Key Issues

The NFL Network’s Unreasonable Carriage Proposal
is Bad Business for Texas Cable Customers.

FACT: It is the NFL owners who decided to yank 8 NFL games from free broadcast television - and place them on a network that it owns.

If the NFL really cares about fans, why did it take games off free broadcast television?
Even if an agreement is reached, “antenna only” Texans - roughly 20% - still will not be able to see games outside of the team’s viewing area.
A recent Houston Chronicle headline sums this up best: “The NFL tackles its own fans.”

FACT: The NFL Network business plan is failing so it is seeking inappropriate government intervention as a resolution.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell projected last year that the Network would have 50-60 million subscribers by now, but it is falling well short of this estimate.
The NFL is now running to the government to solve the business dilemma of a very expensive and poorly rated network.
First, the NFL wanted the FCC to mandate arbitration – the FCC declined to do so at a hearing on November 27th.
Now, since its fate is not looking good at the federal level , the NFL is coming to the Texas Legislature in a desperate attempt to mandate carriage on basic cable.

FACT: The NFL Network costs too much and provides too little value.

The Network provides about 24 hours per year of live NFL football and about 8,736 hours of filler.
The NFL wants an average of 80 cents per cable subscriber per month, according to media consulting firm SNL Kagan, making it the fifth most expensive cable channel among 159.
The Network ranks 54th out of 69 cable networks monitored by Nielsen.
Moreover, the NFL games are not guaranteed to stay on the NFL Network.

FACT: Mandated carriage would result in skyrocketing prices.

The escalating cost of sports programming is one of the leading causes of cable rate increases.
The USA Today characterized the NFL Network’s plan as “pick-pocketing.”