Cindy and Eugene Pacheco are die-hard Denver Broncos fans, like many people who live in Colorado. Eugene, a former Mile High Stadium vendor, proudly sports a Broncos tattoo.
This Thanksgiving, their plans were set. Family members would be coming to their Colorado Springs house for the holiday, and they would all settle in tonight to watch the Broncos take on the host Kansas City Chiefs, the first in an exclusive eight-game package on the NFL Network.
One problem. The Pachecos now can't get the game.
They said their cable company, which is now under the Comcast umbrella, did offer a "silver package" that included the NFL Network on a digital tier but was charging for a digital box.
"I don't want to pay $70 a month for a box just to watch the one game," Cindy said.
"Now we're scrambling. We're trying to find a place to watch it, or we'll just go to a bar. The family will have to leave. Our teenager will have to stay home and watch our little boy. It's unfair. It's some kind of ploy to make money."
It's worse for customers of Time Warner Cable, which has nearly 2 million subscribers in the L.A. market and also covers much of the Kansas City area. They currently can't get NFL Network even if they are willing to pay for a premium tier.
Time Warner is one of three major cable providers mired in a stalemate over carriage issues with the 3-year-old league-owned network.
The months-long impasse over higher fees and cable tiers comes down to this: 50 million cable television households nationwide won't be able to get tonight's game. With no ongoing talks, an 11th-hour deal seems unlikely.
The Pachecos, like other disgruntled cable subscribers, could have switched to satellite -- both Dish Network and DirecTV carry the NFL Network -- but it's too late for tonight's game.
And though the NFL's exclusivity arrangement allows local broadcasts in the teams' cities, that didn't help the Pachecos. They live in part of a large section of Colorado beyond the reach of Denver's Channel 31.
The dispute has led to a nasty marketing war and even caught the attention of Congress.
Time Warner, Charter -- which has 374,000 customers in the L.A. market -- and New York-based Cablevision are among the companies that want to put the NFL Network on a digital sports tier, which costs about $5 a month more per subscriber. NBA TV, College Sports Television (CSTV) and the Tennis Channel are among the channels already on such a premium tier.
The NFL Network is demanding that it be part of the basic cable package, thus reaching more viewers.
Another sticking point is the rights fee the NFL Network is asking from cable companies, now estimated to be about $8.25 per subscriber a year, or about 69 cents a month. Before the NFL Network acquired the eight-game package from its parent company, the rate was around $3.
Time Warner spokesman Mark Harrad said the company simply does not want to pass the cost of carrying the NFL Network to all its customers, since "75% to 80% are not sports fans."
NFL Network officials dispute that number, saying 135 million people watch NFL football each weekend and that last season, 200 million watched the regular season at some point. Yet Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, has carried the NFL Network for two years and still offers it, including in the Denver area, but only as part of a premium digital package.
Cox Communications, which has 243,000 subscribers in the L.A. market, mostly in coastal areas, worked out an arrangement similar to Comcast's to carry the NFL Network on a digital tier.
Steve Bornstein, president of the NFL Network, was asked about the distribution problem during an interview at the network's studios in Culver City.
"I don't see it as a distribution problem," he said. "I look at it as the glass half full. I think the growth we've had -- 40 million homes -- has been remarkable. I don't think any other network has grown this fast.
"I'm hopeful by the end of the day we'll be broadly distributed."
And when will that be?
"I have a long horizon line," he said.
NFL fans don't.
Although tonight's game will be televised by Fox affiliates in Denver and Kansas City, those teams have fan bases that stretch over multi-state areas beyond the reach of those stations. The outrage is expected to be intense.
The NFL Network is, in fact, counting on that.
Pat Bowlen, owner of the Broncos and chairman of the NFL's Broadcast Committee, was asked by Sports Illustrated recently what he would do.
"Get a dish," he said.
In Los Angeles, where there is no NFL team and thus no local broadcast of any of the eight games, fans expressed anger and dismay months ago.
The fight began when Time Warner Inc. joined with Comcast Corp. to buy the assets of Adelphia Communications Corp. That changed everything.
The fight in Los Angeles began Aug. 1 when Time Warner, which at the time served 400,000 homes in the market, took control of Adelphia's 1.1 million households and Comcast's 500,000 and immediately dropped the NFL Network.
