In the span of 24 hours, SFC board member Brad Blakeman represented sports fans in Oregon and across the country by going on the radio, speaking to TV and newspaper reporters, and most importantly, by testifying in the Oregon General Assembly hearing targeting the Portland Trail Blazers’ deal with Comcast which shuts out so many fans from the team’s broadcasts.

Watch the video of Brad’s testimony:

Comcast promised to provide competitors access to games so that the areas where Comcast is not available in Oregon, fans would still be able to watch their games.  Furthermore, the FCC has ruled that it is not lawful to maintain local sports exclusives.  In other words, even where Comcast is available, they need to share the games with competitors so consumers have the choice of carriers.  Almost 3 years ago, this deal was struck, the promise was made, and the fans are still left out in the cold without access to their Blazers games.

The media recognizes that the activist state that is Oregon will not settle for this mistreatment.  Blakeman’s testimony was mentioned in Willamette Week Online, The Oregonian, KPTV, The Oregon Politico, and BlazersEdge.com.  His interviews on The Lars Larson Show and on The Game 95.5 helped spread the word to current and future members of the new Local Chapter SFC-Portland.

SFC has built the avenue to channel the frustration of so many Blazers fans who are signing the petition asking the state legislature, ‘Where Are My Blazers Games?‘  Sports Fans in Oregon are taking action deciding to JOIN THE COALITION, to become a fan of SFC Portland on Facebook, and to follow the local chapter on Twitter.

We need to keep the pressure on Comcast, the team, and the state representatives to make this right.  We Want Our Games!

Testimony of Brad Blakeman

Sports Fans Coalition

before the

Oregon State House Committee on
Consumer Protection and Government Accountability

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Chairman Holvey, Vice-Chairman Gilliam, Vice-Chairman Riley, Members of the Consumer Protection and Government Accountability Committee: 

The question that brings me before you is a simple one:  should Oregon sports fans be able to watch on TV their home town team play home games in the comfort of their homes or at their favorite restaurant or bar?  When the taxpayers of Oregon help to make sports here a reality, the answer is clearly, yes they should!   

My name is Brad Blakeman and I am a member of the Sports Fans Coalition Board of Directors.  Like a lot of Oregonians, I am an avid sports fan.  I also have lived and breathed politics and public policy for decades, serving on the senior White House staff for President George W. Bush and, today, teaching political science at Georgetown University.  I also am a regular political contributor to Fox News, MSNBC, and other television networks.

Sports Fans Coalition is a non-profit advocacy group with a single mission:  to give the sports fan a seat at the table whenever public policy impacting sports is being made.  We have a bi-partisan board of directors.  In addition to myself, a Republican from the Bush White House, our Chairman, David Goodfriend, is a Democrat and former Clinton White House staffer.  Our board also includes a sports writer, a public interest advocate, and a former CEO.  Our members are sports fans from around the United States.  But we all have one thing in common:  we love sports and think that fans should be better represented before the government.

We are proud to announce that just this week, Sarah Moon of Portland became the Chair of Sports Fans Coalition’s new Portland, Oregon chapter.  Sarah is a die-hard Trail Blazers fan, season-ticket holder, and all-around Oregon sports fan.

Here in Oregon, Portland Trail Blazers fans have been shut out from watching their own games.  In 2007, the Trail Blazers apparently entered into a ten-year deal with Comcast, worth about $120 million, to carry Trail Blazers games on Comcast SportsNet.  At the time, fans in Oregon were told that they eventually would be able to view their home games regardless of who provided their TV. 

Oregon sports fans rightfully expected to be able to watch their Trail Blazers playing home games in Portland.  After all, the fans helped pay for the arena.  Press accounts state that the City of Portland contributed $34.5 million to help build the Rose Garden. 

Today, however, almost three years after the Comcast/Blazers deal, only Comcast cable subscribers and a few subscribers to small cable systems can watch every game the Blazers play at home.  This year, for example, of the over 80 home games, 60 will be available only to Comcast and a few other subscribers via Comcast Sports Net.

So, if you live in a neighborhood that is served by Charter cable, you cannot watch your Trail Blazers playing a home game.  If you live in a rural area where the only pay-TV providers are DISH Network or DIRECTV, you cannot watch your Trail Blazers playing a home game. 

Even the mother of Sarah Moon, our Oregon chapter chair, is impacted:  a huge Trail Blazers fan, she lives in a rural area south of Portland.  She does not have access to Comcast, which means she has zero access to Blazers games.  As you can imagine, this is extremely disappointing for her.

Oregon sports fans, you deserve better.

Now, it just so happens that Comcast wants something from you at the moment.

On January 28, 2010, Comcast, GE, and NBC-Universal filed papers in Washington, D.C. asking the government to approve Comcast acquiring NBC-Universal. 

The federal government is not the only one who can weigh in on this transaction, however.  The State of Oregon, through the office of the Attorney General, can weigh in on the proposed merger under Oregon anti-trust laws.  Oregon could even move to block the deal.

In other words, Oregon, Comcast right now is asking you for permission to acquire NBC-Universal.

Sports Fans Coalition would like to pose a simple question:  if Comcast is asking the Oregon state government and the federal government for permission to acquire NBC-Universal, why can’t Trail Blazers fans in Oregon ask to see their home games first?

Comcast might make a number of arguments against us even posing this question.  For example, they might say that theirs is a private contract negotiated between Comcast and the Trail Blazers. 

True, and no one wants to interfere with that contract, especially not a free-market conservative Republican like me.  But right now, Comcast is asking the people of Oregon for something it wants—approval of its merger.  Oregonians have every right to ask Comcast for something they want in return, especially when Comcast apparently promised it to them almost three years ago.

Comcast also has been known to bring up DIRECTV’s NFL Sunday Ticket as an example of a sports exclusive that somehow justifies Comcast’s behavior in Oregon and elsewhere.

Not so.  In Oregon, local fans are not able to watch, from the comfort of their own home, their home-town team playing home games.  Sunday Ticket is for out-of-market games.  It has nothing to do with watching your home town team playing home games.  Sports  Fans Coalition believes that local fans should be able to watch their local team play its home games, regardless of how a fan gets his or her TV.

Finally, let me just point out that there are people who think that sports issues are too frivolous for legislatures to take up.  Sports Fans Coalition disagrees.  The government already is heavily involved in sports.  As I mentioned, government funds were used to build the Rose Garden here in Oregon.  Federal statutes include sweeping exemptions for professional sports leagues.  Clearly, legislatures and governments historically have found sports to be fair game.

It is about time that fans get off the bench and take the field to fight for their rights to enjoy America’s favorite pastimes, whether in their homes or at their local stadiums.  When issues have an impact on fans, the fans should be heard.

Also, let’s face it.  The sports media economy is one of the largest of all private industry sectors.  It is larger than the U.S. automobile industry.  Sports represents tens of billions of dollars annually to the U.S. economy. 

Americans these days want to see their government, at the local, state, and federal levels, give them their money’s worth.  If taxpayer dollars and public laws go into sustaining the sports economy –which they do—then fans and citizens have every right to make their wishes known to their elected officials, and to expect results.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.

According to The Washington Post, the two current stake holders of NBC Universal, Vivendi SA and General Electric, Co., are playing hardball with respect to the price of shares sold to Comcast in the proposed merger deal. Vivendi which holds a 20% stake in NBC says the current figure is ’several hundred million dollars off. While this news on the surface would appear to be a sign of some relief to consumers and sports fans, it’s really only delaying the inevitable. 

While the big players in the $30 million deal will walk away with smiles on their faces, this level of consolidation will surely bring more pain and suffering to sports fans across the country. As SFC has reported, a merged Comcast NBC giant would flex its muscles as owner of programming, distribution on the local station, and broadband in more than 11 TV markets including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, D.C., Houston, Miami, Denver, Hartford and Fresno. 

Furthermore, that list fails to include the harm Comcast currently poses to Trail Blazer fans across the state of Oregon. Fans of Portland’s NBA team are forced to pay Comcast’s ransom to watch their games.  What’s even worse is that entire regions of the state, and locals across state lines in Washington are unable to subscribe to Comcast even if they could afford to do so.

Comcast has claimed repeatedly that they would make the games available to competitors so that all Oregon could watch the games, but at what price? If Comcast is pricing out the competition, what’s the difference between this and a ‘local sports exclusive’ in which the media giant just says, ‘no’?

It’s these types of examples that spawn the action the SFC has taken in petitioning the FCC and joining a coalition, as it did on Friday, to write and send a letter directly to Comcast President and CEO Brian Roberts urging the company to withdraw it’s litigation seeking to overturn the FCC’s pro-sports fan ruling to close the ‘terrestrial loophole’.

At some point, the greed needs to stop. Sports Fans Coalition will not count on these media giants to act in the best interests of sports fans. SFC will not rest on the laurels of a positive decision by the FCC.

A delayed merger approval process does not build confidence in the company to act more socially responsible when business practices and behavior of the past will surely dictate how it will act in the future. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

This story is not about Tiger Woods. Thank goodness.

It is however about brands.  Brands that athletes become.  Brands that use other brands for financial gain yet never divulge revenues to the public. 

While common sense and tangible examples of disappearing investigations (Reggie Bush at USC and Derrick Rose at Memphis) tell us that some college athletes do get paid under the table, it begs the question ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’

San Diego appears to be the next ‘public funding for stadiums’ victim as Mayor Jerry Sanders promised to use taxpayer monies to build a new  Chargers stadium at the expense of a nagging concern in SoCal: water.  There’s not enough of it, and the situation is getting worse.

Leave it to this politician to throw the region’s priorities out of whack. While a brand new, shiny stadium would be fantastic for high-income fans, it is the rule rather than the exception that ticket prices will climb along with parking costs and concessions in the new stadium. And it’s no stretch to claim that new stadiums consistently provide a bad ROI.

It is important to note that many politicians are fighting the good fight across America, but Mayor Sanders has earned the SFC stamp of disapproval with his vows to misuse San Diego residents’ hard-earned cash for a new stadium over the most simple and necessary element to our lives.

Follow this story on our San Diego page, JOIN the Coalition, and if you live in one of the most beautiful towns in the country but still get pissed off about this stuff, start the San Diego chapter of SFC today. We need to stand up and let our representatives know where we stand on the issues to make a difference.