Baseball opts to shut out fans

Stop me if you've heard this one before — the greed of big-time sports owners has once again hurt the fans who support their game.

This time, it's the Major League Baseball owners. You know, the folks who raked in $5.5 billion in revenue last season. The folks who have made it impossible for millions of fans to watch the teams they want to see.

For years, cable and satellite TV subscribers have had the privilege of paying to see games in other parts of the country. It was a privilege they paid hundreds of dollars for each season.

If you subscribed to a digital cable system, DirecTV or Dish, you could watch the team of your choice. If, say, you live in Utah and you're a fan of, say, the Mets or the Pirates or the Devil Rays (yes, even the Devil Rays), you could pay your money, sit in your recliner and root for your "home" team.

When the season begins on Sunday, you can still do that. If — and only if — you subscribe to DirecTV.

The owners took a seven-year, $700 million deal from DirecTV that shut out everyone who subscribes to cable or Dish. There has been all sorts of arguing about who's at fault here, and it involves the launch of MLB's own channel.

Doesn't that sound familiar?

Under pressure from the public and Congress, MLB offered the package to Dish and cable, but under terms those companies found unacceptable. DirecTV has agreed to carry the baseball-only channel (which, like the NFL Network, will air 24-hours-a-day, 12-months-a-year). Heck, DirecTV is now a partner in The Baseball Channel, which is slated to launch in 2009.

For future reference, keep in mind that DirecTV is a sister company to Fox. Which means that the TV network that covers baseball will be a partner with MLB. No conflict there, huh?

There has been all sorts of arguing back and forth in the negotiations between baseball and Dish/cable, with each accusing the other of making unreasonable demands. Among other things, baseball is insisting that anyone who wants to carry the pay-per-view package must also put the baseball channel in its lineup — and in a really good spot or no deal!

Gee, sort of sounds like negotiations over the NFL Network. Or, closer to home, The mtn.

Left out in the cold, of course, are the fans. Even though The Baseball Channel won't launch for two years, Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, told a U.S. Senate committee hearing that MLB would not back down and put pay-per-view games on the air while negotiations with Dish and cable continue.

You've got to wonder how long baseball fans will continue to be baseball fans when they're being treated so cavalierly by the owners.

Those Senate hearings didn't accomplish anything, but maybe MLB ought to start listening to the threats thrown in their direction. According to the Associated Press, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told DuPuy, "When fans react, Congress reacts," he said, threatening to look into ending MLB's antitrust exemption. "You may be well advised to act before we do."

That might be the only thing that could get the baseball owners' attention.

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com

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