Friday, April 30, 2004
Antitrust Concerns Stop Victory Mediation
The Twins' dispute with cable operators over carriage of their new Victory Sports Network remains stalemated, too. Judd Zulgad of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that all of the major local cable and satellite companies are refusing to participate in the mediation requested by the Governor and supported by the Twins. The operators cite the antitrust concerns implicated by having a half-dozen competitors sit down together to discuss the price they're each willing to pay for the same commodity.
(This aspect of the antitrust laws wasn't a problem in the YES/Cablevision dispute, because it involved a single network and a single cable system. There, the antitrust issues centered on Cablevision's ownership of the two competing New York-area sports channels and the risk it was trying to put YES out of business to return to monopoly control.)
The Twins are already raising antitrust issues, noting that they received the same response -- "go back to Fox Sports Net" -- from each of the cable companies.
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The Twins' dispute with cable operators over carriage of their new Victory Sports Network remains stalemated, too. Judd Zulgad of the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that all of the major local cable and satellite companies are refusing to participate in the mediation requested by the Governor and supported by the Twins. The operators cite the antitrust concerns implicated by having a half-dozen competitors sit down together to discuss the price they're each willing to pay for the same commodity.
(This aspect of the antitrust laws wasn't a problem in the YES/Cablevision dispute, because it involved a single network and a single cable system. There, the antitrust issues centered on Cablevision's ownership of the two competing New York-area sports channels and the risk it was trying to put YES out of business to return to monopoly control.)
The Twins are already raising antitrust issues, noting that they received the same response -- "go back to Fox Sports Net" -- from each of the cable companies.
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