Packers-Cowboys: The big game few will see

Count Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle among the millions of fans frustrated that they can't watch the Green Bay Packers play the Dallas Cowboys tonight in one of the biggest NFL games of the year.

That's because the Governor's Mansion in Madison doesn't get the NFL Network.

Outside of local broadcasts in Green Bay and Milwaukee, most Wisconsin residents won't get to see their 10-1 Packers play the 10-1 Cowboys because the state's two major cable operators — Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable — don't offer the league-owned network.

Doyle's son Gus doesn't know it yet, but the governor will be visiting him about 7 p.m. to watch the game on DirecTV, which carries the NFL Network.

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Fans complaining about not being able to see the game is "something I'm hearing about a lot," Doyle says. "I share their frustration."

Similar viewing rearrangements will play out in Texas and across the USA tonight as football fans scramble to find a relative, friend, bar or restaurant with access to the NFL Network, available to less than 40% of TV homes.

It all reflects how fans of the nation's most popular televised sport have become pawns in a marketing dispute between the NFL — which is pressing cable companies to carry its fledgling network as a basic or digital-cable offering — and cable operators who have refused to run the network or made it part of sports programming packages that typically cost viewers an extra $5 to $8 a month.

The NFL, which built its popularity — and its considerable wealth — by making games widely available on free TV, turned up the heat on cable operators such as Time Warner, Comcast and Charter during the second half of the 2006 season, when it began showing regular-season games on the NFL Network.

But the 4-year-old network has never carried a game that meant as much as the Packers-Cowboys contest. The game at Texas Stadium in Irving will feature two of the league's marquee franchises battling for the NFC's best record — and the inside track to home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs.

By putting such a big game on its own network — rather than giving it to Fox, which is in the second year of a six-year deal in which it's paying the NFL $712 million annually to air NFC regular-season and playoff games, plus two Super Bowls — the league is taking a marketing gamble.

Because of the NFL Network's limited reach, the Packers-Cowboys game will be lucky to generate an audience one-fourth the size it would draw on Fox.

In essence, the NFL is wagering its product is popular enough that football fans will see holdout cable companies as the bad guys and dump them in favor of the 245 cable, satellite and telecommunications firms that have agreements with NFL Network. To try to stoke such action by fans, the NFL has been airing radio ads this week urging them to fire their cable providers. The cable companies have fired back in their own ads.

This is not the first time a network has tried to build viewership with a big game. In February 1994, ESPN put the Duke-North Carolina basketball game on ESPN2. The hope was that the No. 1-vs.-No. 2 showdown would get viewers to persuade their cable companies to include ESPN2, then in just 13 million households, in their cable package.

The NFL Network media war has been particularly hot in football-mad Texas. This week, Cowboys coach Wade Phillips was featured in taped radio ads, urging fans in San Antonio, Austin and other markets to "sack Time Warner and switch to an NFL Network partner."

Some fans have taken sides in the standoff between the NFL and cable operators, but many blame both.

The anger seems to be building as more fans realize they won't be able to watch tonight's game, which has the marks of a classic matchup in prime time, including a duel between Packers legendary quarterback Brett Favre, 38, and Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo, 27, who grew up in Wisconsin and is emerging as one of the NFL's new stars.

Ed Jablonski of Wausau, Wis., blames cable companies such as his own provider, Charter, for making many fans miss the big game. "I'm very upset about this. It's not fair," says the 82-year-old Packers fan. "Why is it that these monopolies can do this to us?"

Tony Minnick, a 40-year-old Cowboys fan from Philadelphia Eagles country in Manheim, Pa., says he plans to switch to DirecTV from Comcast to watch the game. The Cowboys are the league's top national TV draw.

Minnick says the NFL is deliberately holding two Cowboys games hostage this year to force fans such as himself to switch TV providers. "What better way to up your subscriptions than to put on the most-watched team in the country?"

The winners so far in this fight are restaurants and bars with satellite dishes. Bubba's Sports Bar & Grill in Houston has been assuring callers that, yes, Bubba's will be showing Cowboys-Packers. "We're going to be packed," predicts assistant manager Cookie Bolton.

Randy Coffman, a 47-year-old Washington fan, is worried the NFL will shift more games to its channel, especially the most attractive matchups. He wonders whether the NFL's move is the first step toward forcing fans to pay more to watch playoff games and see the Super Bowl on a pay-per-view basis. "Next year, they'll put four or five more games on NFL Network. Ten years from now, everything will be on NFL Network. You'll need some sort of super TV, with a super satellite, to even watch the NFL."

Jeff Guertin, 33, a New England Patriots fan from Holden, Mass., is furious his cable provider, Charter, stopped offering NFL Network because of a contract dispute.

Guertin's worried he won't be able to watch his Patriots, now 11-0, possibly go for the NFL's first undefeated regular season in 35 years when New England plays the New York Giants on Dec. 29, the Patriots' and NFL Network's last game of the regular season.

When he calls Charter to complain, they tell him they're still in negotiations.

"They say, 'You'd have to pay extra for it.' I say: 'Fine, I'll give you the money right now,' " Guertin says. "But they won't let me pay."

John Miller, a spokesman for Charter's Midwest division, says it's the NFL Network "denying" fans by blacking out the game everywhere except the local markets, which is the NFL's normal cable TV policy.

Fox gets 'short end of this deal'

After four years of wrangling with cable operators, the NFL Network is available in just 43.5 million homes (38.6%) of the estimated 112.8 million U.S. households with televisions, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The NFL's broadcast partners, NBC, Fox and CBS, reach 99%. ESPN, which has the Monday Night Football package, is on basic cable and reaches 85.5% of homes.

The NFL Network's first game this season, Indianapolis' 31-13 victory against Atlanta on Thanksgiving night, generated an average audience of 4.21 million viewers (that's the estimated number of viewers watching at any point during the telecast), up 2.7% from the network's eight-game average of 4.1 million last season.

That number doesn't take into account fans who watched in bars, restaurants, dormitories and friends' homes.

In contrast, NBC is averaging 16.6 million viewers this season for its prime-time Sunday Night Football games. Fox and CBS are averaging 16.4 million and 16.2 million for their Sunday afternoon games. ESPN is averaging 11 million for MNF.

If Fox were airing Packers-Cowboys this Sunday, the game's audience likely would rival that of the Nov. 4 Indianapolis-New England game on CBS. That clash of undefeated AFC powers generated the biggest average audience for a regular-season Sunday afternoon game since 1987, 33.8 million.

Fox officials have declined to comment on the NFL's move to put the Packers-Cowboys game on the league's network.

Fox "is certainly getting the short end of this deal," says Paul Swangard, managing director of the University of Oregon's Warsaw Sports Marketing Center. "If I'm Fox, I'm wondering exactly what I'm paying for" with more than $700 million a year in broadcast-rights fees.

'It's not a level playing field'

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league is determined to use games to help build its network and blames the current controversy on a double standard by cable operators.

For example, Goodell said during a conference call Nov. 20, Comcast gives wide distribution to its own Versus and Golf Channel networks while shunting the NFL Network to a "sports tier" of programming that costs customers an extra $5 a month. "It's not a level playing field," he said. "We are fighting to be treated like their own channels."

David Cohen, executive vice president of Comcast, says it's the NFL that makes the rules on what fans can watch in different cities.

It's the NFL that tore up its own distribution model by taking "these eight games off free broadcast television and to try to enrich themselves at the expense of their fans by creating a multibillion-dollar asset called the NFL Network."

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones says games such as Thursday's showdown give the NFL Network the leverage to do an end run around cable. Jones, head of the league's NFL Network committee, has been barnstorming the country urging fans to cancel service from cable operators that refuse to carry the channel or that charge extra for it and turn to satellite or cable TV companies that offer the network.

Cable operators, meanwhile, remain defiant.

The number of Time Warner customers disconnecting their service because of the absence of the NFL Network has been "insignificant," says chief programming officer Melinda Witmer, whose company has 14.6 million subscribers in 33 states, including Texas and Wisconsin.

If NFL Network wants a slot on Time Warner's cable systems, it will have to settle for having the network placed in a sports programming package or having games shown on a pay-per-view basis, she says.

"There's a lot of football on broadcast, on ESPN," Witmer says. "Our customers say they're seeing enough football."

How crazy has the fight between the NFL and cable operators become? The NFL can't watch its own channel on cable TV at its New York headquarters. Time Warner serves the neighborhood, and because Time Warner doesn't carry the NFL Network, the league gets its channel through DirecTV.

Complicated decision

All NFL Network games also are shown on broadcast TV in the markets of the home teams, as long as the games are sold out 72 hours in advance. They are always shown in the visiting teams' markets. The Cowboys-Packers game, for example, will air on free TV in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Dallas.

Starting tonight, the league says its NFL.com website and NFL Mobile wireless service will offer fans live "look-ins" at NFL Network game action.

Those exceptions don't do much for NFL fans across the nation.

Tony Lipari, a Buffalo Bills fan from Rochester, N.Y., warns that the more games the NFL moves to a channel most viewers can't or won't pay for, the greater the likelihood fans will choose to watch college football or other sports instead of pro football.

It's easy for the Cowboys' Jones to tell fans to fire their cable operators, says Doug Morris, a Kansas City Chiefs fan from Lee's Summit, Mo. The reality is that many consumers also get their Internet and phone service from their cable companies, he says, and canceling cable TV service would jack up their other rates.

"It's kind of like baseball: The billionaires are fighting the millionaires," Morris says. "John Doe public just wants to watch the game. So work it out."

To what lengths, if any, will you be going to watch Thursday night's Packers-Cowboys game that is available only via the NFL Network? Share your thoughts below.