Columbus Crew games on MLS Live and DirectKick are not being blacked out. They are merely not being shown at the behest of our television partner, Time Warner Cable. In its place a black screen will be shown. There is no black out.
I really hope that MM stops by the little people at the tailgates. He won't but I really wish he would. I guess this is the pro-active thing that he is doing to lift the blackout......convince himself that there is no blackout. Which lie is this? F'ing a@@hole.
Hey, did you see that guy at the bar chatting up that lovely lady? Yeah, they didn't leave together. Well, first we should start agreeing that there was no strikeout. That guy did not strike out. There was sex available in that bar with another woman. We've gotten in the habit of talking about the strikeout, but there's not a strikeout.
Can we first agree that we did not go to war in Iraq? We had some troops there and we fired a bunch of bullets and missiles, but there was no war. We've got in the habit of saying there's a war in Iraq, but there was no war. Let's just all agree that we're perceived as a winning club. Outside a slice of the core of our fan base we are absolutely perceived as a winning club. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself – that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.
Wish I had more time to keep up with you all. I guess I must be the "crazy guy" that believes taking action will get more results than just bitching on this forum. McCullers finally did get back to me, not the face to face I was promised, but at least a phone call. We "talked" for 15 to 20 minutes. Bottom line, per MM is this, the service that we received from FSC these past two years was unacceptable and TWC was a better way to go. WTF! He said nothing about FSC offering less this year, in fact he seemed to avoid that subject altogether. Here is what I took from our conversation. MM was pissed off at FSC because we didn't receive all we were expecting last year. Not every game was in HD, not enough promo, occasional bumps to alternate channels. The flames were undoubtedly fanned by Dave Stephany (ex FO employee who now works for TWC) whispering in his ear. MM in all his wisdom tells FSC to F*** Off and then went to talk to TWC. TWC proceeded to do what they're best at, they played him and then bent him over. He new it was a bad deal, why do you think he waited til the last minute to pull the trigger. But he wasn't going to crawl back to FSC no matter how bad he screwed the fans. All he can do now is shovel the BS and try to save his job. He asked me to give them a chance. I asked him, a chance to do what? He couldn't say, apparently he can't talk about ongoing negotiations. Isn't that how we got screwed to begin with. Bottom line is he made a massive mistake and keeps spewing lies to cover it up. If he truly had the team's best interest at heart he would admit he screwed up, beg our forgiveness, and offer his resignation. I hate to say it but he is too much of a snake to do that. So now where are we? He adamantly refused to refund my $1164 in season tickets. That would require he admit he made a mistake. So I'll be at the games, I won't be able to enjoy it, but I'll do everything I can to make sure he doesn't either. Frank Neutzling
King Clown doesn't care. It's just a slice of the fanbase that is upset. But i am sure one of the Front Office shills will be along shortly to tell us that we should be grateful for what we can get "Let them eat cake"
McCullers has to go. Up to this point, I've been trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. I thought he was in a no win situation, and took the best possible deal he could get under the circumstances. He was facing a Kobayashi Maru and did the best he could with it. (And even that is possibly working hard in terms of cutting the man slack.) But if this truly is the best we were going to get, then the bigger task that followed was going to be one of public relations. A campaign of sympathy for those who got the short end, while very succinctly explaining why it was done and what the long-term upside is. Yet, every time he opens his mouth, he sounds like he's lying or stupid. He contradicts himself, he misrepresents the situation or whiffs on details. And now, he tries to tell the people who are blacked out why they're not blacked out -- He's either intellectually dishonest or stubbornly ignorant. I mean, this comment is so obnoxious that it actually does make me think he doesn't care about anything except saving his own ass. And when saving your own ass is your primary goal, you're done, because you're not reaching your primary goal if you're saving your own ass. Or... something.
I know by your previous comments you have been upset by the negative postings regarding TW and MM. This is a big screw up and we Crew fans need to keep the pressure on. I have been a Crew fan since 1996, season ticket holder since 1997 through the good and bad times. This is almost sounding like Bill Clinton regarding the meaning of the word "is". We deserve better than this.
I'll put this out here. I'll switch to TWC. I'll switch to TWC when MM pays for the out-clause that I have with AT&T U-Verse, pays the difference in cost so that I am getting the exact same plan that I have now (three cable boxes, DVR on all three boxes, same cable) and guarantees costs not to go up for the next two years.
In college we learned not to dwell on the strikeout, per se, but rather what the aspiring paramour did get. He got the Heisman. A positive spin on a net result of zilch. And since MM is taking us further down the road of Doublespeak, I am reminded of something a graduate student from Saudi Arabia once told me, with a wry smile. "In my country we do not ban books," he explained. "It's just that some books are not allowed."
MM is an @SS. I'll not renew again while he still has a job. I'd advocate for others to do the same. Frankly, I'd recommend joining one of the supporter's groups and getting ST through them. For those who miss games, they actually offer better refund/exchange policies than the Crew does. Anyway, that's the way I'm going. I'd had ST through HSH a few years back, and it was fine. Been on the fence about going that route again, and this has made my decision for me.
Exactly. Serious question. If you have TWC and live within 75 miles, can you get the Crew games on Direct Kick or MLSLive?
Is he trying to give us a never ending supply of memes this year? WTF why does he even mention the stadium naming "negotiations". C'mon man we dont need to be reminded of all the failures during MM's time. My ticket rep asked me where this whole TV thing ranks.... and i said this was by far the worst decision the front office has ever made. I'm going to be able to watch more games when I am away travelling than when I am home. Since 1996, the fewest amount of home games I've been to is 5. This is shaping up to be my first 0. I've been to every milestone game at home, I'm not part of a fan group, the closest I have been to a supporter group was 96 and 97 seasons. The group of us had season tickets in those pseudo box seats (the wooden folding chairs) behind the away bench. For a few games we brought some drums in and other stuff to make noise.....I was a senior in high school the first season. For you new crew fans, the tickets I had back then were about 10 bucks a game. For the past 18 years I have been one of those easy reliable fans. Last year my wife and I started taking our 3yo and 1yo to the games, and shaping them into crew fans. My oldest thinks every soccer game I watch is a crew game. If there isn't a yellow team on the TV she asks why which one is the crew. This season is going to be easy cause if she asks my response will be easy... neither team is the crew. Its going to be hard to get that next generation of fan if they never get to see the team play. F'ing Eddie Gaven if I didn't buy that jersey you wouldn't have retired and MM wouldn't have made this TWC deal.
I wasn't upset by the negativity. This situation deserves negativity. I just wasn't convinced that some of the things being suggested were going to make any difference.
Direct Kick - no. MLS Live - yes, but not live. You can see the game as soon as it's archived, which is usually a few hours after the game ends. ------RM
At the supporters summit, McCullers was clear as he could be that he made a mistake and that he was at fault. Now this. Hearing his contrition and frank apology was heartening, but now it's clear that he was buying time and didn't want to appear out of touch with the fans in front of his boss. The media appearances last week were meant to do the same thing. His responses to Jardy's questions are purely misleading and intended to soothe Time Warner. It's corporate nonsense, and it says 2 things to me. 1) His primary goal is to defend TWC, not the fans of his business; 2) Time Warner is uncomfortable with the public perception (i.e., the reality) of what they've created. If he can't defend his new business partner, and this ever-present unnamed corporation that they're in perpetual "negotiations" with sees this shit-show that has resulted from partnering with TWC, the ever-present unnamed corporation may just drop out, and if that happens MM's gone. This is a blackout. To say otherwise is insulting, disgraceful, and demonstrates a terrible disregard to the reality faced by the fans, supporters, and customers of his business. Again, it's McCullers blaming the market and the fan base for something that at best he's incapable or unwilling to address, or at worst helped to create. This happens year after year after year, and no one calls him on it. Next time I try to watch a Columbus Crew away match live on MLS Live—which I pay for—or try to see it on my Time Warner Cable without paying an outrageous additional fee (that, by the way, keeps going up without warning or reason from TWC), I'm going to ask Mark McCullers and Time Warner Cable to please explain to me how this isn't a blackout. Especially when this is what I see whenever I try to watch the Crew on MLS Live.
So, TWC either gets money from the Crew, gets money from advertisers on broadcasts or both. If they at least lifted the MLS live blackout and showed the local commercials during the online broadcast, wouldn't that appease everyone?
That would be too sensible. TWC is after more than advertising money here though, they want new subscribers and probably originally hoped a few hundred Crew fans would switch to follow their team. After this fiasco though, they'll be lucky to gain more than they lose in non-Crew fans.
We're test-driving a Frontier modem this week. If there are no issues with the Roku (which is the case, so far) we'll be telling the TWC/Comcast megacorp exactly where to stick it and why.