Goodbye NFL Network, Hello Congress!

If you have been watching the NFL Network lately, you may notice a scroll that indicates that Comcast customers will be without the station as of May 1. This is a bummer to a huge number of NFL fans, including me. Comcast is the only viable option where I live, and many apartment dwellers and others are in the same situation.

Apparently, Comcast's contract is up with NFL Network, and the NFL doesn't want Comcast to continue to provide NFLN on a special tier. The NFL claims that Comcast is yanking the network, but Comcast maintains that it won't pull the plug on NFLN unless the league insists on it.

No word if either side commented, "I know you are but what am I?"

You can make arguments that NFLN is trying to charge the cable companies too much, perhaps because they have a preferred relationship with DirecTV, due to the Sunday Ticket deal. And that the NFL is completely disingenuous in trying to sell fans who have cable that they are better off not getting NFLN at all versus having access to it on a sports tier.

Or you could argue that the cable companies are dragging their heels with the NFL, not valuing it as high as other sports channels because of their anger relating to the exclusive Sunday Ticket deal.

I don't care who is at fault. All I know for certain, is that in a battle between large monopolistic entities used to having their way, the biggest loser is the consumer. We are the leverage they are using in their talks, and we are the ones that always get jobbed in these situations.

When Roger Goodell took over as NFL commissioner, he said he measures the strength of the league by how happy the fans are. To this, I say, HA! Seems to me that money is the metric. Gee, let's move regular season games away from season ticket holders to international fans, while intentionally taking the NFL Network away from American fans who are unable to get it.

There's a lot of things that the government maybe shouldn't mess with, but traditionally, dealing with monopolistic organizations using their market leverage at the expense of consumers is something that tends to be pretty popular.

So go ahead. Take a second and write something quickly to your representative and senators. That's our leverage. Get them involved to strongly encourage the NFL and cable companies to break their impasse. (Or at least let us keep our channel until they do). Given the NFL and cable's litigious history, it's pretty clear that they won't be able to come to an agreement themselves.

It's not the end of the world for me that I am very likely going to lose a channel I watch a lot. I mostly watch it before I go to sleep. They rarely have programming relevant to my favorite team and, when they do, it is usually pretty superficial. I watch it mostly for the old NFL films footage, and because I love seeing the same commercials over and over again. (Not really on that second part.)

It's just that this dispute is so stupid. And resolvable. And when we can find something that Congress can do that actually would be pretty popular, why not?