Cite?
Not being facetious, I am very curious about this.
I heard it from a friend who works for Comcast in a managerial position. Googling around, I haven’t been able to turn up anything one way or the other, but I’m a bit tired, so I might not be using the right search terms. If you check out this thread you can see a discussion as to why ESPN is able to justify its exorbitant fees.
But considering how much these leagues charge networks to air their content, isn’t ESPN sort of just passing the costs to the cable companies?
Kinda like NFL charges ESPN, so ESPN charges Comcast, so Comcast charges the customer?
If ESPN is charging more than any other channel, it shouldn’t be part of every cable companies basic package- it should be a pay extra type channel.
And I also find cbs sportslines page to be superior, both in layout and ease of use, and find the scores update fast enough.
Jeez. I thought I was the only one. I wonder how long until Bill Simmons is an Insider too.
Yeah, Simmons is the main reason I still use the site. He’s insinuated on occasion that he’s been fighting attempts to move him to Insider content.
I should have also included the automatic video launcher in my OP. That sucks too. Ya think someone may be doing something else with audio when they browse to your page to check some scores? Do I need to hear you step all over what I’m *trying * to listen to, ya fucks?
Part of the problem there is ESPN’s contract with cable companies doesn’t allow that. There was a bit of a row a few years ago where some Time Warner affiliates didn’t want to carry certain ESPN channels on Disney’s terms, and were blocked from broadcasting other channels in the Disney/ESPN family, including the local ABC station, until the dispute was resolved.
A similar situation arises with the NFL network. NFL wants to charge cable companies a fee of about $1 per subscriber to carry the channel, and requires it to be part of a standard package. Time Warner wanted to carry the channel as part of a “sports tier”, which would have allowed them to only offer the channel to those who wanted it (and only pay for that number of subscribers). A controversy ensued when TW pulled the channel from its lineup in markets where it was carrying it. And both sides had public campaigns to try to get the other side to budge. Time Warner no longer has its “NFL Get Real” website, but it doesn’t carry the channel in my market, either, so I don’t know what the final outcome has been.
I signed up for Insider to get access to Simmons’ archives. Outside of that, I think KC Joyner’s articles and chat wraps were worthwhile (that guy REALLY knows his stuff, watches tons of footage). But I’ve gone from being indifferent about ESPN to actively hating it (what they did to MNF, “Who’s Now”) and, as for the site, the aforementioned auto-playing video on the front page was very annoying. Then, when I tried to figure out how to cancel my subscription, I found that they don’t allow you to do it over the internet, you have to call them up and go through who knows what to cancel. That just gave me another excuse to get a new credit card (the one I used to subscribe was giving me some trouble on ATMs).
And as for the magazine that came with the Insider subscription, I read some of the first few that I got, then they started going straight to the trash. Absolutely awful stuff.
And for those NFL fans that haven’t discovered them yet, ProFootballTalk.com is the absolute best for NFL news and rumors, and kissmesuzy.blogspot.com is a great one for humor (they don’t much care for Bill Simmons, though).
ESPN: All Roger Clemens, all the time.
He already successfully fought actually. It used to be his older stuff was archived to the insider. Now, it’s all available all the time. The chatwraps go to insider for a few minutes when they’re done, and then they get manually moved by ESPN into the free area.
I’m pretty sure he thinks the insider is a joke too.
Unfortunately the MLB and NFL “Gamecast” type pages on CBSSportsline crash Safari, so I’m forced to use ESPN if I want those sorts of updates.
The instantly playing video thing annoys me to no end. And there’s no way to disable it! Can you imagine if, say, microsoft.com played a video every time you visited their site and there was no way to disable it?
(AdBlock Plus in Firefox will block the automatic video play)
Noted. (I don’t like Firefox nearly as much though).
Sorry, busy at work today and just saw this…
Short answer - nothing I can see. But Sportsline is the only site as good (checked out MLB.com - OK but nothing superior) for scoreboard, and I don’t HATE ESPN the way some people do, so I never had a good reason to look for an equal site. I do use sportsline for March madness.
Good call tho, now I have a fall back site for when ESPN acts up.
You get the Insider for free if you subscribe to the magazine, by the way.
I have the Insider, and I’ve had it for years. I dig it.
My only problem with ESPN is the commercialization of their site and ESPN as a whole. I can live without Coors Light Cool Hard Facts. Fox Sports is just as guilty, and I really dislike it.
That’s cool.
I do occasionally check in with ESPN, especially when I can’t figure out if the Sportsline standings have been updated yet.
And when the trade deadline was approaching, I was checking every site on the internet! 
And Tuesday Morning Quarterback (if you can find it) during football season.
I too have been sick of ESPN for some time and rarely watch it. What I don’t understand now is why it feels the need to make movies about actual events. What is it about a movie of the Yankees that makes it better than say, a documentary on the same subject? Is it because you can include non-factual material and confuse the public about what really happened? I don’t understand this desire on the part of a “news” station to make non-documentary movies.
TMQ used to be available on NFL.com but it wasn’t last year. No idea if they’ll start carrying it again this season.
Until I die, I will never understand how Tuesday Morning Quarterback became and remains a popular feature. There are time that I read it and genuinely think to myself that the column must be some sort of elaborate practical joke by Easterbrook - to see if he can get a numbingly repetitive (I swear, about 65% of the typical TMQ appears to be generated by macro) and unilluminating column taken seriously and read week after week just by giving the teams dopey names, running cheerleader pictures, and trotting out five to ten SAT words in each edition. You get maybe two paragraphs of honest-to-goodness, original, football talk, and three thousand words worth of “the average NFL passing play gains 7 yards” and “Potomac Drainage Basin Indigenous Persons” and “standing there like topiaries.” Augh.
Easterbrook is also incredibly dishonest in its use and application of statistics; he’s reached his conclusions on most issues years ago, and now bends and twists whatever numbers he can find until they appear to support his point, regardless of how well they actually apply.
I hate that column so much.
OK, I feel better now.