Dish Network lawyers will be busy in the months ahead as the satellite television carrier was slapped with a lawsuit in
The NFL was understandably irked by the move, which by most estimates cost the NFL Network around 4 million households in the penetration game. The latest dispute adds another headache to an ongoing dispute with Comcast, and the NFL’s inability to strike a deal with Time Warner. The league has been forced to fight every battle to keep its network from meeting an early demise.
Dish Network’s decision to move the network had to do in part with its unhappiness with the NFL’s decision to simulcast the Patriots-Giants on CBS and NBC the last weekend of the season. Dish Network and DIRECTV were losers in that decision, as they stood to gain new subscribers from cable operators who did not carry the network.
Commenting on the suit, the NFL had to say:
“EchoStar’s response to the simulcast of the historic December 29 Giants-Patriots game is unwarranted and not in the best interest of its subscribers. The NFL is the most popular sport in the nation and this decision is taking NFL Network away from millions of subscribers around the nation that are football fans and have been receiving NFL Network’s quality programming. We are seeking to prevent EchoStar from violating the terms of its distribution agreement with the NFL Network.”
Interestingly, Dish Network did not move the network off the
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Interesting suit. Unfortunately for the NFL, I don’t think the NFL Network is going to make it.
Of course it won’t make it as long as Dish and Comcast continue to charge so much extra for it. One of the reasons I went with Dish is because NFL Network was on the basic tier. If I knew they were going to make that decision, I would have gone with Verizon.
im afraid this is going to all go down in a very bad way for the consumer – guess its bar watching for me