Cablevision’s lawsuit against Viacom was due to Viacom not
allowing Cablevision to take the bigger channels unless it also agreed
to take Viacom’s smaller, little-watched channels. The lawsuit came two months
after Cablevision signed a long-term deal with Viacom. The deal allowed
Cablevision to carry all of Viacom’s big channels, but it assessed a $1 billion
penalty if Cablevision opted to not carry Viacom’s smaller networks.
Cablevision won the lawsuit against Viacom and it is likely to change the
landscape of Cable programing going forward. This result further supports the
idea of a la carte cable. A la Carte cable could mean higher cost for consumers
trying to watch sports channels such as Fox Sports and ESPN. It would also make
it more expensive to capture other sport specific channels like GolTv or Being
Sports, international carriers of soccer matches around the world. However,
this could also mean that consumers will also have the opportunity to customize
their programing. ESPN would probably lose a high number of subscribers,
lowering their current rate of over $6 per subscriber.
The ACC sued The University of Maryland
for leaving the conference and failing to pay the exit fee of over $50 million.
Conferences protect themselves with these fees to prevent a school from leaving
and hurting the conference. Schools tend to leave conferences in search for
bigger TV deals however; these departures can dismantle a conference. The Big
East conference was the most recent victim of such trend. Leagues are created
to protect the interests of the teams that are members of it. If leaving a
conference can potentially hurt other schools then exit fees must be put in
place. These “excessive” fees are relative to the potential damages a departing
school can infringe on a conference.
Lastly, New Jersey’s push to legalize sport gambling in casinos and racetracks across the state has reached a
roadblock. U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp struck down New Jersey’s sports
wager law. The judge ruled that the law was a clear violation of the
Professional Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992. The federal law prohibits sports betting in
all states except Nevada, Delaware, Oregon and Montana. Had New Jersey’s law
been approved, it would have opened the door for other states to legalize
sports gambling. Legalizing sports gambling could lead to the federal
intervention in sports by regulating and taxing sports across the states. The
federal regulation of sports could have adverse effects in the way leagues pay
their players and negotiate league wide media deals.
