Bexar County Legislators Ask FCC to Review Large Cable Company Practices

Legislators Express Concerns About Football Fans Being Left Out in the Cold
Published: 10-15-07

San Antonio – Five Bexar County state lawmakers appealed this week to the Federal Communications Commission to intervene on behalf of millions of football fans who are being denied access to the only year-round television channel dedicated to football.  NFL Network serves football fans at all levels with NFL college and high school football games -- 200 games annually -- including eight live late-season primetime NFL games two college bowl games and more.

“As legislators who voted on pioneering telecommunications legislation that enhanced consumer choice and competition we are especially concerned as representatives of the summer home of the Dallas Cowboys – Bexar County – that two of their late-season games will not be aired by our dominant local cable provider because of a dispute with the NFL Network” wrote representatives Robert Puente Ruth Jones McClendon Jose Menendez Mike Villarreal and Joe Farias.

The Dallas Cowboys are immensely popular in Bexar County where the team holds its summer camp.

This past summer more than 150000 people visited the Cowboys Camp.  Unless regulators or lawmakers on the federal or state level act fans across Texas and America will miss out on year-round in-depth coverage of the Cowboys on shows like Inside Mini-Camp and Inside Training Camp NFL GameDay America’s Game and NFL Replay. They will also miss live Cowboys games against the Green Bay Packers and the Carolina Panthers and a Houston Texans game against the Denver Broncos.

“While it is not our desire to take sides in this dispute between the cable companies and the NFL Network it is our desire to side with San Antonio-area fans and consumers who have demonstrated a strong affinity for professional football and who would be deeply disappointed if two key game telecasts were essentially blacked out” wrote the Bexar County lawmakers.

Large cable companies have given preference to programming they own over programming that is independently-owned like the NFL Network.  In San Antonio Time Warner offers Court TV and Cartoon Network – both owned by Time Warner – on their standard service tier but will not agree to offer NFL Network on the same tier.  In Houston Comcast includes the Golf Channel and Versus in their basic package – channels they own – while asking consumers to pay $4 more per month to access the NFL Network as part of a special sports tier.

The lawmakers asked the FCC to “assign a neutral arbitrator to settle this dispute” because “consumer demand must take precedence over corporate profits.”