DTV Sunday Ticket

[FlaJetsFan]

I live in So Fla in a gated community a 10 minute drive from where Namath lives.  We get Comcast as par of our dues.  So all the regular local channels are thrown in, including additional programming like Discovery and the usual political talk shows, etc, but not premium channels like HBO (I get Netflix on my comp, way better IMHO).

I signed up for a Direct TV for a 2 year contract around June 2014 or so  First year NFL ticket was free as a promo.  Second year I paid $200 for the season.

I suspended the Direct TV service this past Feb for 6 months (you are allowed to this, because of the snowbird situation here in Fla).  It just restarted.  My contract was pushed back to December, when it ends.

I bought the NFL ticket (the basic plans that allows me to watch the Jets and SNY) for around $260 this week.  It was a take it or leave it proposition.  I also have to pay $50 for the most basic local programming I could get (even with almost nothing but the equivalent of channels 2, 4, 7, 9 and 11 in NY) for the duration of my contract. 

I asked if I could just get the NFL ticket alone next year, without the local programming, since I will not have a contract and already get these channels.  They said no.  I have to buy local programming at a minimum cost of $50 per month next year too, even if I did not watch it.  They would not budge this:  it's their way, or the highway; and I am not interested in playing penny ante games over the phone with kids probably half my age.

So the true cost to me without a contact in 2017, going month to month, will STILL be about $260 (or whatever the price is next year) PLUS $50 monthly (unless they raise it, and knowing the type of corporation that ATT is, they will). 

If the Jets suck again this year, and there is still all this ongoing QB related nonsense in the offseason, with no believable path to the playoffs, I might just cancel and watch the Jets only when they are on nationally broadcast games next year. We shall all soon see how things are really going with this new regime, I guess.

To me, the NY Jets have to prove to me they are a 500+ dollar product (plus taxes and fees).  The players need to earn those hefty contracts, just like Joe did, and management needs to be and keep being smart.  Call me cheap or whatever, but to me, in my situation today, paying $500+ to watch an often  mediocre TV show 16 times  a year is a lot of money.

Last night (the Denver game) showed how you can win in the NFL with an unproven QB.  Elway picked a nothing player over our former QB for all those years, and the nothing player won the game. He did not have to hold a clipboard for 2-3 years first.   He was drafted last, in the 7th round, for Christ sake.  And he won the game (yes with the help of some great players, but we have some too). Hats off to him and Elway. Maybe our management team can learn something about having the balls to make risky decisions and sticking to them from the former Stamford great.

Tampa also might make a move this season.  So there are other options in terms of exciting football to watch in South Fla.

As a guy who used to go to games at Shea back in the day, I guy who believed he would go to his grave a rabid NY Jets fan, I don't need some phone company that isn't even the real AT&T dictating to me how I can watch NY Jets football at some exorbitant cost.  I am willing to play ball and pay them a fair price, but no more. To me, around 200 dollars is a fair price for a team that has been a losing proposition for most of the nearly half century I have been watching them.

These phone company reps can go to hell.