Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell took their dispute with the cable companies to Austin yesterday. They appeared before the legislature's Regulated Industries Committee, and asked that the state step in and settle this dispute.
The NFL wants the cable companies to put the NFL Channel on its basic cable tier and pay them 70 cents per subscriber. The cable companies want to put the channel on a sports tier and sell it only to customers that want it. It all boils down to an argument over which side gets to keep the bulk of the consumers' money.
It has already resulted in 65% of the country's viewers missing the big game between Dallas and Green Bay, and it looks like we consumers may miss a lot more games before this gets settled.
After listening to both sides for four hours, the committee refused to get involved. Chairman Phil King (R-Weatherford) said, "I'm still of the opinion that Texas doesn't have legal juristiction over this matter."
This matter put our state Republican leadership in a quandry. If this was just a corporation against consumers, they would have handled it in a heartbeat. They absolutely love to side with corporations against the consumers. But this was corporation against corporation, and they didn't know how to handle it. How could these corporate lovers pick one corporation over another?
I don't know which side will finally win this argument. I just know that the consumer will probably lose either way. There was only one person speaking for the consumer during the hearing -- Rep. Rene Oliveira (D-Brownsville). He wants the games to go back to free TV.
But that makes too much sense, and making sense is simply something the Republicans and the corporations cannot do.
