Cable providers have very smartly also become your internet providers. They aren't going away anytime soon.

Heck, the head of Time Warner Cable even said a year or so back that they're now an internet provider that happens to also provide TV services (and phone service).

Ok, so "expected sunk costs". Finely split hair, there.

No, I don't care to respond to gibberish.

If that sentence was gibberish to you, then you need remedial education.

See, I can insult instead of arguing too.

Why are the cable providers the issue here? I don't care about them. I don't care about YES. I don't care about MLBAM. The point is that their is an ocean of money out there for sports entertainment and someone somewhere is going to give a lot of it to MLB.

Nobody has argued against that. We're merely debating the AMOUNT of money, and whether the current levels are sustainable. You've offered nothing to say they are, other than to keep saying, "They are."

Cable providers have very smartly also become your internet providers. They aren't going away anytime soon.

Smartly? Please. They had to build big (debt-laden) broadband networks to deliver their product. They became Internet providers because the networks were effectively already built. An RF engineer I knew back in the mid 80's told me that he thought the cablecos would eventually offer telephone service, because there was plenty of bandwidth available on the coax just sitting there. (This was pre-Internet, obviously.)

The margins on Internet service are not great. They don't even come close to those on TV services, which is why Verizon and AT&T jumped into the TV game: because you don't make a lot of money on dumb pipes, especially at the consumer level.

Seeing traditional TV services replaced by streaming outfits like Netflix is the LAST thing the cablecos want.

Does this deal screw the As? Or move them to Portland?

(cross posting from other thread)

I cannot see the Giants giving up their San Jose rights if the Dodgers are running a $190M payroll.

I think MLB (other than cheapskate NL owners) would love Giants /Dodgers to become Yankees/Red Sox (or even Mets/Phillies 2010 or Rangers*/Angels) but I don't see how can do it with the As around. SD/Arizona/Colorado are non-starters as well.

The Giants, BTW have a 25 year partnership with CSN/comcast - they simply get something like 30-33% of the revenue. (source). I have no idea if this is a good or bad deal for the Giants.

*Rangers don't actually have a significantly higher payroll than the Giants in 2012.

The margins on Internet service are not great. They don't even come close to those on TV services

I think you've got that backwards. Most of the reports I've seen indicated the margins are much higher on Internet services compared to TV services, due in part to the sharp rise of programming costs.

I think you've got that backwards. Most of the reports I've seen indicated the margins are much higher on Internet services compared to TV services, due in part to the sharp rise of programming costs.

If that were the case, what motivated AT&T and Verizon to spend billions to get into the TV game?

Nobody has argued against that. We're merely debating the AMOUNT of money, and whether the current levels are sustainable. You've offered nothing to say they are, other than to keep saying, "They are."

Oh, I'm sorry I didn't realize "They aren't" was a well thought out answer.

Ok, so "expected sunk costs". Finely split hair, there.

Not at all. Sunk costs means something very specific and the way it gets used in baseball discussions is generally wrong.

Is correcting someone who when talking about a gunshot victim says he's dead when in fact he isn't dead finely splitting a hair?

If that were the case, what motivated AT&T and Verizon to spend billions to get into the TV game?

Growth, competition, and packaging. If Comcast is offering internet, TV, and phone packages that cuts into AT&T and Verizon customer bases. The phone companies also saw their revenue from traditional landlines dwindling.

If that were the case, what motivated AT&T and Verizon to spend billions to get into the TV game?

They're already delivering the other services, so a Internet/TV bundle to compete with similar offerings from cable makes a lot to sense to retain old customers and attract new ones.

Admittedly, that's a guess. However, the fact that Internet services are higher-margin than TV offerings - and not by a small bit - has been a constant in every article I've seen over the last few years.

EDIT: Too slow (again).

Not at all. Sunk costs means something very specific and the way it gets used in baseball discussions is generally wrong.

Is correcting someone who when talking about a gunshot victim says he's dead when in fact he isn't dead finely splitting a hair?

In fairness, the whole "sunk cost" thing in baseball started from the idea that certain contracts should be treated as "sunk costs." The masses then adopted the terminology more directly and started calling those contracts themselves sunk costs, so for the non-economists amongst us I don't really have a problem with the terminology, I just translate it in my head from "this contract is a sunk cost" to "this contract is one that should be treated like a sunk costs."

In all honesty, the kind of trades that move those sort of contracts are particularly rare. Vernon Wells was only moved because the Angels made a huge mistake, and the Dodgers may well have done the same. The Cubs can't move Soriano for the life of them. Its very legitimate to say that a team should treat those contracts like sunk costs even though technically you can recoup some value form them.

Bad contracts themselves are very rare and so far teams have been able to recoup some of the value of those contracts. If Toronto or Boston had treated their contracts like they were sunk costs the trades would never have happened and all they would have done is cut players. Thus to me teams shouldn't treat contracts like they are sunk costs.


The Cubs were able to trade Soriano to the Giants but he vetoed the trade.

That must sting.

Not really. The contract isn't keeping the Cubs from doing anything, Alfonso isn't a clubhouse cancer, his level of play is adding wins not costing wins, and this season doesn't mean anything nor is it likely that any of the seasons in which he is under contract will mean anything as well.

82 Then A) that was a miscalculation because it makes me less likely to turn to NBC for fear of accidentally seeing that show and B) that only works so long as people are willing to overpay for the channels they do see. As alternatives become more prevalent and accepted people are going to quit buying cable. When I started college in '04 everyone who could afford it bought cable. By the time I finished law school this year I bet less than half went in for more than they needed to get Internet access, whether they could afford more or not. The networks would be a special case because they're everywhere and don't sign the kind of regional deals at issue here, they sign national deals that don't impact individual teams much at all.

(A) I agree, but we live in a world where "CSI" and "Two and a Half Men" are highly rated shows and "Community" and "Arrested Development" are not. (B) I'm also a cable cutter and I fear as more people become cable cutters, content providers are simply going to cut back what is legally viewable online. Hulu already has a pretty skimpy selection IMO, so I rely on Netflix, but that only works because I'm several seasons behind on many of my favorite shows. And aside from MLBtv I don't get any sports unless its OTA, and even with MLBtv, my local team is blacked out. I can't see the masses (particularly older viewers) putting up with this kind of hodge-podge viewing style and being unable to watch current shows (unless you pay for it on say Amazon.com or Itunes).

I was kidding, McCoy. I've enjoyed your series of "Soriano is available" posts this year.

I wasn't viewing your post as an attack. I'm just giving my assessment of the Soriano situation.