Fox Sports Channel’s cord gets pulled out, sports fans drool over their irreplaceable loss
The Fox Sports television channel is a very popular medium of broadcasting sports to fans all over America. It, along with the other big sports channel ESPN, has a pretty commanding portion of the sports broadcasting market in the country. Recently a news
item surfaced that stated that Fox had pulled its sport channel off of the network broadcaster Dish Networks LLC because of a contract and monetary dispute. This is a big deal at the moment because one of sports fans greatest pastimes is sitting down in front
of Fox Sports channel to catch his favourite match live.
Fox Sports is a sports broadcasting channel that is part of the Fox Broadcasting company. This is in turn is a part of News Corporation. The sports channel started in 1994 and has proved to be very popular with sports fans all over America. It got its start
when it was awarded the rights to broadcast the National Football League games. Soon it added NHL games, Major League Baseball games and NASCAR races. It now gives live coverage to the soccer matches.
Fox Sports is a successful channel because it has exclusivity over broadcasting certain sports events in the country such as the Daytona 500. In 2010 for the first time, Fox broadcast the UEFA Champions League final. Another interesting aspect of the sports
channel is the fact that it operates a regional broadcast policy. For example network operators and broadcasters in LA receive LA Lakers basketball games, while not receiving other teams’ games.
In the broadcasting arena the way distribution of content works is that Fox Sports gets exclusive coverage of events, and then sell their channel to network operators that show numerous channels on their satellites or through their cable networks. The network
operators pay Fox a fee for the right to show its channel to their audience.
Recently it seems Fox Sports has gotten into a dispute with one of its biggest network operators, Dish Networks. The sports broadcaster has pulled its channel from the network’s line-up because Dish was unwilling to pay an increased rate. It looks like Fox
has increased its rate by 50% and this was too much for Dish to stomach and so they refused.
Both companies have taken the fight to their audience members. Dish is telling its viewers that Fox has increased the rate by a huge 50% amount and they have refused because they do not want to burden their customers with a price hike. They are trying to
promote themselves as the good guys, and Fox as the evil corporation that is just out to make money. Dish says the recession has been hard enough for sports fans and the rise in rates is too high.
Fox has claimed that the network operator is not being truthful about the 50% amount and it has been forced to increase its prices. Sports fans and Dish may not realise it, but there is an economic cycle at work here. Fox has probably been forced to raise
its prices because their content providers are charging them more to broadcast games on the channel. They in turn pass that cost onto the network operators, who pass it onto their customers, who have to bear hefty prices merely for the love of the sport.
So at the end of the day, who lost out in this whole affair? Well it seems to be the sports fans. They cannot enjoy sports events anymore because the channel with the exclusive rights to show certain events is off the air, and no other channel can show the
same content. The fans are then unable to watch their favourite sports because of a monetary dispute between two companies.
Hopefully in a few days, this issue can be resolved so that sports fans can go back to watching the games they love. They can continue to support their favourite teams and not have to worry about a channel going offline suddenly. Dish and Fox Sports need
to come to an agreement soon, so that the fans do not have to suffer any more.
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