to watch Pats-Jets, of course instead I got to watch the Cowboys lose so it wasn’t all bad. So I can see I definite individual game PPV market for Sunday Ticket.