Bell and Rogers, the two companies that we might as well call one company since they’re working together on sports team ownership, are now conveniently working together to hold up bar and restaurant owners for more money just as those sports teams are about to hit playoff season.
Bell and Rogers will soon ask sports bars to pay more for the right to broadcast big games, on top of what they pay for their existing television service.
As first reported by Postmedia, the two media conglomerates are asking business subscribers across Canada to pay an additional levy — which varies depending on the size of the bar — on top of their existing cable bill for the rights to air sports channels that broadcast live sporting events, such as TSN, RDS and Sportsnet.“New sports packages for business TV clients with a liquor licence will be introduced as of May 1,” Bell said in a statement to CBC News. “Prices vary depending on the size of the business and other factors such as the specific sports package a business client wants.”
“We’ve heard that the average restaurant that’s licensed for about 150 patrons, their increase will be $350 to $400 a month,” said James Rilett, Restaurants Canada’s vice-president for Ontario — and those are costs that may well get passed on to bar patrons either directly or indirectly.
“Most restaurants run around about a three per cent profit margin, so that’s going to have a pretty big effect, if you have to make up that cost every month. It may affect menu prices or they might just have to take less profit, but there will definitely be an effect.”
Two guesses which companies also own TSN, RDS and Sportsnet.
This is, of course, a total cash grab by Bell and Rogers, one they’ll get away with because they quite literally hold all the cards. Bar owners can protest all they want and would be absolutely right to do so, but when your choice is either pay the companies that own the teams, the stadiums, the stations and the pipes that bring those stations to you whatever they ask or say no, lose access and a healthy chunk of business, pretty much all of them have no real choice but to cave.
When are we going to start calling the Bell Rogers situation in this country the monopoly that it is and start treating it as such? I’m looking at you CRTC and Competition Bureau, but I’m sure you won’t notice since you’re too busy looking the other way.
