Have you switched from cable to satellite TV to see IU Athletics?

Not to be harping on an old theme, but I'm taking an extremely unscientific poll to measure how many people have actually switched from cable to satellite TV to access to IU basketball and other sports not available on Comcast of Insight cable. The polling station is to the right of this post and it will be up for until December 1. Results will be published on the blog and possibly other places if I can interest the Bloomington newspaper.
Please provide any comments in the comment section below.

Insight to Direct TV

In my previous post, I described my parents' drive (literally and figuratively) to watch their beloved Hoosiers. Saturday and their inability to watch their team play Purdue and win the Oaken Bucket finally drove them to make the big switch to satellite TV. The law of supply and demand has taken the day. When you can't supply the big games, the consumer is driven to search for other avenues to satisfy that demand. It's an amazing phenomenon.

Based on the front page article in Saturday's Indianapolis Star, Mom and Dad aren't the only ones feeling the pain inflicted by Insight...Comcast or other Indiana cable TV carriers. Supply and demand has won the day. The free-market economy and the consumers' demand has spoken. But will the suppliers actually listen. More to come.

IU Sports: The Video or Lack Thereof

Thanks to the Big-Ten Network, the IU Athletic Department and our local cable provider, I've been able to spend Saturday afternoons with my parents. Unfortunately, they only have basic cable TV, while the daughter has satellite and the only way to see the IU football games on the Big Ten Network--and other obscure ESPN channels. I love my parents dearly and spend lots of quality time with them throughout the year. But its just damn unfair to them that they have to leave the comfort of their own recliners and my Dad's Saturday afternoon sandwich and beer to drive to my house to watch their game.

They love IU sports and it's one of the reasons they retired to B'town. My dad is a 50+ year I- Man and my mother loves sporting her IU sweatshirt or beads on game days. At 79, it's just too uncomfortable for them to sit for four or more hours in Memorial Stadium.. And even though they grew up listening to the radio, they want to SEE their Hoosiers, not just listen to Don Fisher's play-by-play on wireless.

We only have one more football game in the season (no bowl bids we're sure) and then comes world famous Hoosier hysteria and the promise of another winning basketball team. But like football, they won't be able to watch; those too won't be shown on cable. What's even worse is so many games are at night when Mom and Dad don't go out, so coming to my house will be difficult at best but likely impossible. I'm sure they aren't the only ones saddened by the reality they won't be able to spend their cold, snowy winter nights watching their Hoosiers. It's one of the few enjoyable things you can do in Liberalville in the winter.

For me, I think its absolutely disgusting that the Big Ten is so money hungry that they're depriving loyal fans from following their teams. It's even more sickening, since its based on pure greed. So to the IU Athletic Department and the Big Ten I say, rethink this money making scheme. Some day you might find yourself with no fans at all. You owe it to all the IU alumni who've followed you through thick and thin--good and bad times--scandals and evening the firing of Bobby Knight. How does your concsience let you live, knowing you're depriving so many of so much.

Seeing Blue in Liberalville

If you read my previous post, I revealed to the blogosphere my "red" politics. I really didn't go into much but let's just say I was the female Young Republican of the Year in Indiana sometime at the end of a former decade--oddly enough, my husband at the time was the male counterpart. He went on to be the GOP state chairman in Indiana so suffice to say--I've lived and breathed politics most of my adult life--except for now.

After yesterday's sweeping blue victory here in Liberalville, I'm burrowing my head in a pile of limestone dust and forget I ever knew anything about life in a free-market society...a place where people were encouraged to work, support themselves and their families and spend their own money rather than letting the government do that for them. Life in a community where the people knew that roads, highways and transportation were a necessity rather than a hated and unneeded evil.

So we private enterprise, pro-business folk will forge ever onward--not upward--just onward trying to dodge the obstacles local government throws in our faces for another four years.