Word: nfl
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...NFL punted. It may be the most powerful sports league in the country, but it failed to stiff-arm the big cable companies into carrying the NFL Network on the league's terms. So sophomore NFL commish Roger Goodell made a veteran call in deciding to let NBC and CBS simulcast Saturday night's New England Patriots-New York Giants game. That game, in case you never get past Discovery Channel, could produce the NFL's first 16-0 season if the favored Pats dispatch the Giants, who have already qualified for the playoffs. "We have taken this extraordinary step...
...NFL hasn't backed down from its game plan to force cable giants Cablevision and Time Warner Cable (which is controlled by TIME's parent, Time Warner), to pay up something like 70 cents a subscriber and make the NFL Network part of the basic programming tier. That would in turn prompt the cable companies to raise rates by at least as much. The cable guys have refused that price, leaving the NFL Network either without a channel or relegated to the sports tier by Comcast for a monthly fee, potentially depriving the league of hundreds of millions in revenue...
...cable guys have refused to meet the NFL's asking price because other than the eight Thursday night games that the NFL Network broadcasts, the rest of the programming is second-string - and that's being kind. They also didn't like the fact that the NFL has so far refused to sell the cable outfits its Sunday Ticket package, available only on satellite, which lets viewers watch any NFL game. Goodell attempted a beautiful end around by offering the Pats-Giants game to Time Warner Cable and Cablevision in return for all parties entering into binding arbitration to resolve...
...Steel. So Specter shot off little note to Goodell co-authored by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, whose constituents were now faced with the prospect of watching the snow pile up instead of the Pats running it up against the Giants this Saturday. Their message: if the NFL would like to keep its antitrust immunity intact, perhaps it had better play ball with everyone. "Now that the NFL is adopting strategies to limit distribution of game programming to their own networks, Congress may need to reexamine the need and desirability of their continued exemption from the Nation's antitrust laws," warned...
...When Brett Favre passed Dan Marino for the NFL career touchdown record...