Tracy Press

Apparently, it isn’t only the pro football teams that play on artificial turf. The corporate officials of the National Football League do, too. The NFL Network, in its second year of broadcasting regular season games, has started an artificial letter and e-mail campaign to the media, including the Tracy Press.

Talk about an offensive juggernaut.

The NFL wants fans to click their letters to the editor, pre-written by the NFL, to their local and regional newspapers and TV stations in a campaign to force cable TV providers like Comcast, Time Warner, Charter and Cablevision to package the NFL Network with their basic channels. The big cable companies have NFL Network on a premium “sports tier” or aren’t carrying it at all, preventing fans from seeing eight regular NFL games and another 200 games annually, the NFL-written letters say.

We’re going to throw the penalty flag down for a personal foul — unnecessary roughness of a private business. The NFL already controls the teams, players, coaches, referees, mascots, cheerleaders, the team colors and uniforms, the pre-game and halftime entertainment, the players’ and coaches’ press conferences and the TV, radio and Web announcers. Now, it wants to control the messengers of their controlled video and sounds.

To us, that’s piling on.

Fans who “want my NFL Network” should write personal letters to us, and to Mayor Brent Ives and the rest of the Tracy City Council who gave Comcast the local cable TV monopoly. Don’t use the words of a ravenous sports corporation giant.

 *****

The following is the letter to the editor sent by Jon Welch, a Tracy resident and a longtime San Francisco 49eer fan. He said he refuses to pay a $5 a month premium fee or Comcast’s NFL Network sports package, in part because the $60 annually is about the price of a ticket to the Dec. 15 49er game versus Cincinnati that he will miss without having the NFL Network:

EDITOR,

The NFL is far and away America’s most popular sport and the NFL Network covers football 24/7. But too many football fans like me have Comcast, Time Warner, Charter or Cablevision. We are facing another season when we won’t be able to see the great programming on NFL Network, including eight NFL games, or we will have to pay more for it compared to those fans lucky enough to have DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon FiOS or AT&T U-Verse. The big cable companies have moved NFL Network to a “sports tier” or aren’t carrying it altogether — preventing fans from seeing the quality programming including 200 games annually presented on this network.

Despite the fact that cable rates have increased by more than 40 percent in the last few years, big cable companies are still looking to squeeze even more from NFL fans by refusing to carry NFL Network in their affordable packages. At the same time, they use a double standard and include channels they own, like Versus and the Golf Channel, in their basic lineups.

I urge other frustrated fans to join me in writing to our government officials and tell them the cable companies should add NFL Network to their lineup alongside the channels they own. For more information on this issue, you should visit www.IWantMyNFLNetwork.com.

Jon Welch, Tracy

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written by Chris Roberts , October 07, 2007

It could also very quite possibly be rigged.