I’ve never written a story that I can’t overwrite, and Friday’s story about Comcast SportsNet Houston is no exception. If you missed it, it’s on the Chronicle premium website. If you can’t get it, check out my Twitter feed, @dfbarron, and click on the link you will find there. Brief summary: Dwight Howard is a great addition to the Rockets, but since CSN Houston can’t take the Rockets to the entire five-state area, he is not the end-all, be-all solution to the network’s carriage issue.
Owing to space limitations, a few quotes from Matt Hutchings, the president of CSN Houston, got left out. Here they are:
“Viewers really want to watch Dwight and watch the Rockets,” he said. “(Howard’s acquisition) raises the volume and shows how important this team is to viewers.”
While the Astros struggle for wins, Hutchings said, “Everyone understands what they are trying to do. They have the building blocks of a very good team. At some point, they’re going to be very good. And fans still love their team and get inside information and know what the team’s progress is and how things are developing.”
He added, “I don’t think (the Astros’ record) is prohibiting any of these deals. These providers need to appreciate the value of who these teams are and what they mean to the city and region.”
One observation that I intended to make but failed to do is that this dispute may yet come down to how willing DirecTV, Dish Network and U-verse are to accept the possibility of customer losses in the Houston area — CSN’s inner market, where the network can carry both Rockets and Astros games — just so they can save a few bucks by not carrying the network in the Lubbocks and Amarillos and Tulsas of the world outside the core market. I presume that as the NBA season nears, there will be a greater degree of interest in the Rockets and, thus, the possibility that some DirecTV or Dish subscribers who have the option could switch to Comcast cable. If enough of them do so, perhaps that will be the point where the carriers cave and do a distribution deal for the full five-state area, which is what CSN Houston wants, rather than just a deal for the Houston DMA, which is what the carriers would prefer.
Moving on: I don’t think I’ve talked about this observation before, but I continue to be baffled by a lot of the comments I have seen on chron.com and on ClutchFans, among other locations, from fans who say they love the Astros and/or Rockets but are so bitter about CSN Houston that they want the network to fail.
I am perplexed by this, because since the teams own more than two-thirds of the network, a failure for CSN Houston is a failure for the Astros and Rockets. Granted, I subscribe to Comcast, so I’ve not been without the network since it launched. But I find it hard to understand how fans can be so bullish on the Rockets or Astros and so angry about CSN Houston. They are, in many ways, one and the same.
I struggle to grasp how you can be a devout fan of the teams and also be dedicated to the proposition that CSN Houston is evil and should disappear from the face of the earth. I can understand being angry about carriage problems, particularly if you live in an area, like Kingwood, where you couldn’t get Comcast cable if you wanted it. But the men who own the teams own most of the network. The teams need the network to succeed. I presume that if you’re a fan of a team, you want it to succeed. By the same token, it stands to reason that you would want CSN Houston to succeed and for the teams to benefit from its success.
If you think I’m out to lunch here, please share your reasoning with me. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
UPDATE: Reader Tom Doyle of Corpus Christi sent me a note on this topic, which reminds me of another issue that we have discussed in the past but not lately. For all the attention we give to DirecTV, Dish Network and U-verse, Time Warner Cable also is a significant presence in Texas, with systems in Dallas, Waco, San Antonio, Austin, the Valley, Corpus Christi and Beaumont. CSN Houston/NBC Sports Group needs to get a deal with Time Warner, too, particularly to benefit fans who can get Rockets games in Corpus and Beaumont-Port Arthur.
