One of the best things about modern cable and satellite television is the explosion of sports programming now available to customers across the country. Specialized sports packages like ESPN Gameplan give the customer access to nearly 20 college football games every weekend.  Even the NCAA tournament has expanded coverage with the Mega March Madness on Direct TV.

The motto today is “Content is King” and as the saying goes the networks want to bring as much sports content as possible to the end user so they can make more money on advertising. Quite a few new all-sports networks have sprung up over the past few years. A few of the new networks are Altitude Sports, which carries NBA Nuggets and the NHL’s Colorado Avalanche matches, as well as the Big 10 network and the mtn, the broadcast home of the Mountain West conference.

Sure these channels are great for people in certain regions of the nation, but disagreements between the providers of sports programming and those who deliver the content have resulted in difficulties to the customer. Consider what happened last fall, the Big Ten Network began broadcasting in 2007, but the network was in a carraige dispute with cable TV provider Time Warner. Customers of Time Warner in Indiana were unable to watch some of the local teams play because of the carraige dispute. While the dispute continued for a whole year, the parties came to terms before the 2008 season, so customers could stay with Time Warner rather than having to switch over to one of the satellite television companies such as DISH Network or Direct TV.

Out of market sports programming are another consideration for the customer. Some Dish Network customers have switched providers because the NFL Sunday ticket is exlusively with DirecTV. Many customers of large companies like Comcast are upset too, not understanding why a package like NFL Sunday Ticket isn’t available to them. Alternative packages though are more friendly to subscribers, such as the National Hockey League Center Ice and the NBA League Pass, which are available on almost every cable TV and satellite provider.

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