This Diatribe should start early.
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Like half of the Jayhawk fans in Kansas City and all of the Jayhawk fans west of Topeka to the Colorado line, 6 games were taken away from us because of the sin of not signing up with Time Warner Cable. Hopefully, the wealthy Alums in Western Kansas have spoken to the A.D. and Chancellor about this. At my advanced age, I did go to a bar to nurse a beer and Onion Rings, only to have the TV shut off for Karaoke at halftime. All I have to do to stay at home and watch the Hawks is to pay a penalty to opt out of the present cable system that I am happy with to sign up for a new offer with TIme Warner for $98 with free HBO with only a two year contract where the $98 deal expires after 6 months and returns to the Max cost of $120 for the same programming. Almost All Kansan’s west of Topeka are in the same boat. Hopefully the locals won’t be penalized for the wonderful ability to let Jayhawk fans around the world watch the team by only screwing the fans that live in the state or are part of the 56% of Kansas City residents that do not have Time Warner. Jessie, or somebody, please tell me that this has been taken care of.
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Time-Warner seems associated with stiffing the fans of some of Americas iconic teams. They have a deal with Direct TV that shuts out almost half of Los Angeles. Vin Scully couldn’t watch a Dodgers game at his own house!
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“This Diatribe should start early.”
Right on!
I am of the opinion this has not been dealt with, so all those impacted (including all those who are not impacted) should start beating the drums now, while there is still time to create a fix for the Jayhawk Nation.
We can start by addressing this positively so it creates an opportunity for those in charge to be heroes and rewarded with positive praise.
If that doesn’t work there is always ‘Plan B’.
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@drgnslayr positively didn’t work last year! I’d like to hear plan B. I get the games on cox, but my relatives in sw ks don’t. I sensed a lot of resentment! They all called and complained. I’m not a SZ fan.
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‘Plan B’ should be to organize some kind of protest.
Start by creating a protest group. Gather members and start a group identity.
Then organize methods for gaining attention for the cause. Guilty parties are exposed and will face harsh criticism if they don’t resolve the issue.
Without creating something for them to lose (credibility, PR), they have no motivation to fix this. Last year, they quickly accepted the outcome without blinking. They were too busy patting themselves on the back for accomplishing the media contract.
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Above all don’t go for the $98.
This is market research to come up with estimates for costs and benefits for going 100 percent pay per view.
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A lot of the Kansas City Metro area is blacked out as well. It really irritates me that a MU fan can watch KU games while KU fan cannot…I am in Olathe and can watch every KSU and every MU game but not all KU games; go figure.
If the situation is not corrected, as the commercial said…get a rope!
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@JayHawkFanToo have you heard of anything changing?
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The fact that someone in Olathe can watch every KSU and MU game, yet cannot watch all KU games, simply tells us someone is making $ on a big-brand (that is KU basketball). Nothing more. KSU Basketball and MU basketball are nothing that marketable. The saddest fact is that their biggest audience is the local audience, which is actually getting cut out, and forced to pay $$ if they really want to see every game. This whole thing about wanting to “bring KU to a wider audience” is only a partial truth at best, and really just a ‘spinnable’ reason.
Why am I cynical? Because look at what we already witness on the national level: the ESPN ‘bias’…face it: there are WAY more ‘marketable’ TV sets that tune in for ACC games. How many of those actually care about KU basketball? Or even Big12 basketball? We know UNC fans likely hate KU’s guts due to getting bounced out of the Madness 3x in the last 6yrs, and 1 of those other 3 years, Roy didnt even make the Dance, having to give TarHole Nation an NIT experience instead. Would you pay money to watch a far away team that sent you packing 3 times out of your last 5 appearances? Do I care about UCLA or USC or Oregon or Washington? I dont.
They’re going for more nat’l TV sets, but Im not so sure those exist. Faraway KU people have always had to buy pkg cable, or watch streaming online versions…that may be expected. But I dont see this schizz as helping those faraway Hawks. It only alienates the local/regional jayhawks somewhat. But it doesnt matter until it is felt in Their pocketbook, does it? Follow the money. Make the money talk from your side. Sadly, TV marketing $ are bigger money than even WilliamsFund types could generate.
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The part that doesn’t make sense is why the games on ESPN3 get blacked out only in the state of Kansas; why the discrimination? The payout from TW was not that big and most of it came as payment in kind by showing some of the “lesser” sports over the TW network. No disrespect to the girls that play sports at KU, but I would bet that one KU men’s basketball, or even one football game (that were also blacked out) has a bigger TV audience in the KC area alone than all the other sports combined in one year over the entire TW network.
Whoever thought this was a good deal need to have his head examined.
