Hey Nats fans, we're not the only ones getting screwed by a cable company

Check out this report by Dayton Daily News reporter Marc Katz:

So my boss calls me Wednesday afternoon and wants to know why the Reds aren't on ESPN as advertised...Two days and about 25 phone calls later, I've got a better idea of what happened...Hold on to your ballcaps. We're in Cubs territory.

It turns out Major League Baseball draws up territorial rights, and Mercer County, Van Wert and Paulding along the western edge of the state, have been deemed Cubs territory...Since Mercer County (think Celina) is serviced by Time Warner Cable, which also services the greater Dayton area, the game was blacked out here.

Teams sometimes black out road games, I'm told, because other stations hold the rights, even if ESPN has a package that includes some of their games. The local station can black out the games in its area. No other Cincinnati station held the rights to Wednesday's game, so ESPN showed the game to viewers in the Queen City.

In Chicago, another station — Comcast — did have the rights, and the game was shown, but not on ESPN. That station's rights superseded ESPN's, which immediately shut down all the usual Cubs outlets, which are mostly in Illinois (just a guess) and Indiana.

HT: Red Reporter

There is a bigger issue here than just sporting events. Because we have no choice in cable companies, they can pretty much do what they want to with us. Unless we do something, we're going to be dealing with this kind of greed for a long time to come. I for one, and I am not alone, I know, am fed up with having to succumb to this sort of authoritarian corporatism that ravages what is supposed to be a public medium: television. Today, Boswell had a discussion on the Nats issue, publicly stating that as soon as a viable alternative to Comcast turns up, he will cease being a Comcast customer. But really, is that going to make a difference? Whatever other medium comes along will have the same issues - we see that in MLB.TV blackouts. This whole "market share" is a load of [insert whatever word you want here.] Frankly, competition is the essence of capitalism, which is the supposed economic system of this country. Baseball abuses its anti-trust exemption at ever opportunity it gets, and though I don't want to see that exemption revoked, it is high time that something is done about broadcast rights before it spills into other areas of life.

Overreacting? Maybe. But as the frustration mounts...

I'll go back to my dugout now.