One of the best things about modern cable and satellite television is the explosion of sports programming now available to customers across the country. Many years ago you would only see a couple of college football games on Saturday and two or three on Sunday, today you can literally pick from dozens of games every weekend. Even the NCAA Men’s tournament has additional coverage with the Mega March Madness package on Direct TV.
The motto today is “Content is King” and as the saying goes the sports networks want to deliver as much sports content as possible to the viewer so they can sell more ads. Lots of new all-sports channels have sprung up in the last few years. A few of the new networks are Altitude Sports, which carries Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche matches, and also the Big Ten Network and the Mountian, the broadcast home of the Mountain West conference.
Certainly these new channels are nice for fans in lots of areas, disputes between the providers of content and cable networks that deliver the content have brought trouble at times to the customer. Consider what happened last fall, the Big Ten Network started airing in 2007, but the network was unable to strike a deal with cable TV provider Time Warner. Customers of Time Warner in Indiana were not able to watch some of the home town teams play due to this dispute. Fortunately, the companies involved came to terms before the fall football season, so subscribers could stay with Time Warner instead of having to switch over to one of the satellite television companies like DISH Network or Direct TV. An important thing to do when considering providers is to consider all factors, comparing Direct TV vs Time Warner.
Out of market sports programming are another thing sports fans should consider. Some Dish Network customers have switched providers because the NFL Sunday ticket is exlusively with Direct TV. Many subscribers to large cable companies like Comcast are upset, not understanding why a package like NFL Sunday Ticket isn’t available to them. Alternative sports bundles though are more friendly to subscribers, such as the NHL Center Ice and the NBA League Pass, which are available on almost every cable TV and satellite company. DIRECTV seems to have all of the premium sports packages.