… Ready for it? Sports fans know All Too Well the miserable ticketing process that Ticketmaster puts us through whenever we want to buy tickets to a game. They jack up prices with fees, restrict our right to transfer our tickets and make the general buying process frustrating. Sports Fans Coalition has spent the last several years educating lawmakers and the public about this, and last week our efforts reached a boiling point. Call It What You Want; bad luck, Karma, or unchecked monopoly power run amok, Ticketmaster is no longer Untouchable.

Today, Sports Fans Coalition filed at the Federal Communications Commission alongside Public Knowledge opposing relief on Charter Communication’s merger conditions. Public Knowledge is a public interest group which  promotes freedom of expression, an open internet, and access to affordable communications tools and creative works. Sports Fans Coalition has partnered with Public Knowledge many times before to protect sports fans access to online and televised sports. 

Tribune’s announcement that it ended the buyout agreement with Sinclair this week represents the end of a year-long battle between SFC, business interests, and other public interest advocates and Sinclair. Now that the $3.9 Billion takeover is over, let’s look at a few of the highlights that created a true underdog story.

Today, Brian Hess along with Gene Kimmelman, President, Public Knowledge; Gigi Sohn, Distinguished Fellow, Institute for Technology Law and Policy, Georgetown University Law Center; and Andrew Schwartzman, Benton Senior Counselor, Institute for Public Representation, Georgetown University Law Center sent the below letter to the Tribune Media Board of Directors. The letter encourages the Board to immediately withdraw from the merger with Sinclair Broadcasting. You can view a PDF of the letter here. 

Sports Fans Coalition has long argued that there is no bigger threat to fans than media consolidation. It's no secret that the vast majority of sports fans watch their games on TV so whenever we hear of a new media merger, we're immediately skeptical. Disney-Fox was no exception.

Beyond protests, tax reform, or player injuries, our biggest concern this football season has been big media mergers that stand to harm our ability to watch the games we love. We were concerned with the proposed AT&T/Time Warner merger. We're even more concerned with the havoc Sinclair/Tribune will wreak on sports fans. But now, an even bigger behemoth is taking the field, the Mouse of Media, Disney.