Uncommon Sense Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 Fans suing MLB, NHL over sports blackouts win class-action status Regional viewing restrictions reduce choice, raise prices, fans allege. by Jon Brodkin - May 15, 2015 12:38pm CDT Like its baseball counterpart, NHL GameCenter Live only shows out-of-market games. NHL Sports fans who sued baseball and hockey leagues for limiting access to live games through exclusive contracts and regional blackouts will be able to make their case in a class action. US District Court of New York Judge Shira Scheindlin yesterday granted the fans' request for class-action certification, allowing them to continue their case collectively instead of as individuals. In addition to the National Hockey League (NHL) and the Major League Baseball (MLB) commissioner's office, defendants include Comcast, DirecTV, and several teams. The complaint, filed in 2012, centers on contracts between the leagues and TV providers, which include territorial restrictions that reduce the choices fans have for watching their favorite teams. Fans within a home team's geographic region must buy a traditional TV package with a regional sports network (RSN) to watch the team's games, because leaguewide packages available through TV providers or over the Internet only show out-of-market games. Fans outside their favorite team's territory can only watch the games by buying out-of-market packages, since the RSNs are restricted to local territories. Plaintiffs allege that the contracts "limit options, and increase prices, for baseball and hockey fans who want to watch teams from outside the home television territory ('HTT') where the fans live," Scheindlin wrote. The judge's description of the allegations continued as follows: According to plaintiffs, defendants multilateral agreements impose conditions of territorial exclusivity that restrain individual teams and RSNssuch as the Yankees Entertainment Sports Network (YES Network)from selling their content directly to fans outside the HTT (in the Yankees case, New York and New Jersey). According to plaintiffs, the ultimate consequence of this arrangement is that a Yankees fan living in Iowa who wants full access to a seasons worth of Yankees games has to buy an out-of-market package (OMP)a bundle of all out-of-market games, from every teaminstead of simply buying the YES Network. In plaintiffs view, this restraint is unnatural and anticompetitive. In its absence, RSNs would distribute their content nationwide in a la carte form, and an Iowa-based Yankees fan (for instance) would be able to choose between (1) buying the YES Network by itself, or (2) buying an OMP. Furthermore, the competition between these options would also push the price of the OMP down. For the Yankees fan in Iowa, therefore, the but-for world (BFW)the world without the complained-of restraintswould involve two distinct but mutually reinforcing benefits. First, out-of-market fans would have more options for watching the games of their preferred teams. Second, all fans, whether they primarily follow their home teams or out-of-market teams, would be able to pay less for the OMP. MLB and the NHL argued that the plaintiffs can't be treated as a class because eliminating the territorial restrictions "would be favorable to some consumers and detrimental to others" and that many members of the putative class have no standing because they no longer subscribe to out-of-market packages, Scheindlin wrote. The judge rejected these arguments. "Here, every class member has suffered an injury, because every class member, as a consumer in the market for baseball or hockey broadcasting, has been deprived of an optiona la carte channelsthat would have been available absent the territorial restraints," Scheindlin wrote. "On top of this general injury, certain class members have also suffered the additional injury of having to pay too much for the content they wanted." It wasn't all good news for the sports fans. In a separate decision issued yesterday, Scheindlin granted a motion by the defendants to exclude a damages calculation that the leagues argued suffered from numerous methodological flaws. "As a result, plaintiffs cannot prove their damages case on a class-wide basis," she wrote. However, previous cases have established that "the fact that damages may have to be ascertained on an individual basis is not sufficient to defeat class certification." The class action can still seek "Injunctive relief," i.e. changes to the leagues' behavior that would benefit fans. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/05/fans-suing-mlb-nhl-over-sports-blackouts-win-class-action-status/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr.DirtyDangles Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 "Here, every class member has suffered an injury, because every class member, as a consumer in the market for baseball or hockey broadcasting, has been deprived of an optiona la carte channelsthat would have been available absent the territorial restraints," Scheindlin wrote. "On top of this general injury, certain class members have also suffered the additional injury of having to pay too much for the content they wanted." Game center is like any other business entity. In it for the money. Society has truly become a bunch of pathetic b..ches. Simple solution don't pay if it is over priced and find another source ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drewismyname Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 The customer service at gcl and Rogers is offensive. I have had nothing but problems with them and because of that will be switching from fido to another company. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stexx Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 "Here, every class member has suffered an injury, because every class member, as a consumer in the market for baseball or hockey broadcasting, has been deprived of an optiona la carte channelsthat would have been available absent the territorial restraints," Scheindlin wrote. "On top of this general injury, certain class members have also suffered the additional injury of having to pay too much for the content they wanted." Game center is like any other business entity. In it for the money. Society has truly become a bunch of pathetic b..ches. Simple solution don't pay if it is over priced and find another source ? Even if you buy GCL which should provide you with every out of market game rogers & the NHL were still blacking out games on saturdays so people would be forced to watch their hnic broadcasts. Happened 4 of the last 6 weeks during the regular season. Consumers do need some protection from bs decisions by corporations it costs rogers no discernible increase in cost to supply a game being played in alberta to bc or ontario. But it is a huge financial hit to the NHL/MLB if they have to sell a national broadcast rights and then cant double dip and charge regional rights as well and then on top of that a service like GCL. Even better now is TSN that is basically charging people for tsn3 and tsn4 but then provides no content on those channels since all live programming on them is regional and they will never be in your region. Its just a cash grab and it needs to be stopped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drewismyname Posted May 16, 2015 Share Posted May 16, 2015 I absolutely agree my landlords barely speak English and have all the tsn channels but there's no point cause its blacked out. I couldn't explain it to them if i trie. Scam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncommon Sense Posted May 16, 2015 Author Share Posted May 16, 2015 "Here, every class member has suffered an injury, because every class member, as a consumer in the market for baseball or hockey broadcasting, has been deprived of an optiona la carte channelsthat would have been available absent the territorial restraints," Scheindlin wrote. "On top of this general injury, certain class members have also suffered the additional injury of having to pay too much for the content they wanted." Game center is like any other business entity. In it for the money. Society has truly become a bunch of pathetic b..ches. Simple solution don't pay if it is over priced and find another source ? Like an illegal stream on the internet perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyBoy44 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 I agree that black outs are a cop-out. However living in Alberta and using GCL the only games that are blacked out for me are Oilers and Flames games. And who watches that? Overall doesnt affect me but I support the fans side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skolozsy2 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 If the people in the lawsuit are suing over this, they would have never survived as fans of a Bill Wirtz team. He blacked out everything...I didn't see a Hawks televised home game until I was 30 years old! This is nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Colt 45s Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 This case only applies in the US. According to the NHL, one reason blackouts happen is to protect the local advertisers who have exclusive marketing-territorial rights. For example, I live in the Texas market. If a Honda dealership in Anaheim, CA, has a commercial selling new Honda's for three thousand less than around here, where am I going to buy the car? I am still going to buy it here but demand the same price. The problem is the Anaheim dealer does not have the rights to sell/advertise Hondas in this market, and its advertised prices are undercutting the price in this territory--which has different fixed costs. So if I own a Honda dealership in Texas and paid thousands to market on our local stations during the Stars games, the lack of exclusivity is a breach of my contract with the broadcaster, the team, the NHL, and for the parent Honda corporation. This is why the away team broadcast is blacked-out during the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyBoy44 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 This case only applies in the US. According to the NHL, one reason blackouts happen is to protect the local advertisers who have exclusive marketing-territorial rights. For example, I live in the Texas market. If a Honda dealership in Anaheim, CA, has a commercial selling new Honda's for three thousand less than around here, where am I going to buy the car? I am still going to buy it here but demand the same price. The problem is the Anaheim dealer does not have the rights to sell/advertise Hondas in this market, and its advertised prices are undercutting the price in this territory--which has different fixed costs. So if I own a Honda dealership in Texas and paid thousands to market on our local stations during the Stars games, the lack of exclusivity is a breach of my contract with the broadcaster, the team, the NHL, and for the parent Honda corporation. This is why the away team broadcast is blacked-out during the game. That's a good point but 90% of the time GCL blacks out commercial breaks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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