So the Victory Sports One sports network that will carry most of the 2004 Twins games, already carries most Gopher basketball games, not to mention St. Cloud State and Minnesota State University football and hockey games, has been unsuccessful in getting cable and satellite providers to pick up their channel. Since virtually no one has picked them up, they are offering it for free -- temporarily anyway.Here in Forest Lake, we are left in the dark without Victory as an option when we sit down to watch TV. U.S. Cable, Direct TV, and Dish Network have yet to pick up the channel. U.S. Cable representatives have told me they are in negotiations with Victory and they donít want to pick up the channel unless they have a long term deal.
U.S. Cable is negotiating over the price victory wants to charge, somewhere in the $2.50 range per view. Since not many carriers have picked it up, Victory is offering the channel free for the remainder of the Gopher basketball season while they try to get more carriers to pick them up.
I can understand U.S. Cableís explanation that they donít want to pass the price onto the customer, but if they really do plan on picking up the channel, why not pick it up now so viewers can begin enjoying the channel? Or an even better idea would be to pick up the channel for free during the negotiations so viewers can decide if they really want the channel and if it is worth the price Victory is asking for it.
I know I would probably watch Victory a lot the first few days I had it so I could determine whether or not it was going to be a channel I would frequent.
Satellite viewers may have to wait longer than cable viewers to get Victory. Since satellite providers have their home offices scattered across the country in cities like Los Angeles and Denver.
Why would this be a problem?
Simple answer, why would any corporate type care about a regional sports network when he is simply trying to make money.
When I talked to Victory president Kevin Cattoor, he said he randomly called a customer service line for a satellite provider and asked about Victory. The person had never heard of Victory. To make matters worse, they person had never heard of the Minnesota Gophers.
So as I see it, we have cable providers who donít want to pass the extra price of the channel on to the viewers, understandable, but we want the darn channel. Then we have the satellite providers, they seem like they could care less about regional programming.
The problem though is that there are a lot of viewers that want Victory, and they want it now. Gopher basketball fans are losing out big time, and if no deals are struck soon, Twins fans will have no choice but to watch games at the Dome because they sure wonít be on TV. Well, the games will be on TV, itís just that no one will have the channel they are on.
Itís about time the suits in the front offices stopped thinking of themselves and listened to the viewers. There was the saying in the 80s of ìI want my MTV.î If things donít happen soon, cable operators are going to be flooded with calls of ìI want my Victory.î
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