Will Two Undefeated Teams Help NFLN Pressure Time Warner?

Does what channel a sporting event airs on really matter anymore? For decades, most of us have had cable or some sort of dish situation and even those with rabbit ears have been forced into the government-mandated digital conversion. Damn Big Brother.

Let's be honest, most don't care if a game is on NBC or CBS or FOX or ESPN or NFLN as long as it's football and in HD. It does not matter if I have to punch my remote to 510 or 570 or 588, so long as when I get there, football is on.

Alas, there are still some people – millions actually – who are left out in the dark when it comes to the NFL and their penchant for televising games on their own network. At first, I wasn't a big fan of NFLN televising games, but, well, that was back when I had Comcast so I couldn't watch the games. Once I made the switch to Verizon Fios, all was right with the football world.

In May, the NFL finally worked out a deal with Comcast, which gave the league, and the network, complete leverage against every other cable service provider. But Time Warner Cable still wouldn't give in. And still won't.

Most weeks, this wouldn't be that big of an issue. The league still has a rule to televise all in-market games on 'over-the-air' signals so those without cable (whatever they're calling people with the new digital converter-box version of antennae) can still watch the game. Time Warner's assertion is that the out-of-market games – at most eight per season – are simply not worth the price they'd be forced to pay to feature the league's network.

But this week is different. Rather serendipitously, the league features both undefeated teams in Week 15, with the Colts at the Jaguars on Thursday night and the Saints hosting the Cowboys on Saturday night.

If there was ever a time to illustrate the importance of NFL Network to Time Warner, it would be this week. Yet Time Warner has stayed steadfast in its decision. Maureen Huff, Senior Director of Public Relations for Time Warner, explained their position:

"Airing these particular games on NFLN doesn't change the dynamics of the situation at all. We think that they are still demanding an excessive amount of money for eight out-of-market games. Our customers already spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year to watch the vast majority of available NFL games and football-related content on broadcast stations and ESPN. Without NFLN, most of our customers still see all of their home team games over the course of the season; customers in limited geographic areas might miss only one game of their home team."

Interesting that Time Warner's stance is, in essence, trying to protect their customers by keeping the already exorbitant costs of service down. (That, by the way, is an indictment on the entire industry, not just Time Warner.) The problem is, the loud subset of customers who love the NFL don't feel particularly protected. In fact, they are angry about it, and rather than sending their ire toward the league, Time Warner has the bullseye as the only major cable provider that's left.

Dennis Johnson, Director of Communications for NFL Network, offers the league's spin:

"NFL Network is now on four of the top five distributors. Time Warner is the only one that does NOT carry NFL Network. (Comcast, DirecTV, DISH & Cox all carry us.)

"We have deals with more than 300 cable satellite and telco distributors. NFL Network is available in 55 million households. In addition to not getting NFL Network and the games for their customers, Time Warner also denies them the exciting new NFL RedZone channel."

Johnson also provided some interesting statistics about the network, explaining that even without Time Warner Cable, the games are still going to 48 percent of the country, plus the over-the-air station ratings locally in the four team-specific markets. Compared to last week, the Saints-Falcons game only went to 44 percent of the country on FOX while the Colts-Broncos went to just 15 percent of the nation on CBS. So if it's about getting eyeballs on the two undefeated teams, NFLN will do more of that than FOX or CBS did last week, with or without Time Warner.

In other words, the NFL seems pretty secure in their stance on the Time Warner matter, which means that this will likely remain a stalemate, perhaps until the NFL starts putting playoff games on their air. Don't think that won't happen soon, by the way. It is interesting, however, that representatives for the NFL, including PR executive Greg Aiello and RedZone host Scott Hanson, have directed TWC subscribers to, "AGAIN remind @AlexTWC WE WANT THE NFL NETWORK NOW!" AlexTWC being the Twitter handle for Alex Dudley, Vice President of Public Relations for Time Warner Cable.

In the end, this is no different than the situation with NFLN and Comcast back in May. It's like watching two bullies slug it out on the blacktop, fighting over our lunch money.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.