Letter to MLB: Stop Monitoring & Start Acting!

The following letter has been mailed to Major League Baseball’s headquarters. If you agree that the infamous Hawai`i MLB Blackout must end, send your own letter. A third blacked-out season is about to begin.

February 17, 2011


Mr. Christopher S. Tully
Senior Vice President, Broadcasting
Major League Baseball
245 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10167


Dear Mr. Tully:


I am one of many baseball fans in Hawai`i asking Major League Baseball to intercede in the business standoff between Time Warner Cable and Comcast Sports. Two subsidiaries of the latter have television rights to Bay Area baseball teams – Comcast Sports Net Bay Area (Giants) and Comcast Sports Net California (Athletics).


As you are aware, Hawai`i is in the “home television territory” of both teams. We’re also in the home territory of four other teams – the Dodgers, Angels, Mariners and Padres. PrimeTicket and FOX Sports West, the regional sports networks (RSNs) for the Dodgers and Angels respectively, have long had a business arrangement with Time Warner to carry the two Los Angeles teams on Oceanic Time Warner in Hawai`i. The Mariners and Padres have waived their “blackout rights” in Hawai`I, even in the absence of a deal with Time Warner.


Comcast and Time Warner have not reached a similar deal, and for the past two seasons Giants and A’s games have been blacked out in Hawai`i, including streaming on MLB.com. You said in your letter to U.S. Representative Mazie Hirono (D-HI) dated December 15, 2010: “Please rest assured that MLB is committed to serving the best interests of our fans in Hawai`i and that we will continue to monitor the progress of these carriage negotiations.”


Clearly, Mr. Tully, the negotiations have gone nowhere for the past two years, and there is no indication from Time Warner and Comcast that they’re going anywhere now. Your letter also seemed to place the blame on Time Warner because “Oceanic Time Warner has not yet agreed to carry the two Comcast RSNs.”  That certainly is true, but your conclusion that the fault is all Oceanic Time Warner’s seems strange in having apparently prejudged the issue in Comcast’s favor. Here is the latest email I’ve received from an Oceanic Time Warner marketing representative, dated February 15, 2011:

“For years the only regional sports available to us was provided by Fox West and Fox Prime Ticket. Rates were very low and both have been carried on our Analog Expanded Basic for over 30 years. It wasn’t until Comcast’s recent acquisition of Bay Area Giants and Oakland A’s that there was even the possibility of carrying those teams but unfortunately, the rate being asked for access to 2 teams of interest in Hawaii makes no business sense.


“Because of our ‘close’ proximity to the market, they are prohibiting us to put the Giants and A’s on a sports tier. That means it would go on our standard service and all our subscribers would see a rate increase on their monthly cable bill, north of 6%.”

Mr. Tully, this issue involves two companies that have failed to work out a deal -- one that insists on charging a fee that the other believes is too high and refuses to pay. This could go on forever, and notwithstanding your suggestion that Hawai`i baseball fans simply switch to DirecTV if we want the games so badly, that is a non-starter, and you should rethink your position. DirecTV has far fewer subscribers than Oceanic Time Warner; the market clearly has spoken with regard to which service Hawai`i subscribers prefer.


Please also rethink and/or clarify this statement in your letter to Rep. Hirono: “While we are not satisfied with the current distribution of Giants and Athletics game telecasts in Hawai`i, we continue to believe that fans in the State are best served by the broad availability of the RSNs that carry Giants and Athletics game telecasts, and we would not want to see their access be limited to the purchase of a separate subscription package.”

Your comment appears to defend DirecTV’s interests in carrying the Giants and Athletics games here. Does MLB benefit financially if DirecTV is the only carrier of games in Hawai`i? Is MLB pledged to defend DirecTV to the exclusion of any other potential service provider? Is MLB in a conflict of interest with the vast majority of baseball fans in Hawai`i – promoting MLB’s interests ahead of ours?


MLB’s “monitoring the progress” position clearly is not in the best interests of baseball fans here, so please respond to this letter by stating what MLB is doing to end the impasse between Time Warner and Comcast Sports.  Please do something to actually help us! Your response will be posted at the web site printed at the top of this letter.


Sincerely,
/signature/
Doug Carlson


cc:  Rep. Mazie Hirono

Commish’s Office Says Local Cable’s To Blame, But It Won’t Lift a Finger to End Hawaii Blackout

We’re within weeks of Spring Training and only a few more away from the regular season, and STILL there’s no breakthrough in the impasse to allow Bay Area baseball teams to be viewed in Hawaii on anything but DirecTV.

Christopher S. Tully, Senior Vice President, Broadcasting for Major League Baseball, has written to Rep. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) in response to her inquiries about the problem, which is described in detail in our earlier posts here. We have Rep. Hirono's permission to publicize the letter, which is posted immediately below this entry.

Summarizing the Issue

MLB teams all designate a “home television territory” for which a regional sports network (RSN) has the rights to distribute televised game coverage. The RSNs make deals with local cable TV and satellite systems to carry their games.

Hawaii is in the home TV territory of the San Francisco Giants, Oakland Athletics, Los Angeles Dodgers, Los Angeles Angles and two other teams -- the Seattle Mariners and the San Diego Padres. The RSNs with rights to the Dodgers (PrimeTicket) and Angels (FOX Sports West) have negotiated deals with both Time Warner Oceanic on Oahu and DirectTV. Those teams games are available all season long, and hardly a night goes by without either a Dodgers or Angels game carried by the cable system with the largest subscriber base, Oceanic Time Warner.

However, similar agreements have not been reached by Oceanic with Comcast Sports Net Bay Area and Comcast Sports Net California for Giants and A’s games respectively. Only DirecTV has made arrangements with those RSNs, meaning only DirecTV subscribers can watch the Giants and Athletics.

Not incidentally, also unavailable in Hawaii is live streaming of Giants and A’s games at MLB.com, a channel many of us here used to watch those teams for most of the decade. MLB put an end to that option without any announcement at the start of the 2009 season. But get this: the RSNs with rights to the Mariners and Padres games have waived blackouts of those teams' games in Hawaii, so even though there's no deal to carry the M's and Padres on cable or DirecTV, MLB.com streams them live and they're occasionally carried on other networks in Hawaii. That isn't the case with Giants and A's games, which means fans of teams playing SF and Oakland in their Bay Area parks or at home anywhere in the USA also are denied the enjoyment of watching their favorite MLB team.

Disappointed by the Delay

As for baseball fans who can’t afford DirecTV, don't want it or don’t even own a TV set, MLB’s attitude seems to be, “You’re SOL, pal. This is the 21st Century. Get with it!”

Tully expresses disappointment in his letter at Oceanic’s “delay” in reaching similar agreements with the two Bay Area RSNs. For its part, Oceanic has implied that the fault isn’t theirs but the RSNs. Comcast in the Bay Area has been mostly silent and has ignored our attempts to smoke them out.

For that matter, so have the Giants, the team we follow. The only person in the Bay Area who’s taken any interest in the Hawaii Blackout is San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler, who threw his lot in with the fans in a column late in last year’s season.

Who’s on First?

We’re still trying to understand the hold-up in resolving this mess. Although Tully lays it squarely on Oceanic Time Warner’s desk, the cable outfit is more than ready to blame others – the RSNs and even the teams. Here’s an email received last year from an Oceanic executive:

“It has nothing to do with the TV providers. The clubs don’t see a benefit in opening it up to Hawaii. I suppose they think the die-hard fans will fly to the West Coast to buy a ticket.”

So it’s the clubs? Why would the Giants and A’s not want their fans in Hawaii watching their games on cable TV? Is there something to this – that the clubs would be financially disadvantaged somehow if the RSNs arrange deals in the 50th State?

Just the Facts, Please

That comment just doesn’t make sense, so in an attempt to sort this out, we sent the following email to the Oceanic executive yesterday:

“Why were the two SoCal agreements finalized but not the other two? I’d appreciate a real simple answer to understand where everybody’s chips are at the start of the season. Beyond that question, is anything happening to reach an agreement? Are there any negotiations underway with the Bay Area RSNs? If not, why not? If so, what can we expect from them?”

MLB has brushed aside the good Congresswoman’s inquiry, implying it’s not MLB’s problem, but surely it is an MLB problem and concern. How could it not be? Giants and A’s fans are quickly losing our Aloha for MLB by being denied the enjoyment of watching their teams by corporate intransigence.

We’d Rather Fight than Switch!

And no, Mr. Tully, most of us don’t find your suggested remedy – simply switching to DirecTV – to be reasonable. If we wanted DirecTV, we’d already be subscribers. Your letter to Rep. Hirono had a spin on it as good as Barry Zito's biggest bender, but we're not going to swing at that one.

We fans are getting screwed while you sit in the Commissioner's office and monitor the screwing.  We’re tired of it! Do something to bring the corporations together. Simply “monitoring the progress of these carriage negotiations” between Oceanic and the RSNs is not enough. It’s been TWO YEARS already! How much longer do you need to monitor this disaster before you step up and fix it!?

Write to MLB

Join the effort to end the Hawaii MLB Blackout. Write to this address:

Mr. Christopher S. Tully
Senior Vice President, Broadcasting
Major League Baseball
245 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10167

MLB Commish’s Office ‘Explains’ the Blackout

Hawaii baseball fans have turned to our Congressional delegation in the hope federal officials might prompt some positive action from Major League Baseball in ending the blackout of Bay Area teams on the largest cable company in the state. Here’s the response to Rep. Hirano from MLB’s Senior Vice President for Broadcasting, Christopher S. Tully.

Office of the Commissioner

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

December 15, 2010


The Honorable Mazie Hirono
US House of Representatives
1524 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515


Dear Rep. Hirono:

I am writing in response to your letter to Commissioner Selig regarding the availability in Hawaii of game telecasts of the Dodgers, Angels, Giants, and Athletics. By way of background, Hawaii is included within the home television territory of each of these Clubs and, accordingly, their regional sports network (RSN) rightsholders are authorized to arrange for the distribution of game telecasts of these teams throughout the State. However, in order to effect that distribution, the RSNs need to reach carriage agreements with the local cable and satellite providers.

I’m pleased to advise you that PrimeTicket’s telecasts of Dodgers games and FOX Sports West’s telecasts of Angels games are carried by both DirecTV and Oceanic Time Warner Cable as part of their basic programming packages. DirecTV also distributes the Comcast Sports Net Bay Area and Comcast Sports Net California RSNs as part of its basic service, thereby making all Giants and Athletics games carried on those networks available to fans in Hawai`i. Unfortunately, Oceanic Time Warner has not yet agreed to carry the two Comcast RSNs. While we continue to be disappointed in the delay on the part of Oceanic Time Warner in carrying the Giants’ and Athletics’ RSN rightsholders, we remain hopeful that a deal will be reached.

As far as MLB Extra Innings and MLB.TV, our out-of-market subscription packages of games, they are intended to supplement the game telecasts available to fans on the RSNs distributed within their local markets. Accordingly, these subscription packages provide fans with access only to those game telecasts not otherwise available in their local market. As described above, game telecasts of the Dodgers, Angels, Giants and the Athletics are already distributed in Hawai`i via their locally-distributed RSNs. While we are not satisfied with the current distribution of Giants and Athletics game telecasts in Hawai`i, we continue to believe that fans in the State are best served by the broad availability of the RSNs that carry Giants and Athletics game telecasts, and we would not want to see their access be limited to the purchase of a separate subscription package. (Blog Comment: Please! Just label this "spin.") We want to preserve not only the access to the games that DirecTV subscribers currently enjoy as part of their basic programming package (and the existing opportunity for other fans to gain access by switching to DirecTV), but also the incentive for Oceanic Time Warner and the Comcast RSNs to finally reach carriage agreements that will afford cable subscribers in Hawai`i the same access to game telecasts of these two teams that they currently enjoy for Dodgers and Angels games.

Please rest assured that MLB is committed to serving the best interests of our fans in Hawai`i and that we will continue to monitor the progress of these carriage negotiations.

Sincerely,


/signature/
Christopher S. Tully
Senior Vice President, Broadcasting


See our comments at the post immediately above this letter.