Sports Fan Lobbying Group... Or Anti-Cable Lobbying Group?

from the how-lobbying-works dept

Thu, Oct 22nd 2009 12:57pm — Mike Masnick

We've talked in the past about the sneaky nature of Washington DC lobbying, whereby the real lobbyists' goals are hidden as some sort of bogus grass roots campaign involving some random group of people. It looks like that's about to happen again, as a bunch of satellite TV and telcos have put together what is officially a "sports fan" lobbyist organization. However, it appears to really just be an anti-cable effort. The initial campaign is likely to be an attempt to stop the cable firms from their current effort to block competing television service providers from being able to carry cable-owned sports networks. The real fight is about who gets to control what TV sports content, but it sounds much nicer to pretend that it's "concerned sports fans" as a lobbying group, rather than "cable company competitors."

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Filed Under: cable, lobbying, satellite, sports fan

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Anonymous Coward, 22 Oct 2009 @ 1:10pm

Hell Yeah!
That sounds like a lot of fun. We know technology, maybe they need a few nerds in jerseys on their team.

Anyone have a link to their website?
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Anonymous Coward, 22 Oct 2009 @ 2:07pm

What, for the Nerd Jersey Devils?
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Captain Obvious, 22 Oct 2009 @ 5:10pm

How about we just nuke DC and start over? I'm getting tired of lobbyists and megacorporations running this country.
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jsl4980 (profile), 23 Oct 2009 @ 6:25am

It might be a fake group, but I don't think what they're pushing for is a bad thing. I'd love to be able to leave Time Warner in my area, but they're the only ones with local sports coverage and that is a must-have for me. Then again once Verizon FIOS is available I can get ESPN360 which will cover all college games... Maybe Verizon and TWC can trade/share local sports coverage for ESPN360.
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