I've always known I was an oddity to my friends (no cable, never purchased a TV -- always given one), but now I guess I am insignificant as well.

We used to love to watch our Sonics on free tv, I even got my wife hooked and we would buy multiple game packages once and a while. Then they moved to cable, we attended fewer and saw less and less of the team. Finally they moved away.

I used to watch football on Monday nights, now I spend time with my kids,(My kids wish MFN was back on ABC ;-})

Sports is slowly leaving me behind. I still love to watch and read about stuff in the paper, which is shrinking, and the internet. But I guess my passion is waning, and my kids will not be growing up enjoying sports the way I did.

I suppose I could get cable, but beyond the extra expense that my budget can't handle, I will also bring in the rest of the channels which my family and I don't need to be skimming through.

IF Cable were a la carte, then maybe I would pay for that but if the cost of getting ESPN means I also have to get MTV and FOX News, then It is too much.

I told my seven year old son about how, when I was his age, we only had four channels: ABC, CBS, NBC and PBS. The look of horror in his bloodshot eyes was priceless. No Disney channel. No Cartoon Network. No Noggin.

When I told him about the outhouse and the five mile barefoot walks through the snow to get to school he relaxed. He knew I must be making it all up.

While us urbanites are comfortable in our luxury of easy access to ESPN and the like, either at home or a friend's house or a bar, those people out in the sticks are going to feel screwed. Or they would if they got enough of a signal for their digital converters to pull in a watchable station.

Green Acres is no longer the place to be.

I hate to quibble (ok--I sort of love to quibble), but some non-trivial chunk of the 88% of households with cable doesn't have ESPN. I'm in that chunk. I've got basic cable which provides me with my internet link and VOIP platform, but basic cable where I live doesn't include ESPN (or, thank god, CNN, MSNBC, etc). It's basically the broadcast stations plus some cheapies like Discovery and Food. It's an extra $25/month for the next package up, which does include ESPN, and I'm not going to pay that much for an extra 4-5 games a month. I'm sure I'm not alone in that category, since I have friends and relatives in the same boat. So figure your ESPN-less masses make up more like 20% instead of 12%. Still not enough to entice the BCS (or NFL or gov't) to care--particularly since we're obviously the least affluent and/or least extortionable demographic. But I don't think it's fair to pretend that this is a non-issue. I'm already annoyed about Monday and Thursday night pro games, and this is one more insult. Not as much of an insult as Joe Lieberman, but an insult nonetheless. Still, I usually watch the BCS final game at a party. I just won't be hosting that party anymore, I guess....

It's been said that ESPN is a big part of the cost of basic cable service. I'd like to cancel ESPN because, with the exception of a few games each year, most of the sporting events are not worth watching. The most absurd program on TV is ESPN's trademark sporting competition: Poker. Nothing is more fun on this planet than watching other people play cards!

Aw, King, you've caught the disease: using who's when it should be whose.

If left untreated, you'll soon be adding apostrophes to your plurals, and switching between its and it's as if they're interchangeable.

Please, get some antibiotics or something.

I guess it's probably not considered by most to be a "major North American sports championship event," but up here in Canada this weekend's Grey Cup (CFL championship game) is not being broadcast on free TV.

This year it's going to be on TSN (our Canadian ESPN, with Sportscentre spelled 're' and everything), which in my area at least isn't even part of the basic cable package - you have to pay extra for it. The games used to be on our national broadcaster, the CBC (at least according to my childhood memories). Not sure when they made the switch.

ESPN is not on broadcast TV. The only kind of free TV is broadcast TV; any other kind of TV is pay TV.

I'm feeling hungry. Guess I'll go grab a "five dollar" sandwich.

No idea what plans ESPN has for the BCS, but bear in mind that big time college football on ABC comes with an "ESPN on ABC" tagline. My guess is that BCS games will air on ABC.

With a few exceptions (10% or so?), the teams involved in big-time college football are public universities, so expecting some obligation to the public isn't insane (well, it's insane to think that anyone making these decisions would care, but the idea itself isn't insane).

I'm the type that chooses to not pay for cable TV and goes to the sports bar down on the corner when something I want to see isn't on a local network. Sure, I'm basically funneling my cable TV savings directly to the bar, but at least that's going to a local business owner. I also get a better sense of community out of it to boot.

Glad I'm not the only one who hasn't ponied up for the zillion channels of pay TV. I enjoy baseball quite a bit, went to quite a few local games this year, but have no desire to spend a ton of money for the privilege of not watching poker, or golf, or Bill O'Reiley. There used to be many more Oakland A's and SF Giants games on free TV, and I find that my wife and I now scramble to find one on more than a couple times a month. A sad change for those of us who thought that watching commercials was supposed to keep TV free (now you can pay to watch commercials on cable/sattelite).