I think the court hearing is next week. Not sure when he would rule on the motions. The real question is do the Astros have an offer or believe a sure deal to get more from another channel than they would get from CSN and their ownership stake in the channel at lower monthly fees to carriers? Once you blow up CSN, the value is gone and the bills come due for the Astros as 40% owner. So you have to think you can get more from someone else on a go-forward basis that would cover the accumulated losses on the Astros share of the ownership. This whole proceeding is about Comcast and the Astros getting leverage over each other. Astros had leverage when they could walk with their rights because they hadnt been paid in almost 90 days. Comcast headed them off at the pass 3 days earlier with what I would call a questionable involuntary BK filing.
From David Barron's twitter (he's tweeting some excellent stuff today on the CSN bankruptcy hearing), with business "partners" like Les Alexander, why would you trust anyone else?: Guess Sebastian Salazar might want to rent:
Generally I don't care about this battle. But if I'm reading Sebi's tweet right, CSN is blacking out the game in Houston on NBCSP to show it on CSN. Where it's only available to 40% of households. Available, not purchased. So a tiny percent of the population in Houston would be able to see the game. Really stupid move. Dynamo fans will be at the game for sure. Potential fans would watch, and if it's a good game, they might be fans later. But now it will be lost in the oblivion where the Rockets and Astros games have gone to hide. Sometimes Houston sports drives me crazy. If I'm right about this, it really makes me mad. I want Houston sports fans not at the game to get a taste of what they are missing.
its real simple. the folks behind CSN gambled and lost. they thought they were gonna ride the new wave of "niche channel" (see longhorn network, big ten network, sec network, yankees network, etc) and it flopped here. i give them props for shooting for the stars. more people should try risk; instead most are weak, feeble, scared folks who want to live life with the guarantee of success. however once the experiment proved to be a failure, said CSN folks became sociopathic and refused to admit to what reality was giving them. your product flopped. huge. so instead of taking their lumps and coming back stronger (ie every major entrepreneur ever in the US), they played the political game of denial denial denial denial. now, not even the tax payers or the cable channels subsidy will save them. your product sucked compared to the price you were charging. you are the tv version of the K car. get over it, lose, then come back and kick some ass. or you could continue your stall, victim, stall, excuse, bail out, victim, stall, excuse model and disappear into the ether along with HSE. don't let the door hit you in the a$$
The Seattle-Colorado game is blacked out locally for those two cities as well. I suspect that the blackout may not be an individual team or network decision but some sort of league policy. From reading David Barron's tweets today, it almost seems like there are irreconcilable differences between the Astros and Comcast/Rockets. Crane testified today that earlier in the year he called Chase Carey (president of Fox) about if they would be interested in the games coming back to a Fox channel. So a long time ago all parties probably knew this wasn't going to work out they way they thought it would. In fact, it seems as if everyone is testifying that there is no way that the current network can make money the way the contracts with the Astros and Rockets are structured and the way the carriage agreements haven't happened (interestingly, I saw reference that Comcast had a "most favored" nation status with their local agreement such that if Directv signed a cheaper agreement than Comcast Houston, Comcast could reduce the fees it paid CSN. Seems odd, but if you think about it, the Astros/Rockets would be picking up 80% of the loss on the contract so in a bizarre way Comcast could use the lower Houston fee to try and drive fees down around the country). As hard as this is to believe, Comcast comes across as sleazier than Jim Crane. Crane clearly overpaid for the team figuring the network would make a lot of money and is now trying to cut his losses on the network and just get the best deal he can. Rockets also got all of their fees for the year and the Astros only got about half so they can hold out longer if they want (why they likely siding with Comcast). Reading between the lines, unless everyone is willing to accept less than they thought they would get, this CSN venture seems to be in real trouble long-term.
Yeah...we can blame CSN for a lot but the blackout isn't one of them. same thing last year....MLS turns off MLS Live and gives with broadcast partners....FSN debacle due to weather aside.
The bankrupcy judge has give the Astros (who seemed to be the main group holding things up) negotiating power. I'm not sure what they will be negotiating but they have until Dec 12 to sort something out. http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/...ros-negotiating-power-in-csn-houston-dispute/
I'd agree with you that it isn't really an article, just a series of paragraphs written at different times then put together. David Barron is a pretty good writer so I suspect he was writing as it went along and the Chronicle probably doesn't have enough editors to review. The order (though I haven't seen it) gives the Astros control to negotiate agreements and basically put forth a new business plan or restructring plan for CSN Houston. Even though CSN was owned by the Astros, Rockets, and Comcast (and any one could block deals for the first year), Comcast was the managing partner for lack of a better term and thus was the one that was actively negotiating with carriers and the like. Now, the Astros are in that role for a few weeks to a few months. This includes trying to sell the equity in CSN to others. I don't believe it includes the Astros trying to carve off their rights and sell them. The other motions were stayed pending the order issued. BTW, this was a mutually agreed upon order with all of the parties. Which means that Comcast saw that its involuntary BK petition was likely going down in flames. I direct anyone interested in the discussion of the issues to this thread at Clutchfans, folks there hit on the issues as well as anywhere: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=244517&page=84 End result - Crane spends the next month or two trying to shop CSN and its "assets" (which is mainly the rights to the Rockets/Astros and the agreement with Comcast Houston to carry the network) to Directv or AT&T or Fox or whoever to see if they will buy the network wholesale and get rid of Comcast. Not sure why Fox would want to buy a network for Houston when they can wait 6 months and get the rights later without having to buy the network. But there doesn't seem to be any way in that scenario that everyone doesn't take something of a haircut.
I agree. The best I can make of it they can do anything they want now (pending the judges approval). Including finding people to buy out the shares of any of the parties, to new carriage deals, to new broadcasting rights. But having one party in charge of all of that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Of course, not much about this bankruptcy case does make sense.
I was subjected to Marcelo Balboa last night due to this policy. /Shakes fist in direction of New York Hello, Root Sports Houston!
That says more about the American auto industry in the 80s than it does about the K-car! If you were around then, you know every car made in America in the 80s was incredibly boring, and most likely a POS. K-cars were a "success" in terms of profitability. But as automobiles "EEEeeeeewwwww!!"
http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterocke...uying-all-of-houston-regional-sports-network/ They were back in court today for an update of Crane's restructuring plan. Les Alexander has said he's interested in buying out the Astro's and Comcast's portion of CSN.
Well, I'm sure this will make Crane even more popular with his fellow owners. They have to love suing previous owners because they conducted poor diligence. http://blog.chron.com/sportsupdate/...ane-comcast-and-nbc-claiming-fraud/?cmpid=bna I really think Crane is tapped out financially with all of his limited partners and is now trying to shake everyone down to keep the team. An article this morning he cryptically argued that something sinister must be at work keeping CSN Houston off of most carriers because he couldn't understand why no one wanted to pay $3.50 a month for every subscriber to watch his team lose 100 games
I actually read thru the lawsuit quickly and obviously they are making a pleading they crafted (they did hire David Boies) but regardless of all of their allegations of material misrepresentations by the McLane and Comcast, how did they NOT independently determine that $3.50 per month (0r whatever that Zone 1 Base Rate) was absurd???? It's like he spent $600 million on the team and network based on what they said, with no independent market analysis. Anyone who is involved in transactions this large know that even if they didn't do their own analysis, the banks would make them get it done. I suspect that Crane's purchase files have an opinion from his banker or consultant that the CSN projections were reasonable.
I don't think there will be a bright side to any of this. You have an individual who failed to do due diligence when he purchased the team and now has buyers remorse. It all boils down to the fact that these money grabbing folks are demanding that Directv and other systems pay them an average $3.50 per subscriber to carry their product. Well I have Directv and I'm not interested in paying an extra $3.50 to not watch baseball and basketball.
I think all Crane wants is try to embarrass Mclane and Comcast into some settlement - but I don't see Comcast backing down. They already tried a somewhat bogus bankruptcy filing, I don't think they will let this slide. But I go back to this: it is almost inconceivable that Crane didn't have an outside market analysis done by a consultant or investment bank that validated the projections that McLane/Comcast gave him on CSN. His lender almost had to have required it. And anyone would have realized with the MFN clause that if the projections provided were too high, you re-run the figures at a lower rate. It doesn't take a regional sports network expert to see that the Astros/Rockets won't get the same fee as YES Network.
It doesn't take an expert to see that CSN Houston will get lower carriage fees than FS Southwest when the latter has more (and more relevant) content.