We think over the long term it has served and its in the business judgment of the league that has served it, but as that shows, clubs take extraordinary examples to avoid them. Im going to continue this conversation with you and the other witnesses but now turn to senator klobuchar. Thank you. Thank you very mu. Thank you to all of the witnesses. I thought id start with you, mr. Waldron. The blackout rule was put in place in 1961, is that right . The Sports Broadcasting act was adopted in 1961. The fccs rule was put in place in 1975. Most of the money made by sports tickets came from ticket sales, but today nfl games are consistently among the most Popular Television programs, certainly in my state where were proud of the vikings and with that comes a significant increase in revenue. Cost of tickets has significantly increased. Its a big expense. Do sports teams need blackout rules the same way they did half a century ago . If not, why do we have the same rule . No question that those
So that was the conclusion of singer et al. In the context of the proposed merger, take a market like los angeles. Los angeles has Time Warner Cable and as i mentioned Time Warner Cable owns a Regional Sports network. The merged entity would acquire roughly a quarter million new subscribers from charter. What does that mean . The local Cable Company is getting bigger. As a result, the trend we already see today when Time Warner Cable owns dodgers games and wont see to it to those games are seen by everybody, its going to get worse. If the cable footprint gets bigger. Thats why Sports Fans Coalition has chosen to oppose the merger. Thank you. Im going to get on a little bit different subject. Mr. Waldron, this is addressed to you. We talked a lot about the tax support and i think as a country we provide such enthusiastic sports for professional competitive teams at least in part because they we recognize all the ways in which they can enrich our culture. Yet, we have a team in the nfl t
Im supposed to be at a Foreign Relations meeting. Can i go ahead . You go first. Then well give Opening Statements. I thank you mr. Chairman and Ranking Member grassly. I thank you for letting me testify and thank you for making this hearing happen. Senator bloomingthales advocating for consumers valuable partner to work with on this issue in the area rules and regulations far often leave consumers holding the short end of the stick. Im here to discuss sports blackouts and to explain why the continued use of policies failed to serve the interest of consumers, in this case loyal sports fans. I will truncate my Opening Statement just to say the simple fact is the rules as they are today only serve to benefit Sports Leagues and member teams at the expense of hardworking fan who is support them so loyally through money, time, passion. Just last year during the nfl wildcard playoffs, fans of the cincinnati bengals, indianapolis colts, Green Bay Packers came close to experiencing blackouts w
From the governments in central and eastern europe. Yeah. In particular the Czech Republic, slovakia, hungary. The defense minister of the Czech Republic recently and the president or sorry the Prime Minister of slovakia both said that stationing nato troops on inner territory would be akin or remind them of the warsaw pacts invasion of 1968. This is a remarkable thing to say. Both of these countries are nato members. Both of those men are old enough to remember what the actual warsaw pact invasion was like. You have hungary, which is a complete separate story. We could have a whole days panel worth about that country. But these are who would have i think in general the american and Foreign Policy community we figure this part of the world was done. You know, they were liberated from communism. They have liberal democracies now. Theyre set, theyre finished. Lets move on to sexier topics in asia and the middle east pip think what the ukraine crisis has exposed is just how real shallow t
That requires congress to give to be given the authority to review, approve, reject or take no action on any agreement between president obama and iran to reduce Irans Nuclear capabilities. We discuss that agreement likelihood of coming to agreement with iran could talking to fox news military analyst, Major General robert scales. Also a major blow to Bush Administration and Obama Administration. A federal Appellate Court ruled that National Security agency mass collection of citizen phone records is illegal. Decision potentially making it far more difficult to fight the war on terror. We take it up with some of the best attorneys in the country, mercedes mers call and socalled wells report does not prove anything. But does claim that patriots were quote or probable than not to have deflated game balls. And that tam brady of quote at least generally aware end quote. Of what was going on. What does that really mean . Well talk with sport marketing legend, tony ponturo on the wells repor