NBA League Pass?

I don't think it's a done deal, but on the last Charlie Chat they lead me to believe there negotiating for the NBA League Pass.
I bet we will hear something soon regarding this, I'm optomistic they will get it done and we will have the NBA League Pass very soon. :righton:

I agree with what John said, I have been hearing its "almost" a done deal. That's a very good sign!

I hope your sources are reliable. I had a CSR tell me about a month ago that Dish was getting the NBA LP. I didn't have much confidence in that.

They better s**t or get off the pot. The season starts next week.

karl_f: something tells me that they know that. They will announce something either way by the start of the season. Personally, I'm betting that the NBA deal isn't as good for Dish. There are more NBA games broadcasted(TNT, now ESPN, and some on ABC) compared to NHL(ESPN(2) and ABC) both also include local broadcasts. Plus, the NHL has more hardcore fans who would buy a package. The NBA has more casual fans. The NFL has of course the most fans and the most hardcore fans. Sunday Ticket is the crown jewel of pay-per-view

I think they started their negotiations way too late - DirecTV and cable have already done their NBA LP automatic renewals and have been advertising their early bird signup period for weeks, so most of the potential hard-core NBA customer base they might have persuaded to switch has already been locked up elsewhere until at least April or October. If they would have made any encouraging announcement about NBA LP since Charlie Chat, I might have stayed on even if I missed a few of the early games. I have been checking the forums and the website, and have asked the CSRs every time I call, but it's been nothing but silence. I waited as long as I could, but I'll be down at Best Buy later today to set up my changeover to DirecTV, so I can get installed and activate NBA LP in time for the start of the season. It's a shame, because I had no other compelling reason to switch ...

Well channels 560-571 are warming up on Tps 5 and 7 at 110.

Why did E* place the NHL-CI on 110 and appears NBA-LP if added also on 110? If I am not mistaken, D* simply remaps the NHL and NBA games on the RSN's to NHL-CI and NBA-LP channel numbers, this way they do not waste valuable bandwidth. All of the RSN's on E* are on 119, it seams to me to be a wasteful use of bandwidth by having NHL-CI and possibly NBA-LP games duplicated on 110 when E* could simply re-map most of these games on 119 without the duplication. :shrug:

I am also wandering what is taking E* and the NBA so long in announcing this if negotiations are truly close to a positive conclusion.

Chris, short term remapping on the DISH system creates glitches all over the place. It is much more clean to change feeds on an already existing channel. Not to mention there probably will be much better PQ with only 6 channels per Transponder.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but if we get NBA LP won't the NBA TV Channel be added for all as well?

They are defanately doing something getting channels ready up there. Could the NBA be what they are working for??

The NBA TV channel on DirecTV has traditionally been available to Sports Pak subscribers as well as NBA League Pass Subscribers. I would guess at this point that channel 560 would be this channel as it seems to have been added as an afterthought. Perhaps only likely to be offered with the NBA League Pass package on DISH Network?

I think I saw a comparison of NBA LP and NHL CI about a year ago and NBA LP had by far more subs than the NHL CI. That may have changed over the last couple of years, but I didn't see any more on the numbers of subs since then.

Ronmort: not here in hockeytown. In Detroit we have the Red Wings and 3 minor league sports teams. The Pistons won't even sell out their home opener, while the wings have already sold out most of their games for the whole season. A Michigan-Michigan State hockey game at Joe Louis Arena will draw more people than any Pistons game, but that's just here.

In Sacramento, the only people who would buy the NBA league pass would be the LA Lakers fan. Kings games are usually carried on local TV, on Fox Sports Net-Bay Area on cable, or one of Dish's alternate sports channels.

Jeff: I am not referring to attendance at games. I wish I could remember where I read the info on the sports packages. I think it said that over 400,000 Directv customers signed up for NBA LP, and the NHL CI was 200,000+. This was probably when DTV had exclusive coverage of these packages. I wish I could be more specific. I just remember that article. I think it was quoted on DBS Forums maybe a couple of years ago. Of course, things could have changed since then.