A new study is out from Heavy Reading which tells us all you need to know about what the Bells plan to do with their new market power.
Sports.
No really, sports. These idiots think that sports are their ticket to integrated multimedia success. (Stop laughing…OK, I’ll wait…)
Basically they figure that since they "control" a lot of "end-user service platforms" (cable, phone, Internet, cellular) they are in a unique position to profit from Americans’ insatiable appetite for sports stuff.
No, seriously. They think they’re going to work with their equipment suppliers (Cisco) to deliver the same LeBron James dunk through all sorts of wired and wireless channels, and you’ll sit there enthralled enough to pay-and-pay for every view of it.
This is so brain dead it’s scary. Sports is all about one word, marketing.
Have you ever seen a Bellhead who knew marketing? Who could move faster
than a slug? Getting market share after the government gives you a duopoly is not marketing.
Cable companies have been trying to go one-step better for years. They
run pay cable channels for some teams. They even own some teams. The
Philadelphia 76ers are owned by Comcast. The Atlanta Braves are now to
be owned by Liberty Media. You know what these teams have in common?
They’re crap. And losing degrades value.
This is their idea of something smart? This is how they’re going to get
the hundreds-of-billions of dollars they spent on consolidation back
for shareholders?
I got one word.
Sell.
Comcast owns the Flyers too and I would suggest it is no coincidence that they are just as bad as the Sixers. The common thread is Ed Snider, the President of Comcast Sports. He pretty much refuses to fire general mangers no matter how bad their performance, even though these same GMs fire the coach almost every year. The Sixers are still paying off the contracts of their previous two coaches and just bought out $40M of Chris Webber’s contract so that he could go play for the playoff bound Pistons (of course they get no compensation from Detroit). Never once have I ever read a report that Snider’s job was in any jeopardy. All that aside, I’m pretty sure that both the Flyers and the Sixers are profitable. So, maybe Comcast knows something, after all.
Comcast owns the Flyers too and I would suggest it is no coincidence that they are just as bad as the Sixers. The common thread is Ed Snider, the President of Comcast Sports. He pretty much refuses to fire general mangers no matter how bad their performance, even though these same GMs fire the coach almost every year. The Sixers are still paying off the contracts of their previous two coaches and just bought out $40M of Chris Webber’s contract so that he could go play for the playoff bound Pistons (of course they get no compensation from Detroit). Never once have I ever read a report that Snider’s job was in any jeopardy. All that aside, I’m pretty sure that both the Flyers and the Sixers are profitable. So, maybe Comcast knows something, after all.