[Roberton3]

[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=16138.msg180107#msg180107 date=1479744426]
How in the world is it "literally stealing" if the person can't even buy the thing if he wanted to?

You can't buy it from the firm you are doing business with today.  Everyone in the USA can buy Pac-12 Nets.  One could buy DirectTV AND cable.  One could switch to cable or Dish.

It is available for sale, at least for those in the USA...
[/quote]

I live roughly 1 mile from the US Capitol building.  Last time I checked, that puts me in the United States.  I can't get anything that comes via dish (I live in a high-rise apartment building, and the management won't put a dish on the roof).  I have one option for cable TV (Comcast), and in this local market, Comcast doesn't offer the Pac-12 channel.  So no, neither cable nor dish works as a way for me to get the Pac-12 channel.

I think it might be possible for me to get it via SlingTV, but if so, that'd cost somewhere around $50/month, and would otherwise duplicate my existing cable channels, so I'd effectively be paying roughly $50/month for one channel.  Why not do SlingTV and cancel cable?  Because Comcast is also my only option for broadband internet, and they've set up the pricing so that internet alone is roughly the same price as internet plus cable tv.

So I'm not sure if I can buy the channel at all, and if I can, it's substantially more than I'm willing to pay.  If the unlicensed streams weren't available, I simply wouldn't watch the games.

BTW, unlike many here, I'm not blaming the Pac-12 for this (or, to the extent that I am, I'd give them a pretty small share of the blame).  It's just that the media market in general is rife with market failures.

[Roberton3]

[quote author=stupac2 link=topic=16138.msg180107#msg180107 date=1479744426]
How in the world is it "literally stealing" if the person can't even buy the thing if he wanted to?

You can't buy it from the firm you are doing business with today.  Everyone in the USA can buy Pac-12 Nets.  One could buy DirectTV AND cable.  One could switch to cable or Dish.

It is available for sale, at least for those in the USA...
[/quote]

I live roughly 1 mile from the US Capitol building.  Last time I checked, that puts me in the United States.  I can't get anything that comes via dish (I live in a high-rise apartment building, and the management won't put a dish on the roof).  I have one option for cable TV (Comcast), and in this local market, Comcast doesn't offer the Pac-12 channel.  So no, neither cable nor dish works as a way for me to get the Pac-12 channel.

I think it might be possible for me to get it via SlingTV, but if so, that'd cost somewhere around $50/month, and would otherwise duplicate my existing cable channels, so I'd effectively be paying roughly $50/month for one channel.  Why not do SlingTV and cancel cable?  Because Comcast is also my only option for broadband internet, and they've set up the pricing so that internet alone is roughly the same price as internet plus cable tv.

So I'm not sure if I can buy the channel at all, and if I can, it's substantially more than I'm willing to pay.  If the unlicensed streams weren't available, I simply wouldn't watch the games.

BTW, unlike many here, I'm not blaming the Pac-12 for this (or, to the extent that I am, I'd give them a pretty small share of the blame).  It's just that the media market in general is rife with market failures.