You know, this reminds me of that F1 controversy where a team owner told one of his drivers running towards the back to drive his car into a wall to bring out a yellow flag, allowing his other driver to win. Right after this someone on TV said owners should only be allowed to own one car to avoid conflicts of interest, and a team owner (I think Penske) responded: "Well, then enjoy races with only 8 cars in them."
I think the overall benefit of having more networks out there greatly outweighs the negatives of price fights occasionally leaving some people in the cold with reference to a particular network or two.
Well, I'm not going to get into the in's and out's of this debate here as I'm participating in it on other message boards and frankly I'm tired of it, but in your example, the governing board of F1 stepped in and implemented newer clear rules that imposed fines and bans to keep the competition clean as everyone knew that if comeptition were compromised F1 would lose both integrity and veiwership. No eyes meant less advertising dollars for the sport, which risked turning F1 into the now relegated to versus IRL (not to mention CART). Same principles apply here - a governing body needs to step up as it can no longer be left up to the competitors, especially one with a ruthless track record like Comcast (this same thing happened to Dish 4 years ago and DirecTV is not alone here, there are cable Co's without versus as well...).
For the record I support DirecTV and am willing to let hockey die if need be. As big a hockey fan as I am, I would never switch to Dish or Comcast just for hockey..
