Sports Pack?

You will get the 721 error during baseball games if you do not have extra innings.

If you are out of the market, you will not be able to see pro games on the RSN's. But, you should be able to see college games out-of-market for the most part.

J

thats why the sports pack is a waste and a joke...except for a few college football games, you get nothing of really any value on those stations since all major league sports is blacked out and only avilable on the pay sports packages.

dtrell said:

thats why the sports pack is a waste and a joke...except for a few college football games, you get nothing of really any value on those stations since all major league sports is blacked out and only avilable on the pay sports packages.

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Wouldnt it be cool if they let you choose one other market besides your own that you could get the games for. Then at lesat everyone would get the one team they really want. But I guess the extra innings package would suffer. Still it would make me happy. I think there would have to be some rule about maybe only being able to change it once a year. It would also make it hard because I have different favorite teams for basketball and baseball. SO I am not sure how it would work. I would be willing to make it work if it was an option.

dtrell said:

thats why the sports pack is a waste and a joke...except for a few college football games, you get nothing of really any value on those stations since all major league sports is blacked out and only avilable on the pay sports packages.

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Lots of college basketball too. If you live in my area (DC), it's virtually the only way to see Pac-10 games (football and basketball). I'll subscribe to it in 2 weekends (next weekend is a freeview I think) and then carry that subscription through mid-March.

The Sports Pack can also be valuable if you are in your favorite team's secondary market. But, yeah, otherwise it's not extremely beneficial, IMO.

durl said:

The Sports Pack can also be valuable if you are in your favorite team's secondary market. But, yeah, otherwise it's not extremely beneficial, IMO.

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Also looks like they are not showing the Reds in HD either Looks like the sports pack for my area at least is just a giant waste. What's worse I was looking into getting the college game day for my wild cats, but they black out the whole state of KY for UK games so they can sell the game for 30 dollars on PPV.

I LOVE the sports pack this time of year! Its the only way I can see the Dallas cowboys post game show and coach Wade Phillips Media time the day after the game here in florida. Add in the extra college football games (last week I got 4 extrajust from RSNs plus the normal ESPNU games) and it keeps me from buying espn Gameplan. VS is in the sports pack and they have many NHL games. Plus you get fuel, the hunting channels, and well Icould go on and on.

Only thing I dont like is that its the same price as HBO, Cinemax, Starz, etc. Thats kinda a rip. Comcast has a sports pack, admittadly it doesn't have as many RSNs but does have several from out of my area, is required for NFL network on their system, and its only 5 bucks a month.

dtrell said:

thats why the sports pack is a waste and a joke...except for a few college football games, you get nothing of really any value on those stations since all major league sports is blacked out and only avilable on the pay sports packages.

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I couldn't agree more. I signed up for it once....and I doubt will do it again. I got about 25-30 extra channels but only 3-4 actually had stuff that I could watch. 2 of those were Gol TV and Fox Soccer Channel...which I still think need to be split off into a soccer package.

I got Sports Pack because of FSN Pittsburgh being in my secondary market. Because of that, I can see Penguins games in HD. That's the only reason I signed up for it.

With all those full-time RSN's included in the Sports pack, you'd think you were going to be getting a boat-load of HD content, but that's simply not the case. 95% of HD programming on those channels is blacked out because it's pro basketball, pro hockey, pro baseball, etc.

And then for DirecTV to count all those RSN's as "national hd channels" is even sillier .... as if anyone could actually watch HD content on them out of market.

Jeff

thestaton said:

Also looks like they are not showing the Reds in HD either Looks like the sports pack for my area at least is just a giant waste. What's worse I was looking into getting the college game day for my wild cats, but they black out the whole state of KY for UK games so they can sell the game for 30 dollars on PPV.

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Every FSN Ohio Reds game produced in HD is available on Directv. I can't recall the exact number but I believe the total number of HD games this year was less than half of the total.

d max82 said:

VS is in the sports pack and they have many NHL games.

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Actually, VS isn't part of Sports Pack. Its part of the Choice Extra/Plus Package.

>>Its the only way I can see the Dallas cowboys post game show and coach Wade Phillips Media time the day after the game here in florida

And there lies the rub...if one is truely a transplanted fan (or just a fan of some other city's team) then you need the sports pack for the day to day sports news in addition to which ever league package(s) you choose.

Also, if league operated channels (NFL-tv, NHL-tv, NBA-tv) were all in the sports pack, it would be a little more compelling.

Ryan said:

>>Also, if league operated channels (NFL-tv, NHL-tv, NBA-tv) were all in the sports pack, it would be a little more compelling.

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But that is the benefit of DIRECTV is that those league networks (with the exception of NBA TV) are not in a premium tier and you don't pay extra for just those channels. Brighthouse here in Orlando has the NFL Network but it's an addtional charge monthly.

J

Surprised nobody mentioned blacking out of NFL team studio shows if you are out of market--just since NFL network got popular (a year or two ago). That's when I cancelled and never have subscribed again.

vtfan99 said:

2 of those were Gol TV and Fox Soccer Channel...which I still think need to be split off into a soccer package.

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Here-Here to this - I want the two soccer channels only, but am stuck paying for entire sports pack, offer the soccer alone - the rest is wasted on me, I'm sure I'm not the only ex-pat from the UK that would snap up a soccer plan!

dub2501 said:

Here-Here to this - I want the two soccer channels only, but am stuck paying for entire sports pack, offer the soccer alone - the rest is wasted on me, I'm sure I'm not the only ex-pat from the UK that would snap up a soccer plan!

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They should be included at no additional cost with Setanta.

I recently reactivated the Sports Pack and thanks to someone over at AVS Forum I asked for and received it for six months @$12 per month with a $10 per month credit. I had shut it down for the summer since there wasn't much I wanted to see but I wanted it back for out of area college football and basketball. Heck of a deal for $2/month.