Astros, Les Alexander may owe Comcast at least $54 million

Well we know Les is good for it

 

$25 million out of $2 billion is a penance. Les will laugh and cut the check. Drayton? Didn't he give all his money to Baylor already?

 

Does this mean that AT&T SportsNet or WTF it's called will come to my streaming service soon??

 

No.

 

As soon as I posed the question, I did a little google search and was, of course, disappointed.

Why do the powers that be fight change so hard? They could instead jump to the front of the line and become the pioneers of monetizing that change... but no, instead they punish their own consumers. Ridiculous.

[EDIT] It's gotten to the point where I'm so excited when we play the Rangers... because PS Vue has FSSW and shows all 162 Rangers games. : (

 

Hell, there is apparently no amount of money I can throw at Dish Network to get ATT Sportsnet, so Rangers games FTW!

 

F Comcast!

 

Dish Network still exists??

 

What the ****? Why should we care?

 

If the Astros owe the money, that's a new expense for the Astros. Only place you can find an extra $20-$30MM is taking it out of ... payroll.

 

You know, amigo, I haven't thought about this crap in so long I kind of forgot about it:

The Astros, Rockets and Comcast were partners in CSN Houston, with the Astros owning 46.5 percent, the Rockets 31.5 percent and Comcast 22 percent, in an agreement originally struck by Astros owner Drayton McLane and Rockets owner Alexander. With the bankruptcy, the teams lost their equity in the network, which they established with an estimated value of $700 million.

The Astros and Alexander could appeal the 5th Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court, which is unlikely, or they could attempt to negotiate a settlement with Comcast that could affect two other pending CSN Houston-related lawsuits.

In one case, the trustee for the bankrupt network has sued Comcast in a separate bankruptcy court action, accusing the company of fraud. Isgur has dismissed elements of that case, but some of the allegations against Comcast remain pending. No trial date has been set.

Also, the Astros filed suit in 2013 against Comcast, NBC Universal and McLane, accusing McLane of duping Astros owner Jim Crane and his ownership group when that group purchased the Astros and their shares of the network for $615 million in 2011.

The Crane-McLane lawsuit has been in limbo for more than four years, with the Astros arguing that it should be heard in state court and Comcast saying it should be disposed of in federal court. The Rockets are not a party to that lawsuit.

I defended Drayton for a good while, until his end game was obvious. I hope Crane takes that east texas baptist chiseler straight to the ****ing cleaners.

 

Honestly, I don't feel bad for Crane (though it sucks for the Astros, and for my ability to watch them in Austin). I thought it was incredibly obvious that this thing was doomed from the start - it was born out of pure greed and the end result wasn't surprising. That was Drayton's fault, but it wasn't like any of this was hidden - if I could see its failure a mile away, Crane and his people surely could have, given that had access to all the financials. It was on him to negotiate down the price for the Astros if he thought the valuation of CSN-H was unreasonable. From what I see / assume, he did his due diligence and still was willing to pay the asking price. I'm 100% wrong if Drayton truly managed to hide stuff him somehow, but my first instinct is that Crane was consumed by the same greed as Drayton, Les, and Comcast - thinking that cable providers would all force everyone to pay ridiculous carriage fees and continue the TV bubble. Unfortunately for everyone, the bubble popped right before CSN-H got off the ground. LHN/UT was basically the same nonsense, on a much smaller scale.

 

There's a reason why MLB gave the Astros (Crane) many millions of dollars, and it wasn't just to change Leagues.

The LHN is a whole 'nother bunch of bullsh!t.

 

You obviously haven’t seen his many new advertisers there are at the ballpark now....the brick wall behind home plate is basically gone, covered with new ad billboards.

They’re also on track to draw almost a million more fans this year vs last year... that will help. As will every bit of new merchandise they have.

Lastly, I expect the team is close to turning a profit this year... new expenses may cut into that, but if the profit is large enough, other costs don’t necessarily get cut.

We will see how much payroll (if any) they’re in position to add at this year’s deadline.

 

Everything is roses for the franchise, and this crap flares up like an old STD.

 

I'd actually like Crane to send Drayton a World Series ring. He certainly deserves one. Here's a special mock up of the one he should send...

Spoiler

 

No, there are other ways to find the money. Crane could raise ticket prices. Crane could charge more for beer. There are many ways to come up with the cash.

 

Well, sure - but if Astros' fans are willing to pay more for tickets/beer/etc, then Crane could raise those prices and spend it on payroll too.

I was looking more at the expense side than the revenue side. Whatever the revenues are, Crane would have to shell out an extra $20-30MM to pay this. There's no real 'operational cuts' they can make to get that money outside of payroll, so the only real option is spending less money than they otherwise would/could there.

 

I'd assume there was some sort of contingency set aside for this. I'd be very surprised if it had to come out of operating expenses.