Comcast airs Broncos game, angers NFL

A nationwide battle between cable giants and the country’s most powerful sports league, the NFL, may have come to a head Thursday in Colorado Springs.

The Denver-Houston game was pivotal to the Broncos’ playoff hopes, but it was also a test of wills between Comcast and the NFL Network, which carried the game.

Comcast has a deal with Denver’s KWGN to carry the station throughout the state. KWGN signed a deal with the NFL Network to broadcast the Broncos-Texans game. Hence, Comcast argued, it had the right to air the game wherever it carried KWGN.

“We are well within our rights to air the game as defined by our retransmission agreement,” Comcast spokeswoman Cindy Parsons said on Thursday.

The NFL Network, however, argued that KWGN’s deal was only for Denver and its suburbs, not secondary cities such as Colorado Springs. If Comcast wanted to make the game more widely available, NFL Network spokesman Seth Palansky said, it could have moved the network to its basic tier, instead of the digital sports tier where it now resides.

“Now they’re trying to steal the signal from an over the air provider and offer it to everyone,” Palansky said just hours before the game began.

KWGN officials did not return repeated calls for comment.

Despite the war of words that lasted until moments before kickoff, neither side blinked and Comcast went ahead and showed the game on KWGN.

The question now becomes, what happens next? Palansky said there would be legal repercussions if Comcast showed the game. Parsons wouldn’t speculate on possible fallout.

This game behind the game is really about money. Comcast and the other cable companies say the NFL Network charges too much per subscriber, about 70 cents each, and so they place it on premium tiers that cost subscribers extra. The NFL Network wants its channel on the basic tier, where the most people will see it, but also won’t budge on its per-subscriber price.

Caught in the middle have been football fans. In some parts of the country, cable operators refuse to carry the NFL Network at all, although it is available in the basic packages offered by satellite television companies Dish Network and DirecTV.

Thursday’s game was the only Denver game this season on the NFL Network, so Broncos fans can breathe easily...until next season.