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NFL Network Blitzes Cable Operators

By Michael McCarthy -- USA Today, 11/06/2007

NEW YORK — The NFL is urging TV customers to cancel their service from Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other cable operators that refuse to carry the league-owned NFL Network or include it among their basic-channel offerings, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Monday.

The effort is an escalation in the long-running fight between the nation's richest and most powerful sports league and some of the nation's largest cable operators.

Previously, the NFL has used advertising and a website (iwantnflnetwork.com) to urge customers to ask their cable operators to carry the 4-year-old NFL Network, which last season began carrying a package of eight late-season prime-time games. Those games are shown via over-the-air TV only in the home team's market if the game is a sellout at least 72 hours before kickoff, and in the visiting team's market.

Now the league is telling customers they should switch to satellite TV providers, telecommunications companies or local cable operators that carry the channel without charging extra for it, Jones said.

The NFL Network is available in 35 million homes. But NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at an owners' meeting Oct. 23 the league hoped that would "be closer to 50 million" at this point. If cable operators want to play "hardball," the NFL should fight back, Jones said.

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